The latest supply chain trends have been released and we are not surprised it has revealed an obsession with risk resilience. In a recent Gartner survey of supply chain organisations, respondents said their top four priorities were:
- Commercial Growth from the Supply Chain;
- Real-time Supply Chain Execution;
- Authentic fulfilment of ESG commitments; and
- Flexible work experiences.
Challenges for 2023
Both Resilience and Efficiency
Moving away from less than profitable short-term measures to source and ship goods by transitioning to ensuring that resilience cannot jeopardize efficiency.
“Supply chains are evolving from low cost and optimized to be more risk-resilient and sustainable,” said Richard Howells, vice president of solution management for digital supply chain at SAP. “It’s a balancing act to keep costs sufficiently reasonable without jeopardizing efficiency or company profits. Risk resilience is about preparing for all eventualities.”
An Integrated Business Planning Solution helps organisations who want to increase their supply chain resilience by using a solution that can combines sales and operations planning (S&OP), forecasting and demand, response and supply, demand-driven replenishment, and inventory planning to drive efficiencies.
Connected data generates company-wide outcomes
By 2024, IDC analysts predicted that 50% of companies will have implemented more balanced multi-shoring sourcing strategies to better address risk, resulting in a 10 percentage point improvement in supply reliability. To stay ahead of change and improve responsiveness connected data is the key.
Ensuring the availability of spares and services, inventory levels, safety and supply chain visibility is still an area impacted by disconnected data with data silos across organisations. SAP has developed Control Towers for both Supply Chain and Sustainability for use across organisations to provide effective decision-making and manage uncertainty. See our MRO Solution as a great example of this.
Collaboration is critical to sustainable business
As environmental regulations increase and customers and investors favour sustainable organisations, supply chain data contextualised for the business helps prove corporate compliance and good citizenship. In the same Gartner survey, 67% of respondents said that their organisation had defined environmental and social sustainability KPIs for supply chain leaders. Also identifying visibility and transparency “non-optional for organisations claiming environmental and social impact”.
