In the 1950s, it was the container. Today, collaboration is the new "killer app" for the supply chain, says Luis Pajares, chief customer officer with Turvo. But is technology a help or hindrance toward achieving that goal?

In the 1950s, Malcom McLean introduced the shipping container as a standardized means of moving cargo over the ocean, on trailers and by rail. As Pajares sees it, that was the last time that the supply chain industry experienced a “killer app” — until now. The new killer app, he says, is supply chain collaboration.

Pajares defines “collaboration” as an inherently human quality, as evidenced by the popularity of social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. “It’s where groups come together to share and communicate work,” he says. When it comes to the supply chain, collaboration means something even deeper, involving people, companies, systems and data, and all coming together in real time.

Technology can be an enabler of collaboration, but it can also be a hindrance, particular if it doesn’t support the scale of activity generated by global supply chains. Great steps forward, such as the Apollo 11 moon landing of 1969, only happen when the technology exists to support it, Pajares says. That’s the case with collaboration in the supply chain now, with modern technology enabling it on a global scale.

Nevertheless, the complexity of global supply chains presents an ongoing challenge to those seeking deeper collaboration. Multiple tiers of the supply chain, upstream and downstream, must be involved in the effort to transition from manual to automated processes, from analog to digital. Only then can true collaboration take place on a real-time basis.

Supply chain collaboration is more than a matter of convenience and expedience, Pajares says — it’s a means of achieving competitive advantage.