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Smarter supply chains for an unpredictable world

Limit supply chain disruption—and proactively plan for market shifts—with AI-augmented capabilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed supply chain vulnerabilities that exist in virtually every sector and industry. It has demonstrated that even a small disruption in the intertwined, multifaceted modern supply chain can have dramatic effects.

The pandemic created supply, demand, and logistics challenges that required immediate action, forcing supply chain executives to re-chart their courses. According to our recent supply chain study, which included inquiries specific to the pandemic, some of the more effective short-term tactics include reallocating production lines to other products, rebalancing existing workforces, shutting down production, and finding alternate logistics modes and providers.

Most effective short-term strategies in response to COVID-19 disruption

Most effective short-term strategies

In the wake of the pandemic, 93 percent of organizations have faced challenges associated with demand volatility. To better anticipate and navigate disruption and volatility, organizations need smarter, more agile supply chains. The first step toward achieving this goal is through continuous intelligent planning (CIP), an approach that enhances integrated business planning with continuous and collaborative planning using AI-augmented capabilities. They enable “always-on” capabilities at the enterprise level, providing continuity in dynamic markets and the ability to shift from reactive to more flexible “sense and respond” operations.

In the wake of the pandemic, 93 percent of organizations have faced challenges associated with demand volatility.

Modernize supply chain planning

Intelligent workflows, increased agility, and integrated continuous demand management are crucial elements of the modern supply chain. CIP can guide organizations in the proactive preparation and ongoing collaboration necessary to create a dynamic, responsive, insight-driven supply chain.

CIP offers a path to both efficiency and proactive preparation for future global trade complexities and unexpected physical and security disruptions. CIP includes AI-augmented supply chain planning capabilities that complement other enterprise solutions—and can sense and respond to market changes affecting the supply chain. Through modern, intelligent demand planning, CIP can help address challenges in visibility, forecasting, workflows, and collaboration.

For example, a supply chain control tower–a connected, personalized dashboard of data, key business metrics and events across the supply chain–enables organizations to more fully understand, prioritize, and resolve critical issues. Combining the power of control towers with connected and integrated enterprise, partner, external, and device data enables organizations to see where their products are–in real time and in full view–across the world. AI capabilities can turn unstructured real-time data into insights that help predict disruptions. And the control tower’s end-to-end view can both uncover short-term vulnerabilities and help gauge up and downstream impacts for long-term decisions.

By enhancing integrated business planning with continuous collaborative planning and AI-augmented capabilities, your organization can make the leap from continuously reacting to supply chain challenges to proactively planning for the future. Get started by taking four key steps to implementing continuous intelligent planning for your organization:

  1. Transform your planning experience
  2. Establish a center of excellence
  3. Leverage a visibility control tower
  4. Engage a modern planning architecture

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Meet the authors

Jonathan Wright

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, Managing Partner, Supply Chain and Finance Transformation, Sustainability, IBM


Takshay Aggarwal

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, Global Lead Supply Chain Practice, IBM Consulting


Amar Sanghera

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, Global Lead, Cognitive Process Reengineering Supply Chain Center of Competency


Jessica Scott

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, Global Supply Chain Offering Manager, Cognitive Process Reengineering Supply Chain Center of Competency

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    Originally published 14 August 2020