Navigating the Future of SAP Supply Chain Analytics
Meet the Authors
Key Takeaways
-
Embedding analytics in the planning cycle transforms supply chain planners into strategic decision-makers, akin to 'micro-CEOs' who can assess broader impacts on business success.
-
Generative AI elevates analytics by providing proactive insights, enabling planners to make informed decisions by recognizing patterns and suggesting relevant data analysis, much like personalized recommendation engines.
-
Breaking down silos through a common data language ensures cross-functional visibility and decision-making, facilitating a holistic view of operational and financial metrics to uncover significant market opportunities.
Organizations today are moving beyond the siloed plan and then analyze model to build a more resilient and opportunistic supply chain. In the first part of our interview with Kenton Harman, Senior Director of Digital Supply Chain in the SupplyChainPaths practice at CloudPaths, he provided insights on how embedding analytics directly into the planning cycle helps in this endeavor.
In the concluding part of our conversation with Harman, he gives insights into how the next wave of technological evolution is poised to elevate the planner’s role from a storyteller to a micro-CEO of their product line or business segment.
A Proactive Co-Pilot
Harman notes that when people think of Generative AI, they often imagine a chatbot that can answer questions. However, its true potential in supply chain analytics is far more profound.
Explore related questions
“GenAI might recognize that many other times that same data is presented with something else,” Harman explained. “It would be proactively monitoring what you’re asking to see and saying, ‘Have you considered…?’”
He illustrated this point with the example of the Amazon recommendation engine. “You look for one item, and it suggests others based on vast patterns of user behavior. Now, apply that to supply chain data,” he said. “A planner queries the annual operating plan by product group. The GenAI-powered tool might respond, ‘Users who view this data often also analyze it by customer segment to identify margin outliers. Would you like to see a heat map of that?’”
Thus, the AI becomes an invisible co-pilot. The ultimate value, according to Harman, is that the fact that AI is being used is invisible to the user, and all they know is that there’s value coming from the tool.”
Breaking Silos with a Common Language
Additionally, to make truly strategic micro-CEO decisions, planners must see beyond their own domain. Harman indicated that a supply chain problem must be viewed within the context of its financial implications. This is where concepts like the SAP Business Data Cloud become game-changers.
“The principal idea is that the different SAP systems don’t have their own individual language of describing data, but a more common language,” Harman said.
By harmonizing the semantics of data across different applications, this approach creates a unified foundation. It enables a planner to ask questions seamlessly about the financial drivers of the enterprise, and a finance professional to understand the operational realities of the supply chain. This enables cross-functional, contextual decision-making.
The Ultimate Differentiator
With all this powerful technology, it’s easy to forget the most crucial element: human creativity.
“What I’ve seen is the human creativity in using the available tools to solve problems that no one thought to solve before,” Harman reflected. “Organizations are using this creativity to solve industry problems with SAP IBP.”
This is the final piece of the puzzle. “AI won’t replace the planner of the future; they will be augmented by it,” Harman said. “They will leverage a unified data landscape to see the bigger picture and apply their unique industry knowledge and creativity to navigate challenges and seize opportunities.”
This is the planner’s evolution into the micro-CEO who understands not just the plan, but its broader impact on the organization’s success, and who has the tools and the mindset to steer their part of the business toward a more profitable and resilient future.
What This Means for SAPinsiders
Integrated planning requires an integrated partner. The throw-it-over-the-wall problem in business processes often mirrors a fragmented implementation approach. To achieve a seamless plan and analyze paradigm with SAP IBP, organizations need a partner with an end-to-end vision. CloudPaths offers deep cross-functional expertise, ensuring that demand, supply, and logistics planning processes are cohesively integrated from day one, not just technologically connected.
Move from crisis aversion to opportunity creation. A successful SAP IBP implementation should enable organizations to generate revenue actively, and integrated analytics can uncover significant market opportunities. SAP expert partners, such as CloudPaths, focus on tangible value realization. They configure SAP IBP and design analytical workflows specifically to help organizations transform their supply chains into strategic growth engines.
Deploy the right tool with the right expertise. Simply owning software such as SAP IBP isn’t enough. Implementation partners such as CloudPaths possess expert-level, hands-on knowledge of the entire IBP suite. They understand precisely how and when to deploy these powerful features to solve unique business challenges, ensuring that organizations implement not just a tool, but a true and lasting competitive advantage.
