Gartner’s Top Technology Trends in Supply Chain Planning
Amid growing uncertainty and economic pressures, today’s supply chain planning (SCP) leaders have a job on their hands to develop a roadmap that demonstrates how technology investments can help their businesses remain successful and drive competitive advantage.
It’s a task complicated even further by the frequency of disruptions and the sheer pace of technological innovation.
Gartner’s assessment is that a combination of various AI techniques, as well as supply chain data governance, are the highest-impact technology trends for SCP leaders to heed.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritise delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," explains Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain Practice.
“Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimisation and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Enhancing decision making
Gartner’s Supply Chain Practice provides actionable, objective insights for supply chain leaders and their teams, helping them to respond to disruption and innovate for the future through leading-edge supply chain management practices.
In a bid to increase and accelerate the realised value of technology investments, the consulting giant’s recommendation is to facilitate a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
This strategy requires implementation of a transparent governance framework that incorporates various stakeholders and actively asks for their views on how to select and apply supply chain planning tools.
Ultimately, supply chain decision makers are constantly seeking new ways to enhance the decision-making process – and targetting technology investments as a result.
Gartner's top SCP tech trends
The top technology trends for SCP leaders, as identified by Gartner, are both directly supportive of this aforementioned objective:
- Composite AI: This trend is increasingly important to SCP leaders as uncertainty, complexity and the drive for automation are factored into their plans and objectives. Broadening the portfolio of AI techniques used (rather than seeking a one-size-fits-all approach) is the first step to optimising and automating SCP activities. Once organisations have a broader portfolio available, they can define and implement composite strategies to leverage the wider variety of techniques.
- Supply chain data governance: This trend ensures data quality by formalising the framework in which supply chain data is identified, defined, controlled and accessed, both internally and externally. Establishing or evolving supply chain data governance capabilities is often a preparatory activity for organisations embarking on a digital transformation journey. Relevant, accurate and complete data is necessary to establish trust and encourage adoption by end users.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” Eva continues.
“Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
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