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Sprint to the future-ready supply chain

August 22, 2022 5-MINUTE READ

RESEARCH REPORT

In brief

  • Today’s supply chains face multiple intensifying challenges—calling for greater resilience, agility, customer-centricity, sustainability, and more.
  • These new requirements mean focusing on cost efficiency and speed is no longer enough. Supply networks need to be made future-ready.
  • Modular solutions can help accelerate the value realized by supply chain transformation, reduce risk, and rethink supply networks incrementally.

It’s time to supply change

Disruption is here to stay. Whether it’s the ongoing impact of COVID-19, geopolitical instability, the growing focus on sustainability, or the disruptive effect of emerging technologies, the challenges facing today’s businesses are multiplying and intensifying.

The impact on supply chains? Focusing on cost efficiency and speed is no longer enough. Supply networks are being diversified and localized. And they’re being made more customer-centric, flexible, agile, transparent and efficient.

At the same time, pressure is growing to reduce energy consumption and carbon footprints across the value chain.

This is the time to supply change to supply chains—and supply change to the whole business.

New capabilities urgently needed

Agility

Building more resilient, agile and flexible supply chains that are highly integrated, able to generate insights and respond intelligently. 

Sustainability

Enabling circular and sustainable processes, leveraging recycling and reuse, designed to achieve zero carbon, zero waste, and zero social risk. 

Customer-centricity

Continuously analyzing and anticipating customer needs and market changes to enable hyper-relevant personalized products and services for individuals.

Technology

Combining innovative technologies—including AI, ML, and IoT—with flexible technology architectures to eliminate pain points.

Digital thread

Drawing a consistent digital thread of data across the value chain to drive continuous innovation, experimentation and collaboration.

Adaptivity

Creating new supply networks that constantly evolve, adapt and strengthen to support new business models and capture new opportunities.

A recipe for a future-ready supply chain

Want to build these broader capabilities? A carefully crafted transformation journey is needed. Much depends on the unique starting point and aspirations of the business. But the following elements are typically important:

Modular

Successful organizations look to build new supply chain capabilities incrementally, using pre-packaged modules with predictable value cases.

Right-sized

Balancing the benefits of a strategic multi-year transformation with the rapid value realization of implementing multiple small-scale use cases.

Cloud-based

Leveraging the visibility, resilience and scalability from cloud-based solutions such as RISE with SAP, data lakes and SaaS supply chain solutions.

Value-focused

Aligning business and IT objectives, building a strong business case, tracking key indicators and prioritizing components that deliver value fastest.

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