How Analytics is Turning SAP Planners into Strategic Storytellers
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Key Takeaways
⇨ Demand planners are evolving from traditional number crunchers to strategic storytellers, highlighting the importance of embedding analytics into the planning process for better contextual understanding.
⇨ A circular planning and analysis model enables organizations to proactively identify opportunities and enhance collaboration between planners and executives, transforming forecast accuracy into actionable insights.
⇨ Data governance is a collective responsibility within organizations; ensuring data quality is crucial for successful analytics and decision-making in supply chain management.
Demand planners in a typical supply chain organization are focused on achieving the forecast accuracy target. Once they finish their plan, planners send it to supply planners, who then begin their own analysis. However, in a world of constant disruption, resilience means understanding the context of a plan, its implications, and its story.
In conversation with SAPinsider, Kenton Harman, Senior Director of Digital Supply Chain in the SupplyChainPaths practice at CloudPaths noted that we are witnessing a shift in the planner’s role from being a number cruncher to a strategic storyteller. And it all starts with embedding analytics directly into the planning process.
From Plan, Then Analyze to Plan and Analyze
According to Harman, under the old approach, planners produced a plan and then analyzed the output. However, now a more resilient model is circular and simultaneous.
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“If you change the mindset of doing a plan, analyze, then plan again based on those insights, it becomes less of a throw it over the wall type of process,” Harman explained. “You’re producing a much higher-quality plan than if you just pass it to the next milestone without really understanding the impact.”
This approach empowers planners to step back from a single cell in a grid and ask, “What is the context here?” Harman added that tools like SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) with its embedded analytics capabilities are the technical enablers of this shift. They enable planners to visualize and analyze data as they plan and transform the process from reactive to proactive.
When a Dashboard Uncovered a Goldmine
Telling a compelling story to an executive requires more than a granular spreadsheet. It requires visualization. This is where the planner’s role evolves into that of a communicator. Harman shared a powerful, real-world example. “One customer was a very early and enthusiastic adopter of the Analytics Stories capability in SAP IBP,” he recalled. “They had a mature S&OP process, but because that tool let them analyze the output of the plan as it was being produced, they recognized a huge opportunity for revenue that they weren’t seeing before.”
Thus, the team wasn’t just fixing shortages or tweaking forecast accuracy. By visualizing their plan in a new way, they uncovered a market opportunity that was hidden in plain sight. Within six months of adopting the new capability, it had transformed the organization, as planners and executives were on the same page from the outset.
Data Governance is Everyone’s Job
Still, a beautiful dashboard built on faulty data is dangerous. “Data governance is a necessary area for the company to be successful,” Harman noted.
The most important message for any leader, technical or not, is that data quality is not an IT problem. It’s an organizational responsibility. Harman added, “You can apply AI-powered band-aids in SAP IBP to identify data quality issues, but if the root cause lies in another part of the organization, the problem will persist.”
The solution, Harman noted, requires an organizational mindset where everyone feels responsible for identifying and resolving the root causes of data issues.
In Part 2, Harman provides insights into how emerging technologies, such as Generative AI and unified data platforms, elevate the planner from a storyteller to a micro-CEO within their domain.
What This Means for SAPinsiders
Empower planners beyond standard configuration. A standard SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) implementation gives organizations the tools, but it doesn’t automatically create storytellers. The SupplyChainPaths practice at CloudPaths focuses on deep user adoption and empowerment. It extends beyond the technical setup to ensure planners are trained to leverage SAP IBP’s embedded analytics, transforming complex data points into compelling narratives that drive executive-level decisions and secure buy-in.
Unlock the full potential of SAP IBP analytics. Many SAP IBP customers are underutilizing assets within their existing licenses, particularly advanced visualization tools like Analytics Stories. Organizations should seek implementation partners, such as CloudPaths, that specialize in unlocking this dormant potential. These partners assess an organization’s unique business processes and tailor SAP IBP’s dashboarding capabilities to provide the specific, contextual insights your planners need to move from reactive forecasting to proactive, strategic analysis.
Adopt a creative, process-first approach to utilizing analytics. The shift of a supply chain planner from being a number-cruncher to a strategic narrator is a business process evolution, not just a software update. SAP partners, such as CloudPaths, bring a unique creativity to SAP IBP projects, focusing on reimagining an organization’s S&OP process first. It designs and implements intuitive analytics that are visually powerful and directly aligned with the stories businesses need to tell, ensuring that their technology investment delivers transformative strategic value.
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