New Horizons: An Outline of the SAPinsider Digital Supply Management New Research Approach

I’m reading a book titled The Barons of the Sea, which is an account of the 19th century merchants and trading companies that battled for supremacy in importing tea from China in exchange for shipments of opium. The goal of these entrepreneurs was to find a way to shorten a traditional six-month journey from China to New York so that they could be first to market and increase their revenues. The solution for their challenge was the emergence of the clipper ship.

In today’s business world this theme is being echoed as enterprises face challenges to remain competitive as they cope with the rapid pace of change led by the emergence of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, big data and analytics, blockchain, cloud platforms, and machine learning. Supply chain executives need to leverage these new technologies to improve their demand-driven supply planning, product development, logistics, and other processes throughout their supply chains. This is their journey of digital transformation.

This month the teams at SAPinsider are also starting on a journey toward a new approach to publishing data-led research reports and other content to help you in your efforts to become a more agile, intelligent enterprise. These reports will be driven by our DART™  methodology:

• Drivers: These are macro-level events that are impacting an organization. They can be both external and internal and require the implementation of strategic plans, people, processes and systems.
• Actions: These are strategies that companies can implement to address the drivers’ impact on the business. These are the integration of people, processes, and technologies.
• Requirements: These are business- and process-level requirements to support the strategies.
• Technologies: These are technology- and systems-related requirements that enable the business requirements and support the overall strategies that the company is taking.

Within SAPinsider Digital Supply Chain Management we will publish content in five stores. The five stores comprise:

• Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Networking, and Procurement
• Supply and Demand Chain Planning and Execution
• Manufacturing Resource Planning and Execution and Asset Management
• Warehouse Systems, Labeling Systems, and Transportation Planning and Execution
• Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), CAD/CAM, Product Development Management (PDM)

We will also publish a weekly newsletter containing an SAPinsider research-led feature article, summaries of news and announcements pertaining to the supply chain space, and a list of helpful resources on specific supply chain topics.

Our SCM research team, led by Sahir Anand, Chief Research Officer and Distinguished Analyst, Kevin Guilano, Junior Analyst, and yours truly leading the research-led editorial content, will produce the latest data-led content on key areas such as digital transformation of your supply chain, intelligent asset management, the smart warehouse, and manufacturing with Industry 4.0.  Our first report is titled “Digital Transformation in the Supply Chain.” The survey for this report will be released in February, and the report will be published prior to our marquee industry events in March (for more information about these events, click here).

We hope this content will help you keep pace with the fast evolution of today’s business processes and find ways to ease pain points you may have on your organization’s journey to becoming an intelligent enterprise.

We look forward to providing you with valuable information throughout this year and many years to follow.

If you would like to discuss leading digital SCM industry trends and technology issues, feel free to email us at gary.byrne@wispubs.com, sahir.anand@wispubs.com and Kevin.Guiliano@wispubs.com. Follow us on Twitter: @SAPinsider, @sahiranand.