The Covid pandemic and the subsequent geo-political instability arising from the Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought supply chains under immense pressure, particularly in manufacturing, energy and food industries.
However, when things are difficult it also presents an opportunity for businesses to streamline and build resilience with automation and digital. Global supply chains have always been vulnerable to disruptions but the imperative to future-proof supply chain is stark now. McKinsey Global Institute finds that on an average companies experience supply chain disruption of one to two months duration every 3.7 years.
Companies are making changes in the supply chain management by adopting multiple sourcing strategies and moving from global to regional networks. At the same time, businesses are aggressively embedding digital into the entire ecosystem to better navigate agile operations. Advanced analytics with data modelling is enabling to improve demand forecast and align supply, while pushing digitization into the supply chain is helping businesses to keep track of suppliers in a multi-tier ecosystem.
Building Resilience with Digital
SCOs must embed resilience in the supply chain by accelerating investments in data-infused transformations. This entails a two-pronged approach to automate, digitize and bring in more transparency to weed out internal inefficiencies. While the second approach entails leveraging advanced data technology including machine learning with deep learning capabilities to understand dynamic market conditions and better predict demand.
According to an IBM Institute for Business Value study conducted in the early part of 2022 that surveyed 500 Chief SCOs across industries, leaders are adopting a data-first mindset with 73% recognizing the strategic value in data and 64% using data to identify new opportunities.
Best-in-class SCOs are focused on building resilient workflows powered by automation and intelligence. This forms the backbone of enterprise value chains and the foundation of digital transformation as the workflows extends through the ecosystem. With automation and digitization of workflow, data silos in the organization are welded into a single pane of view. The organization is thus empowered to analyze data from transaction systems to identify trends, streamline processes and remove inefficiencies at scale across the ecosystem of partners and suppliers.
More SCOs are fast embracing digital and automation according to the IBM study and 72% expect most of their processes and workflows to be automated within the next three to five years and 27% of the workflows will be AI enabled during that same time frame. What’s more they plan to integrate 26% of the intelligent workflows with ecosystem partners by the end of 2025.
Getting the Edge with Data-first
Digital acceleration to get deeper insights into the supply chain and data-based decision making is fast becoming a norm. Savvy SCOs are leveraging automated and intelligent workflows as a competitive differentiator to better manage risks and hardwire resilience into the supply chain. In turn, enhanced visibility in digital supply chain is enabling the business to better service customers who demand transparency in the procurement process and the supply chain.
MSITEK has enabled many organizations to embed resilience and get high level of visibility in the supply chain with SAP Supply Chain solutions. Get in touch to know more about our services.
