28 December, 2016
Does regulation hinder innovation, or can it be the catalyst that feeds it? Clyde & Co’s recent report investigates ways in which businesses are changing their supply chains in response to today’s challenging trading and regulatory environment.
The nature of global trade is constantly evolving. The world’s population continues to increase, emerging markets are maturing and developed economies’ appetite for materials, goods and services shows no signs of slackening.
As trade becomes increasingly globalised, supply chains are growing ever more complex.
Companies, and their supply chains, are facing increasing risk – from quality control issues and compliance requirements, to the management of unforeseen events including natural disasters. Additionally, customer and supplier relationships are changing, as the supply “chain” becomes increasingly inter-connected, taking on a less rigidly defined structure. As this happens, companies continue to optimise efficiency across their supply chains.
Ultimately any supply chain must be agile enough to respond to fluctuating demand, and resilient enough to withstand ranging levels of disruption.
As companies are looking to maximise efficiency and minimise risk, innovation in the supply chain is gathering pace. The way raw commodities and manufactured products are extracted, produced, processed, traded and delivered is becoming increasingly automated. Also, the Cloud, Big Data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) lookset to play an increasingly key role in changing supply chain dynamics as companies identify previously hidden patterns and synergies across commodities, geographies and time zones to gain a competitive advantage.
The correlation between innovation and regulation – the extent to which one influences the other – is the subject of Clyde & Co’s latest report. We investigate some of the ways in which businesses are responding to today’s frequently challenging trading and regulatory environment, through innovation.
To view the full report, please click here.
For further information, please contact:
Dean Carrigan, Partner, Clyde & Co
dean.carrigan@clydeco.com
