One of the readings this week
profiled the startup company Verdigris, and had a discussion on how the use of
proper technology has helped this company to become a leader in connected
buildings and using big data analytics to sustain efficient energy practices.
The mention of this company made me interested in whether or not there were
efforts to analyze the effects on energy by increasing efficiency in supply
chain management and how technology has been able to make companies more
“green”. Has innovation of technological solutions to be used in supply chains
actually helped to not only increase efficiency for the sake of cost but also
for the sake of the environment?
Terra Technology aids large
companies in managing their supply chain and inventory practices by equipping
them with the right information to tackle market volatility. Their Thought
Leadership has many articles about accurate forecasting and using industry
benchmarks to further your organization, but they also discuss how efficiency
in supply chain can lead to sustainable practices. According to their research,
cutting 10 days of inventory can lead to an annual deduction of 33% of a
company’s carbon and water footprints.[1] A
term coined “Inventory Footprint” is looked at from the viewpoint of combining
large inventory effects on capital, carbon, and water. From our previous class
discussions, we know now that having too much inventory or mismanaged inventory
ties up the company’s capital that could otherwise be used for further
investments or simply allowing cash on hand. However, as mentioned in the
editorial regarding predictive analytics and big data usage, analyzing large
data on consumer choices and inventory can better the real time forecasting of
companies and allowing for more accurate levels of inventory, thereby allowing
for more sustainable practices. Terra Technology even offers a sustainability
calculator to allow for companies to see how their changes in days in inventory
can affect their carbon and water footprint.[2]
Therefore, arguably, with better technology and overall predictive analytics of
big data that will be ever present, there can be more efforts to sustain the
use of our natural resources.
Another topic that piqued my
interest from the articles this week is the governance of big data. The
editorial on this topic spoke of how big data has the power to transform
industries and what skills will be required in order to properly analyze this
data. While big data is starting to have positive effects on many industries so
far, especially in healthcare, how does the legality aspect tie in? What
governing laws are there now about the use of big data and what will be the
future for these policies? According to Bird & Bird, a law firm, the legal
implications of Big Data are ownership of data and usage rights.[3]
Privacy is obviously a huge issue with big data – what fields are allowed to be
extracted for the application to sophisticated algorithms? Additionally, how
long is big data required to be stored and in what shape and form? Finally, how
will customer consent play into the utilization of big data? As the article
describing the “internet of things” discusses, almost all objects that we are
familiar with will be able to store data and share it on the internet. This
progression of technology will have to be followed by a wave of legal policies
in order to support this infrastructure. The question becomes how soon will it
be required and what will it entail?
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