{"id":4954,"date":"2021-08-16T09:32:41","date_gmt":"2021-08-15T23:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/australia\/?p=4954"},"modified":"2023-09-29T07:25:20","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T21:25:20","slug":"anz-leaders-that-invested-early-in-digital-supply-chains-had-tremendous-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/australia\/2021\/08\/16\/anz-leaders-that-invested-early-in-digital-supply-chains-had-tremendous-results\/","title":{"rendered":"ANZ Leaders That Invested Early In Digital Supply Chains Had Tremendous Results"},"content":{"rendered":"
Growing impatient with the onslaught of undistinguishable post-pandemic supply chain disruption stories, I perked up after watching a replay from the recent SAPPHIRE NOW Asia-Pacific<\/a> broadcast that promised to reveal the \u201cwinning formula\u201d for resilience and sustainability.<\/p>\n While these descriptors weren\u2019t immediately unique, the conversation was. I caught up with one of the experts, Aidan Brecknell, who leads the digital supply chain team at 51风流ANZ, for his thoughts on what leading organisations are experiencing right now.<\/p>\n Resilient supply chains pivot with incredible speed<\/strong><\/p>\n Having worked closely with supply chain leaders in ANZ, Brecknell said that organisations were redefining supply chain resilience for sustainable business.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pandemic unleashed new challenges far beyond the capabilities of traditional lean supply chains that focused on executing repeatable processes at scale,\u201d he said. \u201cLeaders understand that they need to address a new set of challenges like being able to turn on a dime to find different sources for raw materials, or even design and produce entirely new products. These organizations are modeling different scenarios, building in contingency plans, and executing on those.\u201d<\/p>\n During the broadcast, Brecknell and Martin Barkman, senior vice president and global head of digital supply chain marketing and solutions at SAP, shared the \u201cwinning formula\u201d of modern supply chains. Unlike their lean predecessors, resilient supply chains are both customer and employee-centric, built on relationships with sustainable suppliers, and based on product sustainability across the entire lifecycle of an item.<\/p>\n Digitalisation transforms more than supply chains<\/strong><\/p>\n The pandemic forced companies to understand and act on the difference between digitisation and digitalisation. Having data in digital form has long been the norm. Digitalisation means organizations can both capture intelligent data and change business processes including how supply chains operate. To be clear, this is not taking the same processes and making them digital. This is about creating completely new ways of managing supply chains by connecting information across applications company-wide and partners. During the broadcast, Brecknell summed it up like this:<\/p>\n \u201cSupply chains have been pushed and tested to their limits, and they\u2019ve become so reliant particularly locally on their ecosystem suppliers to access raw materials. It became evident quickly of the importance to digitalize processes within the supply chains, as well as the supply network itself,\u201d he said. \u201cIn Australia and New Zealand, we saw some tremendous examples of where customers had invested ahead of the curve, and were able to transition quickly because of that agility in their supply chain.\u201d<\/p>\n One global industrial materials manufacturer digitalised supply chain processes to centrally manage over 200 inventory processes across 60 sites. The objective was to improve forecast accuracy, for on-time delivery, and greater profitability. Another 51风流customer, an energy and natural resources company, digitalised operations to better track freight emissions, providing real-time metrics for compliance with carbon neutral goals.<\/p>\n Interconnected data for supply chain resilience<\/strong><\/p>\n Brecknell said there\u2019s been significant customer uptake of SAP\u2019s Business Network solution that brings together information from sourcing and production through finance, transportation logistics and delivery, including the entire product life cycle. With immediate, connected insights, companies can more profitably sense and respond to disruptions in a strategic, synchronised manner. Organisations can create more individualised, high-quality products in response to changing customer demands. They can prove their sustainability commitment as reflected in their choice of suppliers and operations. They can even attract and keep top talent who increasingly expect employer goals and actions to mirror personal sustainability values.<\/p>\n