Following on from the success of the first in-person Elevate APAC conference in Melbourne last year, Körber is moving its premium supply chain event to Sydney in 2024. MHD gives an overview of what to expect from Elevate APAC 2024 – including Australian icon Jessica Watson as keynote speaker – and why it’s a must-attend for businesses to stay ahead of the technology curve and improve their own levels of customer service.
On May 7-8 2024, Körber’s Elevate APAC will give an opportunity for attendees to come together with like-minded businesses in Sydney to gain news and insights about supply chain technologies – helping leaders identify their strategic direction, accelerate decision-making, and drive their organisation’s future success.
This year’s Elevate APAC theme is ‘Chart Your Course,’ with renowned sailor and Australian inspiration Jessica Watson as keynote speaker. Jessica’s remarkable journey of becoming the youngest person to sail solo around the world at just 16 serves as a powerful metaphor for navigating the complexities of supply chains. Jessica will share her own story of harnessing fear, managing risk, employing participative leadership and building resilience to give perspective on courses of action for today’s supply chain leaders, who face their own challenges sailing through unpredictable market trends, operational hurdles, and global uncertainties.
This year’s agenda will be packed with Körber customer stories, product information and demos, opportunities to network with peers, and meet with the Körber APAC and Global team and its partners. There’ll be a deep dive into Körber’s suite of supply chain products and solutions, the opportunity for attendees to see Körber products in action and learn about real-life business transformation stories.
On top of this, the conference focuses on shared pain points being felt by businesses in the APAC region. By taking a collaborative approach to problem solving and leaning on the industry’s brightest minds for solutions, Elevate is a platform to gain valuable insights to achieve new levels of success today – and into the future.
The event builds on the resounding success of Elevate 2023 in Melbourne, which attendants hailed as “a great opportunity to meet top vendors for future pursuits” and “the best pace of conference I’ve attended in years.” In 2023, more than a third of the 180 attendees were executive leaders, while 18% were in operations. Nearly half were either the Owner, Director or Senior VP of their company, while 37% were in either middle-level or senior management. For 2024, Elevate has built on this attendant base, pivoted the theme and introduced new sessions hosted by Körber’s vast network of supply chain technology partners and customers.
As well as the overarching theme of ‘Chart Your Course’, the event can be broken down to into three key themes which all help drive a better customer experience for Körber’s customers and end users.
- Digitisation and automation: How key technologies such as Autonomous Mobile Robots, Warehouse Management Systems, Order Management Systems and Transportation Spend Optimisation help to achieve business goals and gain competitive advantages.
- Labour management: Labour shortages and skills gaps are a challenge for the majority of Australian businesses. Gamification and strategically deployed automation provide an opportunity to turn this challenge into more efficient work processes.
- Sustainability and agility: ESG initiatives are now a priority in board rooms across the country. Körber technologies can build in flexibility and agility to supply chain disruptions, decrease carbon footprints and better staff wellbeing.
Digitisation and Automation
New information technology and tools for capturing and manipulating data are emerging all the time. For most Australian businesses, it is no longer a question of whether to digitise. To maintain a relevant, profitable business it is now a question of how much digitisation is needed, and how soon.
At this year’s Elevate, Körber will explore how businesses can prepare for digitisation, and which strategies are working for a particular profile of business. Software is fundamental to success in the digital supply chain. At the centre of any automation project should be the right Warehouse Management System. The WMS is a hub to synchronise the flow of goods and resources throughout warehouses and distribution centres and the adjacent stages of the supply chain.
At Elevate, software experts from Körber will not only explain the key functionalities of WMS but be a sounding board for businesses who are unsure how to safely improve their warehouse efficiency. WMS talks will cover:
- Inventory visibility and management – especially important in today’s complex inventories with thousands of SKUs.
- Planning and managing inbound tasks, including goods receiving, slotting, put-away, and outbound tasks like picking, staging, carrier selection, and shipping.
- How to leverage system data, KPIs and analytics.
Körber’s Transport Spend Optimisation is another vital cog in well-run supply chains. Tracking and controlling transportation spend is a challenge and a tangled mix of vendor relationships, financial processes and data sources creates complexity.
A continued pressure to reduce costs, streamline payments and simplify the supply chain remains high on the agenda for Australian businesses this year. TSO enables companies to leverage advanced analytics and real-time data to gain better visibility into supply chain operations, which empowers businesses to make informed choices, identify inefficiencies and streamline transportation routes, resulting in reduced carbon output and cost savings.
Körber’s cloud-based TSO is designed to help shippers reduce their total transportation spend across all types of freight, as well as drive operational improvements throughout supply chain planning and merchandising processes.
Additionally, Autonomous Mobile Robots are being heavily adopted in distribution centres around the country, and Körber’s team of experts are excited to delve into why. Commonly used in warehouses to sort, pick and drop products, AMRs offer supply chain operations the ability to scale up and down when volume increases or decreases and can easily be redeployed to improve efficiencies wherever demand is set at a particular time. Compared to more traditional fixed automation, AMRs offer a new level of flexibility to cater for different warehouse layouts and sizes.
Labour Management
At the core of the supply chain industry are the people who drive its operations. The marriage of technology with the right people can help businesses grapple with the pressures of meeting escalating customer expectations for faster delivery and greater product variety.
At Elevate 2024, Körber will assess and confront the increasing demand on supply chains to cope with labour shortages and skills gaps. Technology emerges as a pivotal solution to this people problem, promising to unlock operational savings while enhancing safety and productivity for the workforce. Warehouse managers find themselves under mounting pressure to recruit, train, and engage staff amidst growing customer demands and unforeseen peaks in activity.
Voice-directed work, a technology that provides structured verbal instructions to workers via connected headsets, offers streamlined direction and feedback mechanisms. This industrial voice technology is tailored for high-volume, time-critical warehouse operations, improving accuracy and safety across various functions.
The integration of gamification into warehouse operations is also proving to be a powerful tool for engaging and motivating the workforce. By leveraging game mechanics to incentivise positive behaviours and achieve performance goals, gamification fosters increased employee engagement, safety awareness, and productivity.
Incorporating these technological solutions into labour management practices is crucial for building resilient and adaptive supply chains of the future. Elevate conference attendees can expect to delve deeper into these strategies, gaining insights into their practical implementation and how their own business can overcome one of industry’s biggest challenges.
Agility and Sustainability
Supply chain agility takes centre stage at this year’s Elevate conference, where industry leaders will converge to address the evolving landscape shaped by consumer demands and global disruptions. With SKU proliferation and shifting delivery norms, Elevate will explore how supply chain operators can leverage strategic partnerships – treating technology providers as integral partners – and embrace innovative technologies like cloud-based simulation tools to increase agility and adaptability. Real-time analytics and unified control systems can optimise workflows, while Generative AI promises smarter, data-driven decision making.
In conjunction with supply chain agility, sustainability is and has been a hot topic for industry for a number of years. In 2024, the urgency of solving the climate crisis has never been higher, and people’s awareness of their impact on the planet is growing. Global forces are imposing more and more regulations on businesses to become more sustainable. But as the supply chain makes efforts to cut their CO2 emissions and carbon footprint, it also needs to keep demanding customers satisfied.
Talks at this year’s Elevate conference will centre around changes in consumer habits and loyalty, and how the “conscious consumer” is creating a new, highly competitive market for businesses. With sustainability at the forefront of Körber’s focus for years, the supply chain leaders are intensifying efforts to address climate change challenges. As larger corporations demand eco-friendly practices, the importance of understanding processes and supplier practices has never been more critical.
Sustainability experts will explain practical solutions to reduce waste and carbon footprints while enhancing profitability. From rethinking plastic usage to embracing electric vehicles and warehouse automation, Körber’s portfolio of solutions strive for increased visibility, energy efficiency and waste minimisation across the entire supply chain operation. Elevate participants will learn how cutting-edge technologies such as AMRs and artificial intelligence overlap with Körber’s WMS and TSO to empower businesses to make informed choices, identify inefficiencies and streamline transportation routes, resulting in reduced carbon output and cost savings.
Nikki Jones, Director of Marketing at Körber APAC answers burning questions for Elevate APAC 2024
What does the theme “Chart Your Course” mean for Körber and for the conference?
Nikki Jones, Körber APAC Marketing Director: Chart your Course is about navigating through supply chain complexity and setting the direction for your organisation. Elevate amalgamates industry trends, insights, technology news and best practices to help businesses consider their course ahead via enhancing operational efficiency, mitigating risks and improving customer experience to drive sustainable growth.
Reflecting on the successful in-person return of Elevate in 2023, what new or enhanced networking opportunities can attendees expect at the 2024 conference to help them navigate the challenges and opportunities in the supply chain industry?
Nikki Jones: Attendees will have access to customer site visits, breakout sessions focusing on different challenges in the industries, and an exciting Appreciation Networking event in line with theme of Chart your Course. As with all Elevate events, key components are the opportunity to connect industry peers and share knowledge and learnings through conversations during the catered breaks, discovering new ways of working with our technology partners and engaging different experts and SMEs.
How will the 2024 conference showcase the latest innovations and technologies that have solidified Körber’s leadership position?
Nikki Jones: As well as sharing Körber’s product roadmap and its new technology enhancements, Elevate will highlight the level of expertise involved in project delivery and support infrastructure required to best serve our customers. It’s this level of dedication which earns Körber industry recognition such as our recent 4.6/5 rating in Gartner’s Customer’s Choice in 2023.
Considering the attendee testimony from the 2023 event regarding the quality of interactions and the calibre of decision-makers present, how is the 2024 conference planning to enhance the attendee experience and facilitate meaningful connections?
Nikki Jones: As a technology partner in the industry, this conference is about sharing knowledge. It brings together industry peers from different professional backgrounds, whether you’re in front of house or back of house, academic or industry, the power of making connections is what each attendee makes of it. We believe that the more we give, the more we get back. It’s exciting to provide an environment of varying opinions with different perspectives, at Elevate people are open to sharing their own challenges and getting help from experts who can change and transform their business.
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