SAP & Accenture combine on supply chain resilience solution

Accenture and SAP are combining to help organisations rethink their supply chains, by offering a solution to mitigate risk and improve efforts around both visibility and sustainability.

The solution – called Supply Chain Nerve Centre (SCNC) – is designed to help organisations control costs while responding to ever-shifting challenges across supply, demand and inventory.

Built on cloud, data, AI and analytics, the companies say the solution will provide “N-tier supplier transparency”. N-tier suppliers are those that exist beyond tier-1 contracted suppliers. 

Accenture's SCNC will allow organisations to:

• Enjoy deeper visibility into their network of suppliers and subcontractors
• Turn data into actionable insights
• Improve decision-making, by aligning suppliers with ESG values and goals.

In its early stages, the solution will focus on sectors including consumer products, high tech, industrial manufacturing and automotive.

The companies hope that SCNC will help extend the capabilities of SAP Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain solution, which brings together finance, sales and supply chain, and provide visibility on revenues, costs, margins and volumes.

Accenture has developed more than 30 industry use cases for the SCNC. 

The solution includes a supply chain resilience stress test, jointly developed by Accenture and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This identifies potential points of failure, assesses related financial exposures, and defines mitigation strategies and actions. 

Another data-driven Accenture tool is Enterprise Navigator, which can identify areas of business value across processes, data, people and technology.

Meanwhile, digital-twin simulation software from Cosmo Tech help organisations to spot vulnerabilities in their supply chain, and to simulate the behaviours under heavy loads.

'Digital core needed for resilient supply chains' - SAP

Caspar Borggreve, Accenture’s Senior MD & Lead for SAP Business Group, says: “To build intelligent and resilient supply chains organisations need a strong digital core that is powered by the cloud, data and AI.

“By collaborating on the Supply Chain Nerve Centre we are enabling organisations to reinvent their supply chains to deliver more value.”

Accenture and SAP have already collaborated on hundreds of supply chain transformations for clients across industries, using SAP IBP and components of the supply chain nerve centre. 

SAP Head of Digital Supply Chain Dominik Metzger says: “Teaming with Accenture will help our customers realise a greater return on their investment, while offering significant enhancements to the supply chain nerve centre.

“Together, we are helping to define an intelligent path to achieve responsible and risk resilient supply chains.”

In addition to integrating with SAP IBP, Accenture’s SCNC can interface with other DSAP solutions including S/4HANA Cloud, Business Network, Business Technology Platform, Datasphere and Analytics Cloud. 

• For further insight check out other issues of Supply Chain Magazine, as well as Procurement Magazine & Sustainability Magazine
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