Supply Chain Leaders Balancing AI Ambition, Execution Discipline

Supply chain executives face mounting pressure to deliver growth, improve resilience, adopt AI and meet regulatory expectations while maintaining operational continuity. At NASCES25, SAP Business Network global sales head Keith Baranowski moderated a roundtable with supply chain leaders, revealing successful transformation depends on problem clarity, workforce engagement and customer-centricity rather than technology adoption alone.

The most effective transformations begin by articulating specific problems, quantifying value at stake and defining expected outcomes before selecting technology. Organizations frequently pursue AI and other emerging tools simply because they gain attention rather than addressing defined business needs, yet these technologies deliver value only when applied to well-defined challenges. Tying initiatives to measurable outcomes secures leadership alignment and supports change management by helping teams understand why transformation matters.

For companies managing SAP implementations, this approach means mapping AI capabilities to operational pain points such as multi-tier supply chain visibility, demand volatility and regulatory compliance before initiating proof-of-concept deployments. Supply chain disruption has become structural rather than cyclical, making volatility planning the baseline operating model as organizations shift from resilience objectives toward total value optimization.

Multi-Tier Visibility and Standardization Enable AI Impact

As supply chains grow more complex, multi-tier visibility has transitioned from optional to required capability. The biggest risks facing organizations today, including regulatory exposure, disruptions and cost volatility, originate deep in supply chains beyond direct supplier relationships. More than half the data needed to drive intelligent supply chains exists outside organizational boundaries, limiting AI impact without visibility across trading partners.

Organizations managing dozens of suppliers, contract manufacturers and distribution partners require end-to-end visibility and collaboration across tiers to avoid fragmented planning, delayed disruption response and excess inventory buffers. Modern supply planning tools unite demand forecasting, inventory optimization and supply planning in unified interfaces, with AI algorithms and probabilistic models producing accurate forecasts that dynamically adjust safety stock levels. Companies implementing collaborative planning features report significant service level improvements alongside inventory and stockout reductions.

Standardization emerged as recurring theme during the NASCES25 roundtable, as excessive customization slows progress and undermines scale. Leading organizations balance standardization driving speed and consistency with flexibility creating meaningful value rather than pursuing one-size-fits-all approaches. SAP Business Network enables this balance by connecting processes, partners and data across value chains to improve visibility, resilience and decision-making at scale.

Grainger, CDW and Graybar demonstrate how SAP Business Network integration delivers measurable outcomes, with suppliers reporting 20% faster go-to-market timelines, 37% higher customer satisfaction and 50% faster invoice submission. These improvements stem from unified procurement technology increasing efficiency, lowering costs and improving buying experiences through connected systems, processes and customers.

Workforce Trust Determines Technology Adoption Rates

Technology enables transformation, but workforce engagement determines whether initiatives succeed. Change management remains critical, with well-designed initiatives stalling when employees do not understand purpose or feel threatened by change. Clear communication, local champions and ongoing engagement build trust and momentum by reinforcing that technology elevates roles through removing manual work and enabling focus on higher-value activities rather than replacing employees.

Supply chain workforce challenges intensify in 2026 as organizations contend with aging leadership, labor shortages and skills gaps. Continued AI and automation investments, combined with staffing restrictions from immigration regulations, create divergence in labor availability, costs and productivity that fundamentally challenges supply chains. The strongest transformation leaders invest in people as intentionally as platforms, treating workforce readiness as core deliverable rather than side effort.

Organizations achieve sustained momentum by celebrating visible milestones reinforcing positive behavior throughout long transformation journeys and holding themselves accountable for value creation through financial, operational or customer-driven metrics defined early and tracked consistently. Leaders pivot quickly when initiatives underperform, recognizing when assumptions change and adjusting course rather than protecting sunk costs or rigid plans.

Customer-centricity has become unifying principle as supply chain organizations shift from inward-facing efficiency to explicit focus on experience, reliability and brand trust. Customer collaboration through shared data and aligned processes creates shared value and unlocks differentiated services, with progress communicated in terms customers understand rather than internal metrics.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Problem-first methodology exposes risk in technology-led transformation programs. The NASCES25 consensus of successful initiatives begin with clear problem articulation before technology selection challenges prevailing SAP implementation patterns where platform capabilities drive scope definition. Enterprise architects must restructure discovery phases to quantify business pain points, model financial impact and establish success metrics independent of SAP module functionality, fundamentally reordering how statements of work define deliverables and creating accountability frameworks measuring business outcomes rather than configuration completeness or user adoption percentages.

Multi-tier visibility requirements accelerate SAP Business Network as a strategic integration layer. Recognition that over half of intelligent supply chain data resides outside organizational boundaries validates network-centric architectures where SAP Business Network provides visibility and collaboration infrastructure connecting S/4HANA with trading partners. This architectural pattern shifts integration strategies from point-to-point EDI connections toward managed network services, creating opportunities for SAP implementation partners to differentiate through Business Network expertise while pressuring traditional EDI providers to demonstrate network effect advantages justifying continued investment.

Workforce trust constraints limit AI adoption. The finding that transformation fails on trust rather than technology reveals that SAP customers deploying AI must prioritize change management investments proportional to platform implementation costs. GSIs and implementation partners must embed organizational change methodologies addressing role clarity, skills development and communication strategies as core project deliverables rather than optional services, fundamentally restructuring project governance to measure workforce confidence and engagement alongside technical milestones and creating new risk profiles where technical success produces business failure.