The Supply Chain Year in Stories: April 2024
Gartner Research Lays Bare Gen AI Impact on Logistics
A quarter of all logistics KPIs will be powered by generative AI by the year 2028, according to research published by Gartner.
In a bid to gauge the increasing impact of Gen AI on activities across the supply chain, the consulting giant spoke to industry leaders for their unique insight on how it is being integrated into logistics.
And executives forecast that 25% of key performance indicators within the field are set to be driven by the emerging technology.
Gartner’s survey shows a shift towards leveraging Gen AI in supply chain and logistics is well under way, with half of leaders planning implementation in the next 12 months and an additional 14% already doing so.
“Gen AI presents an opportunity for logistics leaders to uncover additional insights from logistics data and drive operational efficiency,” explains Carly West, Senior Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice.
“KPI reporting is a challenging area for many organisations, and it is ripe for exploration with Gen AI to uncover valuable findings from logistics data at a greater speed.”
Gartner makes case for Gen AI in logistics
In logistics, KPI reporting helps leaders track operational performance against targets and make future projections.
However, many companies struggle to efficiently gain insights, often overlooking difficult-to-access data sources and spending vast amounts of time manually reviewing documents, correspondence and transcripts.
Gen AI’s ability to use natural language processing to query and display KPIs enables logistics leaders to quickly summarise multiple data sources to draft scorecards, while also enabling prompts to present and explain results, conduct root cause analysis and analyse supplier data to evaluate performance.
“The ability to gather and consolidate different data sources will remove obstacles that logistics leaders currently run into,” adds West.
“Moreover, the ability to understand where challenges are occurring in real time will enable faster corrective action to improve logistics performance – in turn driving operational and financial results.”
Why Ericsson Chose SAP to Enhance Supply Chain Efficiencies
As one of the world’s leading producers of software for the management of business processes, SAP is constantly developing solutions that facilitate effective data processing and information flow across organisations.
This extends to the supply chain space, where the tech giant is driving operational efficiencies throughout global networks.
It’s little wonder, then, that Ericsson – itself a world leader in the field of 5G and communications technology and services – has selected SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) for Supply Chain in a bid to drive further efficiencies within its own network.
“Agility, resilience and trust are critical for global leaders like Ericsson to achieve supply chain resilience and meet customers’ needs,” comments Dominik Metzger, Head of SAP Digital Supply Chain.
“Ericsson and SAP have had a strong collaboration over the years. Ericsson’s choice of SAP IBP allows us to support it in further digitalising its supply chain to cement its position as one of the world’s leading telecommunications companies.”
Navigating complex planning requirements
Supporting networks with more than 2.5 billion subscribers in more than 180 countries, and with 40% of the world’s mobile traffic outside China carried over its networks, Ericsson has been seeking a technological foundation to provide a single source of truth for its entire planning and logistics process.
The cloud-based SAP IBP solution integrates business planning capabilities across various business functions, improves the ability of companies to anticipate supply chain risks and offers mitigating solutions.
With SAP IBP, Ericsson will be able to navigate complex planning requirements while improving response times of sales, operations, resources and inventory planning, thus empowering the organisation to further focus on driving innovation and improving cost efficiencies.
The ability to predict and meet demand in an agile manner is crucial for companies to achieve several business objectives.
Ericsson choosing SAP IBP is part of a long-running partnership, which has seen SAP support Ericsson’s vision of providing limitless connectivity for the world.
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