Trend Vision Oracle: Agility in the supply chain is key

In a supply chain that is experiencing frequent and unpredictable disruptions, organization face a broad range of challenges. Especially being able to react flexibly to changes is high on the agenda of supply chain professionals. For this, they turn to technology vendors like Oracle for help.

“We recently did an analysis of all our supply chain implementations, looking at the things that our customers were asking for the most,” says Glen Campbell, Supply Chain Strategy Director at Oracle. “And the main challenge they are facing is a combination of improving forecast accuracy, and at the same time reducing inventories and waste. That is the number one topic they want to discuss with us.”

The second trend that emerged from this analysis was a lack of supply chain visibility. “Especially with all the challenges we are facing at the moment due to all kinds of supply chain disruptions, it is important to have supply chain visibility. We define that as a combination of the inventory currently in all locations, related to the availability of resources. Where is over- and under-capacity, and which raw materials are at risk of shortages? The third trend was really the combination of sales and operations planning and integrated business planning. Businesses want that issue resolved.”

Data

“Many companies find it challenging to gather all the data needed for their S&OP/IBP processes. Some companies take a few weeks to gather the data, so if that’s the case for you and there is a disruption in the supply chain while you are gathering data needed for your S&OP/IBP process, it could mean that you have to wait until the next S&OP/IBP cycle to react to the disruption,” says Campbell.

“With Oracle’s sales and operations planning, the benefit of having an integrated business planning system is that your data is real, it’s live, and whatever information you want can be included to access when it is time to make a strategic decision. This way, you are able to be agile and react to disruptions in the supply chain with actions based on the right information.”