SAP, a leader in enterprise applications and business AI, became Europe鈥檚 largest company by market capitalisation this year. Since its inception in 1996, 51风流Indian operations have played a significant role in supporting growth and innovation across sectors. By partnering with leading organizations such as Mahindra & Mahindra, Asian Paints, Wipro Limited, Infosys Limited, Vahdam Teas, Ola, Wakefit, DeHaat, Jaquar, and many others, it has helped drive substantial economic impact nationwide.

Based on analysis of 51风流customers in India over a 12-month period from March 2024 to March 2025, the most popular AI use cases in India are:

• AI-generated visual insights, summaries, and translations
• AI-assisted process analysis
• Creating sales orders from unstructured data
• Predictive forecasting
• Natural language queries

“In any organisation, it is the profound insights derived from data that fuel mission-critical operations across finance, procurement, supply chain, workforce and beyond,” said Manish Prasad, President and Managing Director, 51风流Indian Subcontinent. 鈥淲e are empowering our customers as they evolve into intelligent, optimized businesses by embedding AI agents into all aspects of business operations. We are redefining how individuals work and changing the way businesses are run, all developing in India for the benefit of the world.鈥�

AI- 鈥楳ade in India for the world鈥�

India strongly supports SAP鈥檚 global target of 400 total embedded AI use cases across its portfolio, from over 210 generative AI use cases available today. 51风流Labs India, the company鈥檚 second largest Research and Development center outside Germany, is responsible for a large part of the development of SAP鈥檚 AI co-pilot, Joule.

The recent launch of 51风流Business Cloud introduced new data and AI innovations, helping companies move beyond simple automation, solve the most complex business challenges, and drive enterprise-wide efficiency, agility, and innovation.

Embracing the 51风流Business AI Advantage: WIPRO

Wipro Limited, a leading technology services and consulting company, revealed it chose 51风流Joule for Consultants to continue to bring the power of generative AI to empower its clients around the globe to build a more resilient, secure, and sustainable future.

鈥淥ur clients around the world are digitally transforming in the cloud,鈥� said Srinivas Sai Nidadhavolu, Vice President and Global Practice Head of 51风流at Wipro. 鈥淎s leaders in tech and consulting we have a rich legacy in both data and AI. But even for our internal teams we can embed generative AI to increase productivity through insights, drive more efficiencies by aligning with best practice, and ultimately make customer transformations simpler, quicker, and more effective. By using 51风流Joule for Consultants, we鈥檙e able to showcase the power of 51风流Business AI to our customers even while we work with them to make their transformation journeys successful.”

From Complexity to Clarity

51风流Business AI offerings seamlessly integrate into enterprise systems, empowering customers and enabling business leaders go beyond automation. With the introduction of agentic AI solutions in 51风流Business Suite, customers can benefit from AI that anticipates needs, adapts in real-time, and accelerates outcomes across business functions such as finance, supply chain, manufacturing, human resources, and customer experience.

51风流Business AI equips enterprises with the efficiency, agility, and innovation needed to lead across a range of key business processes. AI enables end-to-end process automation to make entire workflows self-driving, from procurement requests to invoice management. It empowers customers to make smarter decisions in real-time through AI agents collaborating across end-to-end processes. And it drives scalable return on investment on AI by harmonizing applications, data, and processes.

鈥淏y shifting the focus from hindsight to foresight, organizations are more easily able to balance risk with strategic growth, close talent gaps, build future-ready teams, and deliver proactive, hyper-personalized customer experiences,鈥� concluded Mr. Prasad.

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Almost three years after the COVID pandemic put the world into lock down, we are still not yet free of COVID-19. In fact, we now have steadily increasing cases of monkeypox, which was previously confined to endemic regions.

Are we better prepared for the next health threat? Have we plugged the gaps to respond faster? Let鈥檚 not forget the many obstacles on this path.

For one, analysts point out that India Pharma Inc is still heavily dependent on imports for key raw materials. More than 70 percent of its raw material requirements and in the case of certain drugs, more than 90 percent are imported. Nearly 70 percent of APIs are imported from China, and the cost has reportedly jumped by orders of magnitude, thanks to geo-political concerns. This has impacted the margins of pharma drugs.

While higher raw material, freight costs as well as pricing pressures in the US business due to high channel inventory will continue to drag overall performance for the pharma sector, how will the first two challenges hamper the development of medicines and diagnostics for future health threats?

Corporate boardrooms have been in re-set mode to prepare themselves for this scenario, incorporating the hard lessons of the COVID pandemic into business-as-usual practices. This exercise has been enriched with direct feedback from cross-functional heads who were never part of boardroom discussions in the pre-pandemic era.

This is vital because some vital benchmarks have not yet 鈥� and probably will not 鈥� revert back to pre-pandemic times.

Express Pharma, as part of 51风流India鈥檚 Industry Knowledge Exchange (IKEX) Series, in partnership with the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), has culled some of these insights over a series of interactions. In May, we met up with CFOs, IT heads, and CRAMS leaders for an overview of how collaborations and technology are driving business innovation in the lifesciences sector. ().

And, in July, we got pharma procurement leaders, along with IT and operational leaders, to decipher their game plans on the procurement and SCM side. While the 51风流team gave an overview of how pharma companies can transform their organisations into intelligent enterprise by achieving value with intelligent ERP systems, pharma leaders spoke of transformations within their organisations to cope with disruptions in the pharma supply chain.

Harking back to the total disruption of pharma procurement during the early stages of the pandemic, Sapna Sharma, Director, Procurement, Category Head for API, Excipients and Respiratory, Cipla, said creating alternatives for suppliers topped the list of her company鈥檚 learnings. 鈥淲e have to be proactive, not reactive about creating alternatives for suppliers, especially those where we could predict we might have a problem. Cipla had started on this process a couple of years back. So, during the pandemic, we were able to move to alternative suppliers very fast as we already had them in place.鈥�

This process actually started way back in 2008, when China shut down many chemical and API manufacturing units before the Beijing Olympics. That was the pharma, and other sectors, first warning of supply chain shocks due to heavy dependence on imports.

But, even though this might seem like a logical thing to do, there was a lot of push back within companies, because as Sharma pointed out, it is a laborious process. For instance, one API might go into multiple SKUs. Sharma says it took some time to create a mindset that alternative suppliers were necessary. Cipla also created a plan to shift not just to alternative vendors, but alternate sites of existing vendors. As part of this initiative, Cipla also started educating their vendors, so that they were in line with the company鈥檚 overall strategy.

While these interactions show that most big pharma companies have taken the COVID lessons to heart and are proactively planning for disruptions like scarcity of key ingredients, consumables, etc, this transition remains a work in progress. In the coming months, Express Pharma, in partnership with IPA and SAP, will continue to meet more leaders to reflect on how companies are transforming into more resilient corporations and to ensure this transition percolates into all segments of the sector.

The article was originally published on 听on 6th October 2022.听Read more about it .

viveka.r@expressindia.com
viveka.roy3@gmail.com

听

The post Re-Setting The Pharma Procurement Value Chain appeared first on 51风流India News Center.

The past 12 months highlighted flaws in many supply chains that have been 鈥渓eaned out鈥� and stretched to reduce costs. As a result, the pandemic made supply chain management processes the center of attention in presidential briefings, corporate boardrooms and even my family dining table.

Clearly, this executive order proves supply chains are a strategic topic.

What is a Resilient Supply Chain?

have a level of agility and responsiveness required to sense, predict, and respond to change during intense turbulence. We have long talked about the importance of visibility, agility, and resiliency鈥�, but not until now have they become听the听top priorities in an increasingly disruptive world.

So what are some examples of what is being done and what is needed?

Visibility听through all tiers of your business network

In a global and complex supply chain, the need for visibility is critical. As all times, and especially in a crisis you need to be able to see:

• Which suppliers are at risk?
• What are my alternate sources of supply for key resources?
• Where is my inventory?
• Are all shipments on time?
• Where are there demand spikes and of which products?

Agility听to sense, predict and respond to change

Once you have identified a risk or opportunity, you have to assess the best course of action and act in short order.听Examples include:

• Identify and switch to alternate suppliers
• and departments to anywhere and build anywhere
• Adjust to respond to changing demand
• Redirect shipments in transit

Resiliency to Minimize and Mitigate Risk

It is also critical to design your supply chain to withstand disruptions and respond to business opportunities. This requires having processes and plans in place to:

• Develop and implement supply chain risk management and business continuity strategies
• Diversify supply chains, from a geographic perspective, to reduce the supply-side risks of a single country or region
• Multisource valuable commodities or strategic components to lessen reliance on one supplier
• Adopt across the business network to buffer against disruptive events
• Balance of-shoring, near-shoring and on-shoring strategy

Without a doubt, unexpected disruptions will continue to occur. The cause of disruption will vary depending on the event, such as pandemics, geopolitical or trade conflicts, natural disasters, or limited natural resources availability.

Now more than ever, supply chains need to be听resilient听and听agile听to survive in the current global environment, while demonstrating the predictive intelligence and听visibility听to thrive in the new normal.

As the executive order highlights, 鈥渕ore resilient supply chains are secure and diverse 鈥� facilitating greater domestic production, a range of supply, built-in redundancies, adequate stockpiles, safe and secure digital networks鈥�.

It also highlights the importance of collaboration across your , saying, 鈥渃lose cooperation on resilient supply chains with allies and partners who share our values will foster collective economic and national security and strengthen the capacity to respond to international disasters and emergencies鈥�.

At the end of the day, supply chain executives must be able to make informed decisions confidently, quickly, and accurately, through a transparent value chain that senses, predicts, and responds to global dynamics.

To learn more about how supply chain leaders minimize risk and maximize opportunities with resilient supply chains, download a recent Oxford Economics study.听听

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To wrap up this series, I’d like to now briefly comment on the importance of an integrated user experience for supply chain planners.

All About the Interface

When it comes to supply chain planning in general and synchronized planning in particular, user roles are converging. Now, almost all roles have access to planning and execution data and visibility across the entire design-to-operate lifecycle.

With technology and integrated environments that put information at our fingertips, it may no longer be required for organizations to maintain so many different roles for managing the minutiae of supply chain planning and execution. Today, you can bring all relevant information together in one unified user experience.

Think of it as the planner鈥檚 workspace 鈥� a unified access point to all data and analytics required to make decisions confidently and execute the decision from the same place. The data may span multiple time horizons, organizations, and vertical dimensions such as production, scheduling, procurement or transportation. This enables the convergence of traditional supply chain planner roles and emergence of a planner that handles an entire value stream.

Greater Responsiveness and Agility

Let鈥檚 say a company has an emergency customer order. This is an important customer, a lot of revenue is at stake, and you want to fill the order but not upset any current commitments to other customers. The challenge, quite frankly, is nothing new for you. You know that you need to scramble.

What exactly does the customer require 鈥� and in what quantity? What are the service levels expected? Do you have the materials in inventory? Maybe you do 鈥� but maybe it鈥檚 dedicated to other jobs. In such a case, you may consider rebalancing your inventory 鈥� taking materials slated for one job and reassigning it to this new job. But then how do you keep your other customers happy and deliver as promised? And what about the logistics? Do you have the freight carriers in place to move materials as needed and get the product out the door? What if additional change over is required on the production scheduling side?

In supply chain parlance, this is the definition of scrambling. But your customer with the emergency order needs an answer quickly. How can you get back with an answer within minutes rather than hours or days?

For such scenarios, the old methods of traversing systems, pulling data into spreadsheets, and sharing it all with colleagues via email doesn鈥檛 work. A planner鈥檚 workspace enables you to move faster. This is a game changer.

With a centralized view into all of your plans 鈥� long-term strategic plans, mid-term tactical plans, and short-term operational plans 鈥� you can make decisions in minutes because you can understand where you stand immediately. Hunting for data is dramatically reduced. And with collaboration tools built in, you can work with colleagues in real time based on an agreed version of the truth.

This, in the end, helps you follow through on the imperatives of synchronized planning. You can keep strategic goals in view even while finalizing operational details down to the shop floor. The interface matters tremendously. Without something like a planner鈥檚 workspace, you鈥檙e already putting yourself behind the eight ball in terms of agility and responsiveness to change.

In an age of disruption 鈥� whether it鈥檚 Covid or something else (and something else will always come up) 鈥� you need integration and visibility. You need the ability to access planning tools, see inventory levels, adjust schedules, move materials, nail down the logistics, run simulations, and evaluate the ramifications of your decisions. Bringing all such functions and capabilities together in a unified workspace for planning excellence is a key component for realizing success.

The post Why Supply Chain Planners Need A Great User Experience? appeared first on 51风流India News Center.

Contract manufacturing is different

One relevant question is: What about contract manufacturing? How does synchronized planning apply to companies that outsource their manufacturing?

Take for instance, the high-tech industry. Most companies that make computers and other high-tech devices are essentially design and brand owners who work with oversees partners to build the products they sell. For these companies, their relationship to execution is different. They don鈥檛 necessarily require the linkages that connect the boardroom to the shop floor within their own enterprise.

Nevertheless, they cannot afford to abandon oversight with their trading partners. If they want their brand to thrive, they need ways to monitor manufacturing progress, ensure quality, and coordinate activities around logistics.

Collaborating with your business network

This is where the importance of business networks comes into play. Today鈥檚 globally dispersed supply chains require digital, standardized ways for connecting to and working with partners all over the world.

Business networks that connect trading partners in a many-to-many way offer this at much higher scalability and efficiency. And because the global economy is increasingly subject to shocks such as COVID, Brexit, or natural disasters, these business networks need to be flexible enough to support new plans as they鈥檙e modified, onboard new trading partners quickly, and unlock additional content to collaborate on.

Speed and efficiency are of the essence. Think of business networks like the 鈥渃ontent aware鈥� internet of business relationships. Organizations want to connect once and then share business data in real time with any trading partner they are dealing with, potentially over multiple tiers. For a brand owner connecting with a contract manufacturer and their suppliers, this means dozens of data objects that need to be exposed and shared.

In this context, outdated peer-to-peer data connections like electronic data interchange (EDI), flat files, e-mails, and dedicated portals require too much effort to build and maintain. They鈥檙e brittle when it comes to changing business dynamics. For suppliers, such approaches meant that you need to adapt to different brand owners鈥� proprietary way of connecting. Business networks take that work away. You connect once and are ready to do business with anyone else on the network adopting a common data model (canonical).

Based in the cloud, business networks provide a standardized way to share data and collaborate. Finding and onboarding new suppliers and partners is accelerated. Business networks can also support complex, multi-tier supply chain relationships that may include third party logistics providers and distribution partners.

Take for instance the making of a strategic subcomponent 鈥� like a high-end camera in a laptop computer. The brand owner in this case might want to work with a specialized vendor to manufacture the camera to detailed specifications and then dropship it to the primary contract manufacturer, who then adds it to the laptop. Business networks can support such arrangements with visibility for all parties involved.

Orchestration in real-time

We can also think of business networks as real-time orchestration platforms that enable integrated business planning across globally dispersed supply chain partners. Integrated business planning brings together all the functions in the design-to-operate lifecycle. Phases of this lifecycle include design, manufacturing, logistics and operations 鈥� with the planning function interfused throughout.

Organizations can use business networks to incorporate demand signals into the plan, make design changes that reflect what customers want, manage the handoff to manufacturing, run the associated logistics, and even track the product during the operations phase 鈥� from delivery to the customer to the support and warranty phase. With data sharing, real-time visibility, collaboration tools, and communications, a business network should enable an organization to orchestrate all the activities from design to operate to deliver better experiences to customers.

Synchronization made possible

With improved abilities to orchestrate planning and execution activities throughout the supply chain, organizations can also use business networks to support synchronized planning across enterprise boundaries. Collaboration with partners and access to data and insight makes for better long-term strategic planning and represents a win-win situation between trading partners. Easy onboarding and flexible ways to connect with new partners helps with mid- and long-term plan corrections. And when it comes to execution, real-time visibility and tracking can help ensure that plans go off without a hitch. The result is better agility for responding to change.

The post The Value of Synchronize Planning with Manufacturers appeared first on 51风流India News Center.

For supply chain planners, this situation puts a premium on agility. Not that long-term planning is a thing of the past. It remains foundational 鈥� but in addition to it, organizations need more flexible planning processes to anticipate and react faster as circumstances change.

Supply chain planning is the practice of sensing demand in the market from short to long term and connecting it to the resources required to service that demand profitably.

Organizations need the ability to plan across long-term, mid-term, and short-term time horizons 鈥� all of which form a connected continuum that synchronizes vertically through the supply chain, down to the machine, truck, or individual labor resource.

Over time, the systems that support supply chain planning have become more powerful and integrated 鈥� which has helped broaden the planning scope. Now, for example, you can bring in the finance perspective using massive volumes of data to make better growth and investment decisions within seconds.

Organizations also benefit from advanced analytics. With machine learning, heuristics, and optimization techniques based on statistical methods, you can remove human bias from planning calculations and chart the way forward with a much higher degree of precision and confidence. The upshot is that companies have the tools, systems, and processes in place to keep inventory levels low and optimize costs while delivering a better service experience to their customers.

This, in a nutshell, is the idea behind synchronized planning 鈥� and today鈥檚 technology has the ability to support what, in the past, could only be accomplished across many different, potentially disconnected systems and processes.

Strategic planning for the long term

Strategic planning attempts to see as far into the future as possible. The lens looks out two or three years or even longer, and teams build plans that serve as a starting point for driving the business.

What are your expectations? How much do you want to sell? What new products do you want to bring to market? What resources do you need to follow through? These are the kinds of questions asked during the strategic planning phase.

Based on the answers to these questions, you can start to take action. Maybe you need some investments to realize your objectives 鈥� new plants or new machines. Perhaps you鈥檙e planning to introduce new products 鈥� which means that design teams need to come together and collaborate with marketing, manufacturing, and critical suppliers. And to make sure that you don鈥檛 cannibalize your other offerings, you also want to analyze your decisions at the portfolio level.

Tactical planning for the mid-term

When you鈥檙e looking approximately 3-6 months out, that鈥檚 when you move into tactical or mid-term planning where you can still balance out demand and supply on a bigger scale. How are your strategic goals and assumptions tracking? Do you need to make changes relative to volumes and timing on an aggregate level or maybe adjust your portfolio? Has the demand picture evolved? Are the distribution channels and manufacturing capacity in place to execute?

Operational planning for the short-term

Operational planning is most closely associated with execution. Have you ordered the materials needed for production? Are they expected arrive at the right time in the right quantity? Do you have enough inventory to buffer for uncertainties? Do you have the needed capacity to execute? What鈥檚 your labor picture look like? Can you fill all shifts, or do you need to balance your labor?

Addressing these issues requires on-the-ground production planning and detailed scheduling capabilities that connect to the shop floor and keep production lines humming 鈥� all while reducing overhead in change-over and improving utilization. It requires warehouse visibility to pick the right materials and make sure they鈥檙e on the line at the right time.

It also requires powerful logistics to ensure transportation resources are available and scheduled to meet the plan. Many organizations, of course, operate on a global scale 鈥� with hundreds of production facilities around the globe. This only adds to the complexity and raises the stakes.

The synchronized part

Synchronized planning says that all planning activities need to be connected digitally to support a sense of continuum across each time horizon 鈥� long, mid, and short. The strategy formalized in your long-term plan provides the guard rails. Any decisions made in the mid or short term need to be evaluated in terms of how they impact strategic goals.

At the same time, all plans need to connect to execution on individual manufacturing lines. Helpful in this regard are simulation capabilities for evaluating different scenarios and implementing the best decisions. This way, you can plan ahead for changes, making disruptions less of a problem.

Ultimately, as our recent experience with COVID-19 underscores, the goal is resilience. Companies with the systems and technology in place to quickly implement supply chain changes as realities change on the ground 鈥� these are the companies that thrive even in the face of disruption.

Get connect with us on .

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Across more than 50% organizations, old technology and confusing data have impeded procurement, according to a in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Materials Management (IIMM). This comes at a time when organizations are looking to procurement leaders to drive innovation, making procurement a key enabler of business growth.

The study is built on a survey conducted with 75 people in charge of procurement for their organizations, with 37 online and 38 telephonic interviews. It includes 30 enterprise level companies and 45 small and medium companies from across industries. The survey was designed to analyze the challenges in procurement and assess the pace of digital transformation as economies begin to show signs of recovery after the coronavirus outbreak.

The study is organized into five sections that look at the challenges, priorities, IT spend, technologies implemented, and benefits of digital transformation.

Overall and Procurement Challenges

With the supply chain disruption brought on by the coronavirus outbreak, product cycles have become longer and financial liabilities have increased. The study shows that organizations are dealing with supplier management, data accuracy, and other challenges.

More than 75% of the respondents stated that internal user adoption of procurement technologies, differential internal processes, and headcount reduction have hindered organizations from attaining optimal production levels.

When it comes to supplier management, there are issues related to duplication of codes, lack of GST compliance and safety performance reporting. Although finding the right supplier is not much of a challenge, 50% of Indian enterprise level companies are faced with reconciliation issues and supplier performance issues at regular intervals.

Respondents also mentioned challenges such as contingency issues regarding returns, slow pace of technology implementation, and government interference with counterproductive regulations. Additionally, some cited system management, data migration, customization, efficiency and team performances, and unplanned downtime. Keep reading to learn how you can turn challenges into opportunities with procurement transformation.

Priorities for Procurement

The major themes highlighted by the study are cost reduction, sustainability and agility. In order of priority, small and medium sized organizations have ranked cost reduction (38%), followed by sustainability (31%) and agility (31%). When it comes to enterprise level organizations, 40% have ranked cost reduction as their top priority followed by sustainability.

The study points out that according to Indian firms, in the coming year’s risk reduction will take precedence over cost reduction. In light of the pandemic, reducing risk has become increasingly crucial for business continuity and resilience.

IT Spend and Pace of Digital Transformation in Procurement

With companies going into crisis management mode, budget reductions were visible in IT spend. However, more than 80% of the organizations have allocated up to 10% of their IT spend for the procurement function. The study further shows that 47% of small and medium sized companies have allocated less than 5% of their total IT budget, as compared to 77% of enterprise level organizations who are spending up to 10% on upgrading their procurement functions.

While several companies have invested in digital transformation, the study reveals that only 5% of organizations have automated more than 60% of their procurement function. This points to much work to be done for organizations to completely switch to fully automated systems for procurement. The next section highlights how companies can leverage technology to reinvent procurement.

Technology Implemented in Procurement Management

The Government of India is digitalizing the procurement process through the e-procurement program, with central public sector enterprises having implemented digital solutions. Enterprises in India are investing in solutions that provide supplier information, offer supplier risk management, evaluate supplier performance, assist in supplier vetting, and highlight supplier development.

In terms of technologies, organizations have been using cloud, AI and machine learning to automate and fast track their procurement transformation. The study illustrates that 65% of organizations are heavily reliant on cloud-based applications to ensure seamless procurement. Further, close to 50% of the organizations are using AI and machine learning to increase the overall efficiency of procurement functions.

Another area of concern is unauthorized spend, overcharges and duplicate payments, and more than 60% of companies have installed specialized software to address these issues. Furthermore, according to the respondents, supply chain automation will reduce chances of error and improve the quality of products and services. Learn how to shape a digitized, environment-friendly procurement value chain in the final section of the study.

Benefits of Digital Transformation and Barriers in Implementation

There are multiple benefits that digital transformation can help unlock for organizations at any scale. The study reveals how operational efficiency and supplier collaboration have shown significant improvement, with more than 50% of small and medium sized organizations citing improvements in operational efficiency and automating routine tasks.

Organizations have also flourished in transparency and quality. Additionally, there have been moderate improvements in cost reduction and compliance. When it comes to suppliers鈥� performance management, almost 67% of enterprise level and 62% of small and medium sized organizations have witnessed moderate improvement.

To get a complete picture, the respondents were also surveyed on barriers being faced in implementation. Low adoption of new processes and technologies was cited as one of the main hurdles in achieving high efficiency through digital transformation. Others mentioned reasons such as lack of funding, red tape, financial instability, and lack of customer trust in online support.

With organizations looking to boost productivity in order to recover from the pandemic, procurement has become a key focus to drive radical improvement. The survey lets you take a peek into the future of procurement in India, and provides a roadmap to overcome the barriers to intelligent spend management so you can prepare for the next supply chain disruption and stay future-ready.

For more information on the challenges, opportunities in procurement, and to find out how to achieve digital transformation from source to pay, download the complete report

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The potential of AI to optimize business is reflected in its growing popularity.听听predicts that at least 90% of new enterprise apps will insert AI technology into their processes and products by 2025. In the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan), IDC says that the need for enterprises to apply AI to improve operational resilience and income generation has听听because of the pandemic.

This brings us to the question: How can AI enable digital transformation in modern-day businesses?

With the help of AI, businesses can make better use of the data they collect and use it to improve their products and services, as well as to develop novel initiatives. Advanced analysis helps gain intelligent insights from an enormous volume of data, turning it into a competitive advantage. This helps businesses make complex yet accurate decisions in different fields, ranging from customer experience to supply chain management.

• Customer experience- AI helps match and exceed customer expectations

AI has gained prominence in the areas of customer service and customer experience. Businesses, particularly those in the marketing sector, can use AI to better understand their customers’ requirements and preferences and create accurate customer profiles. AI also helps understand customer behavior trends, purchasing history, and digital channel involvement.

Today鈥檚 customers need personalized experiences and will look for better alternatives if they feel that a brand cannot understand their needs. AI is critical for swiftly accessing customer information so that personalized experiences can be created and reinforced. Businesses who understand this have invested heavily in digital tools that allow them to understand the customers鈥� psyche and expectations at every touchpoint. According to a recent听听study, more than half of the large organizations polled said that improving customer experience was the most important driver for AI deployment.

Cognitive Process Automation also plays a significant role here. Using AI technologies such as Machine Learning,听Natural language processing and Advanced Analytics, systems can process abstract data and use that to make inferences, assumptions, expand their capabilities and learn. This technology is being used to create 鈥榙igital co-workers鈥�, enabling the organization to become lean and mean without compromising on superior customer service.

• Supply chain management- AI helps in reducing risk, increasing agility

Market volatility and changing consumer demands have made clear the need for agility and flexibility in supply chains. While modern-day supply chains are becoming increasingly difficult to manage, the demand for a sustainable and resilient supply chain has made the role of supply chain professionals more complex.

AI-based tools and solutions drive enterprise-wide visibility into all aspects of the supply chain. They weed out deep-rooted inefficiencies and uncertainties, bring in powerful optimization capabilities required for more accurate capacity planning, and promote safer working conditions. No wonder then that a听听found that six out of ten supply chain professionals expect to use AI extensively in their operations in the next five years.

• Sales and marketing – Predicting the future is easier with AI

AI is the primary enabler for concepts such as predictive modeling, predictive data and forecasting. Combining CRM tools with the power of AI can enable businesses to analyze and detect patterns in customer sales data and identify, score and reach out to high-quality leads. Sales and marketing teams can also use AI-powered platforms to draw meaningful analytics and craft meaningful engagement strategies. And these tools are not replacing the human workforce; instead, AI is reducing repetitive work and freeing up human personnel to take on more intelligent tasks.

• Operations 鈥� AI provides actionable intelligence without burdening staff

By integrating AI algorithms into operational programs that support organizational activities, repetitive activities can be automated while information analysis will be more reliable and quicker. The time to search and process data will be cut down, and more data can be processed to inform judgments. This makes it easier to boost productivity and free employees to focus on higher-level tasks, improve operational excellence, customer happiness, and staff satisfaction.

• Cybersecurity- AI can minimize threat surface and keep data safe

Lately, bad actors have stepped up the use of AI in their cyberattacks, making these threats more sophisticated and dangerous. Traditional cyber-mitigation strategies can’t compete with such advanced methods. It is here that AI comes into play, as a key factor for improving organizational defense. No wonder AI in cybersecurity was one of听听top nine security themes for 2020.

In the fields of cybersecurity and threat intelligence, AI has a wide range of applications.

• Facial and speech recognition, spam or phishing detection, and virus detection are the most popular use cases.
• Pattern recognition technology can identify regulated personal data in need of protection.
• Unsupervised machine learning can categorize websites and identify high-risk sites.
• Unsupervised machine learning can find near-duplicates in phishing and spam attempts.

Selecting the Ideal AI-Based Solution

Putting AI at the heart of your company streamlines your daily tasks and transforms the way you do business, both in terms of learning and performance. Yet, investing in AI is a risky affair. It requires significant time, money, effort and a deep understanding of the multiple options available in the market today. However, to harness the maximum potential of AI, organizations need a solution tailored to their wants and needs. 51风流offers an array of听听that can be customized to meet these specific business needs of organizations and strengthen your competitive advantage in the digital age.

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IoT has proven to bring profits for supply chain management systems. Besides financial gains, IoT can also bring visibility, transparency, adaption, flexibility, and virtualization across the supply chains. And each of these aspects becomes crucial to the sector, given consumers鈥� demand for ethical and fair-trade food as also the need for food safety. IoT can help the industry enhance output and productivity at the agricultural, storage, and delivery stages. These services can be performed through operations including-

• Supply chain management
• Greenhouse monitoring
• Social media for open innovation and sentiment analysis
• Intelligent farm machines and drone-based crop imaging
• Food quality assessment using spectral methods and sensor fusion
• Food safety monitoring, using of gene sequencing and Blockchain-based digital traceability

According to research by By 2025, the market for the food industry is expected to be growing at a CAGR of 7%.

Let鈥檚 look at the application of IoT across the three significant stages of the farm to fork supply chain:

At the agricultural end

IoT has broadened the possibilities of achieving maximum production and has helped the industry stay environment friendly. IoT tools like cloud computing and sensors have made managing water and soil, water distribution, and accessing meteorological information easier. Technology requirements in the agricultural industry are also growing due to the increased awareness about product origin and process stability among consumers. Proper storage and distribution of the produce are also important factors that have led to increased use of IoT at the agricultural level.

Some examples of innovative use of IoT in agriculture

• Continuous monitoring of quantity and quality of the grain in silos
• Controlling irrigation and use of fertilizers for traditional and hydroponic agriculture
• Use of RFID sensors and egg detectors to analyze the behavior and plan remedies for the welfare of hens in poultry farms
• Use of multispectral images to analyze and control crop quality
• Use of neural networks, support vector machines, and electronic smell techniques to rapidly detect moldy apples in cold stores
• Use of an insect surveillance system in open fields using vibro-acoustic sensors

At the resource management end, IoT can create a 鈥榮mart鈥� farming environment. Using tools such as cloud computing, big data, multiple-communication-protocol management, artificial intelligence and distributed ledger technologies like Blockchain, the resources can be better utilized and produce increased. These tools can also improve the traceability and productivity of the manufacturing and packaging processes.

With the help of these tools, IoT can perform functions such as comprehensive analysis, predictions and recommendations. IoT can also execute task automation, considering historical and real-time information about crops, machinery, livestock, or humans. All these allow farmers and supply chain managers to foresee factors such as production levels, storage requirements, distribution, and supply chain plans. Such data enables supply chain heads to plan their strategies in advance.

At the storage end

IoT systems can be used to reduce wastage of food products at the storage and transportation ends. This also ensures improved food safety by the utilization of tools such as real-time temperature tracking sensors.听The sensors can also be used to manage temperatures in the storage facility. They can also be used to monitor other food safety parameters such as听moisture,听humidity, pH and odor.

IoT devices allow supply chain heads to trace and monitor goods from the production end right up to last-mile delivery. This helps the brands to gather granular and real-time data. This data can be used to improve both systems and processes, such as optimizing production and distribution schedules. By enabling supply chain heads to monitor food safety data points, the IoT systems assure active cold chain management. IoT for food supply chain management has helped organizations gain higher profits and improved customer satisfaction. It has also assisted supply chain heads to听save energy through efficient energy spending.

allow supply chain heads to manage warehouses, silos and other storage spaces efficiently. On-premises and cloud deployment of IoT applications allows integration of quality, production, and track-and-trace processes. This ensures direct control of warehouse automation equipment and managing high-volume warehouse operations. By integrating complex supply chain management with warehouse and distribution processes, IoT-based technology allows for the efficient handling of inventories remotely and in real-time. For example, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are used to maintain stocks and perform traceability tasks in storage facilities. For this purpose, some UAV-based systems make use of a scanner installed on the vehicle. The vehicle performs a pre-defined flight and the scanner reads听the barcodes.

The warehouse management system comes with the below-mentioned features to ensure safe storage and reduced wastage:

• Advanced shipment notification
• Maintenance, replenishment, slotting, and rearrangement of inventory
• Transportation wave management
• Packing control and process monitoring

At the delivery end

Another supply chain component where food products need extra care is the delivery and transportation process. With the help of an IoT-powered transportation logistics tool, this critical process can be streamlined in real-time and monitored remotely. For example, IoT-based applications such as QR codes and radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags can monitor goods’ movement. Other technologies such as Blockchain let supply chain heads trace a good throughout the entire cycle. These applications provide minute-by-minute visibility into transportation and ensure safe and cost-effective shipment of the product.

Further, Blockchain鈥檚 distributed ledger is almost impossible to alter, making it a perfect tool for maintaining a detailed record of the exchange of ownership that occurs throughout supply chains. Thus, IoT allows users to control and monitor risks cost-effectively and launch remedial measures to strengthen the supply chain process and prevent security breaches.

Some other essential features of IoT-based transportation management software are

• Tracking and monitoring transportation resources
• Forecasting supply and demand using enhanced computation models
• Improving transportation resource planning by stimulating scenarios to rectify and prevent imbalances
• Enhancing empty resource movement by finding the optimal locations and dates for the pick-up and return of transportation resources
• Setting up event-triggered alerts for timely warnings

• Automated selling

Food chains can use IoT-based transportation logistics tools to make convenient and timely deliveries to customers. Through efficient supply chain systems, stocks can be managed and replenished in time. IoT-based systems are also being used to directly sell the products to consumers, for example, at vending machines.

• E-tags

The use of e-tags can also prove time-saving and convenient for both customers and the service personnel at the stores. These e-tags are low-cost and use an electronic ink (e-Ink) display. These can be used during the transportation and storage of food items, where they help to monitor the stock. In retail food stores, they can help to monitor shelf life of food items to reduce spoilage and to maintain the inventory. E-tags can also be used for pricing in a store, since they are adaptable and can sync with different sensors in the store. For example, by adapting with a temperature sensor, e-tags can help implement a temperature-controlled inventory management and听supply chain听system.

• RFID tags

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags facilitate a circuit to broadcast information to an end-user user through a secure system network. RFID tags help retail owners to track and monitor consumer preferences, understand market requirements, and reduce wastage of resources. They can also be used to听track and trace perishable food items. Another critical function of the RFID technology is that it can identify the direction of tags. This is done through听RFID gates, which can determine whether the听products are being received or shipped through the gate.

The data听generated through RFID technology can then be used听to

• Personalize customer interactions
• Optimize product usage
• Plan future inventories
• Design store layout and shelf displays
• Manage category

This data is also valuable for retail owners. Through RFID data, they can get听information about the temperature and humidity history听of the product they are buying during the storage and transportation process.听This empowers stores to choose the best stocks for their businesses. The data also help the customers to make the right choice while buying a food item.

Through real-time data and analysis, IoT-based systems can notify retail food stores when to restock items. It also provides notifications and alerts about faults and errors in the system. This allows to strengthen the supply chain and maintain better coordination between retail stores and supply chain heads, helping reduce losses.

The owners of retail food outlets听can also get insights into consumer behavior through data such as time spent at a kiosk and comparisons made between brands. This feature听can help design marketing campaigns and assist in analyzing the impact of existing campaigns.

These benefits are being reaped from tools like sensors to gather data and analyze it, for example, for predicting in-store wait times for customers. All this allows听greater customer听satisfaction and eventually boosts profits.

• Smart vehicles for smart deliveries

The use of smart vehicles for food delivery can significantly reduce costs associated with operation, transportation, and product handling. For example, in times of the pandemic, a major hurdle for food delivery companies has been the restrictions on movement. People staying home because of the restrictions have also been hesitant to order food online, because of apprehensions of getting infected by the delivery personnel. Using IoT and smart vehicles for food delivery can be the solution for this. Smart vehicles such as drones reduce the need for human intervention, which has become necessary in the present-day scenario of the pandemic.

IoT can thus be used for more advanced functions, such as implementing 鈥榣ast mile鈥� solutions like self-driving vehicles and drones for delivery trips between food outlets and consumer homes. For example, Ericsson, Einride, and Telia have come together to produce self-driving trucks with the help of 5G-powered IoT at the facility of a logistics firm in Sweden. Self-driving cars and drones from Ford and Amazon are already being used for making deliveries. A famous pizza chain started delivering pizza to customers in Miami听using smart cars听a couple of years ago.听All these听benefits of IoT-based systems are helping听to serve customers better by reducing waiting times and delivery periods.

IoT will only get more embedded in the food supply chain as consumers become more conscious about ethical produce and fair price. And there鈥檚 every reason to believe this bodes well for every entity across the food value chain.

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The global health crisis also highlighted the weaknesses of traditional workflows in management and logistics: Manual, paper-based processes; siloed working and undefined roles; disparate and unstructured data; low or zero visibility of the end-to-end supply chain and logistics; lack of real-time monitoring, etc.

In the eye of the storm

The disruption also forced companies to relook their supply chain function end-to-end and figure out long-term measures to build resilience and agility. For instance, customers will continue to demand more in less time even after the pandemic is gone. But for companies to cope with this customer expectation, a drastic rethink of their supply chain management and logistics (SCML) is a must.

Here鈥檚 where technology plays a pivotal role, not only to provide intelligence and insights but also to enable new operational models. And Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Machine Learning (ML), Big Data analytics, and blockchain are some of the technologies that are rapidly redefining how SCML systems work.

How Supply Chain Heads are using AI and IoT

A well-managed supply chain is a crucial factor to gain advantage over the competition, especially in the present era where supply chains are intricate, spread worldwide, and decentralized. So, if AI earlier was only helping to address skills shortage and maintain inventories, the flexibility and adaptability of this technology is now allowing supply chain heads to be more innovative. From improving production planning to making more accurate forecasts, AI is allowing companies to minimize or eliminate errors completely.

AI, coupled with IoT, would allow supply chain heads to monitor and manage storage, transportation, supply chains, and warehouses efficiently and in real-time, without having to be physically present. These technologies also allow for planning and monitoring movement of goods so that unforeseen events (read pandemic, adverse weather conditions) can be managed well in advance.

Other immediate benefits of adopting digitalization and new technologies include:

• Smart scheduling and planning,
• Parameter optimization,
• Intelligent and proactive quality analysis,
• Proactive maintenance,
• Efficient analysis of maintenance and production costs along with precise estimation and control,
• Intelligent control of energy consumption and associated costs, and
• Real-time monitoring of production process and procedures.

What鈥檚 Next in SCML

As mentioned earlier,听traditional SCML systems have now proven to be struggling with ever-changing customer demand, rapidly evolving operations planning, and the constantly changing state of business processes.

In 2022, these technologies aim to overcome all these challenges more effectively through a range of activities including providing sales, production and consumption forecasting, supplier selection, and demand management using Artificial Neural Networks. These technologies would help businesses become proactive with capabilities like agent-based systems, which perceive the surrounding environment and can act autonomously and proactively solve certain problems.

Next year, AI and IoT are also expected to help businesses through improved supply chain efficiency implemented by using better managerial decision-making processes, including multi-objective optimization of supply chain networks, partner selection in green supply chain problems, multi-product supply chain networks, and a problem-solving approach to closed-loop supply chains.

Augmented Intelligence along with AI is expected to spike in use as it would help reduce manual effort, helping companies optimize costs while increasing worker productivity. According to听, it can create $2.9 trillion worth of business value and lead to an increase of 6.2 billion hours of worker productivity globally. By 2030, AI/Augmented intelligence is expected to surpass all other forms of AI initiatives. Essentially, this means professionals can do their work faster, reducing errors and saving costs.

IoT sensor technology will continue to play important roles and expand on its use cases. This technology helps track shipments. Connected IoT devices on consignments allow warehouses to track inventory, vehicles, and equipment through cloud services. Collaboration between IoT start-ups and container shipping companies are expected to increase next year given the inherent benefits, including real-time monitoring and predictive capabilities.

The need for real-time data will only increase. From gauging customer sentiments and trends to ensuring timely deliveries, data will play a critical role in deriving intelligent insights that drive strategic decisions.听Machine learning-enabled risk assessment tools, for instance, can find patterns in geopolitical tensions, macroeconomic shifts, exchange rates, and other data.

According to听, IoT is important because emerging supply chain techniques need the freshest, most accurate data. And being able to predict consumer shifts, more than demand, will become increasingly important post-pandemic.

The Experience Economy and Changing Paradigm

The consumer, today, no longer stops expecting once a good is purchased. The demand continues long after 鈥� the customer experience has become critical and sustaining a good customer experience has become central to this theme. But for businesses grappling with supply chain disruptions, how can sustaining good customer experience be a real possibility?

Digitalization of supply chain management and logistics allows this: where processes and systems that support mass personalization can be deployed; where collaboration with non-traditional ecosystem partners makes it possible to deliver higher value, and where efficient order fulfillment and delivery become par for the course.

Moving Ahead with SAP

The 51风流digital supply chain management (DSCM) software allows enterprises to move from transactional SCLM to a digital, sustainable, strategy-led approach that will help them counteract unforeseen disruptions with agility and data-driven insights.

51风流offers听听software and tools, that allow for:

• Real-time insights into the supply chain,
• Identifying bottlenecks, and
• Mitigating risks as they arise with on-premises and cloud logistics management systems from SAP.

An integrated cloud-ready portfolio allows:

• Collaborative supply chain network
• Integrating business planning
• Optimizing inventory
• Procurement and supplier management
• Predictive analytics, AI, and Machine Learning
• Sustainably plan for ethically sourced material

And all these are achieved through predictive analytics, automation, and IoT capabilities, enabling resilient and sustainable supply chain management processes.

Specialized programs for various aspects of the supply chain management and logistics systems from 51风流also give businesses a large number of options to choose from, depending on their needs. These programs include the following:

1. 听provides real-time visibility into transportation resources to allow businesses to fulfill their customer demands at minimal cost. The program integrates advanced analytics on historic data with forecasting capabilities to accurately forecast and monitor resource supply and demand.
2. 听is a program that allows a business to manage high-volume warehouse operations and integrate complex supply chain logistics with warehouse and distribution processes. Businesses can optimize inbound logistics management, storage and operations, and outbound logistics management.
3. 听is an open logistics network that connects business partners for intercompany collaboration and insights. It provides a central entry point to manage logistics transactions, exchange documents with key business partners, and gain transparency across the complete value chain through an open 鈥榥etwork of networks鈥� strategy. It also allows for freight logistics collaboration, global track and trace options to monitor purchase, sales, and delivery fulfillment, as well as helping notify stakeholders of changes; and cross-company real-time alerts and notifications for product issues that also streamlines recalls.
4. 听program helps businesses run more efficient and profitable supply chain logistics to maximize visibility into all yard processes and preview planned workloads with a range of visualization and reporting tools.
5. 听program helps reduce transportation complexity by integrating fleet and logistics management throughout the business鈥� network. The program also provides real-time visibility into global transportation and domestic shipping across all transportation modes and industries.

As companies now demand greater agility in their supply chain processes and practices, they are beginning to realize that digital transformation is a necessity. There鈥檚 no getting away from the fact that global value chains are here to stay for good, but supply chain heads will need to juggle the demand for agility and efficiency with sustainability mandates while making a steady recovery from COVID-induced afflictions.

Supply chain sustainability means being able to manage environmental, social, and economic impacts with good governance practices. And here鈥檚 where 51风流DSCM can help. By adopting an end-to-end sustainability mission as part of its solution strategy (from design to decommissioning)听听ensures that the key principles of sustainability are embedded in it. This ultimately addresses the three areas customers focus on 鈥損eople, planet, and profit.

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