New Year’s Resolution – Snack Your Way to an Improved Supply Chain?

By Clay Thomas, Principal SCMO2

Everyone’s back in the office, and as a company you’ve resolved to improve your supply chain result this year. Congratulations! That message has resounded throughout many conference halls of late. You want to compete, and budget approved—all you need is the business case approved.

So, what do you do? For smaller companies in particular, we are seeing more and more businesses accepting the premise that larger integrators are the long-term answer, and point solutions (or the so-called “best of breed” providers) will fall short of being able to deliver a fully integrated and lower TCO cloud solution. But for these smaller companies, and even many larger ones that manage most of their planning offline in spreadsheets, considering an all-encompassing solution like SAP Integrated Business Planning (SAP IBP) can seem daunting.

Depending on your organization, you may not be willing to “eat the whole elephant in one sitting.” And that’s certainly not necessary. First, make sure your supply chain organization actually understands what the elephant is. Then, have your company prioritize which processes will provide the greatest value when transformed, and collaborate with IT to determine which parts of the total solution can begin creating value most quickly.

You can certainly get outside help to educate your group on how the total solution will drive value for your company in general, and what specific parts of that solution are most ready to implement today. You may even realize that some work may be done in parallel without impairing your business or IT resources. However, while SAP and SIs may prefer you choose the big sale, you have to do what makes the most sense for you.

A fully integrated cloud-based supply chain planning solution that leverages other technology such as blockchain, AI, Big Data and streamlined collaboration may be your big-picture goal. But figuring out the right sized “bites” your organization can digest and snacking on them a little at a time will help you meet your new year resolutions!