Built for impact

Getting ahead of change with a disruption-ready digital supply chain

Digitally driven business is an imperative in today’s uncertain landscape, but to thrive organizations will need digital supply chains that can anticipate disruption and evolve in lockstep with change all while prioritizing sustainability and responsible practices.

At Deloitte, such capabilities are part of our vision for the Kinetic Supply Chain a built-to-evolve supply chain enabled by a clean-core ERP, intelligent technologies, responsive cloud solutions, and an inclusive ecosystem of capabilities. Kinetic Supply Chain capabilities can allow you to see issues and opportunities before they arise and to take action sooner.

Envisioning the future

Ultimately, it’s about flexibility which can be elusive for many organizations. While optimizing supply chains over the years, some companies may have gained efficiencies without gaining the flexibility that they need in today’s environment. For example, they may have gotten down to one or two key suppliers instead of 20, but they may not have the ability to sense the need for new suppliers, in the event of a regional fuel or material shortage, for example. They also may lack the ability to seamlessly and quickly integrate any new suppliers into their digital ecosystem. And at the same time, they may lack visibility into what those suppliers will mean for their carbon footprint, their sustainability goals, and their impact on the planet.

With a Kinetic Supply Chain covering planning, procurement, distribution, and operations you can proactively address many of those challenges and become “disruption ready.” More than a vision, the Kinetic Supply Chain is real, and you can see it in action at The Smart Factory @ Wichita At this full-fledged manufacturing facility, housed in a net-zero-impact building, Deloitte, SAP, and others are collaborating to solve real business needs and understand what it takes to build and scale flexible digital supply chains. Contact SAP@deloitte.com to schedule a visit or to get more insights on enabling a built-to-evolve digital supply chain.

SAP’s Sam Castro on AI and risk resilience in manufacturing

Risk resilience and sustainability in the supply chain

When you talk about risk resilience at SAP, it’s about how to handle the real world, not setting up a plan and adhering to it day in and day out.

“You would like it to be like clockwork, for sure,” says Castro. “Where everything always aligns and meshes the way that it's supposed to all the time, every second. But we know that's not always the case.”

Weather events, pandemics, labour shortages or large sporting events can cause supply chain issues. For Castro, resiliency is the byproduct of having to have to handle these off-topic or out-of-sync scenarios and the ability to detect that you're out of sync with the original plan and react to it in a coordinated manner.

“The faster you can do that, the faster you can correct that problem,” says Castro. “Then you’re able to identify how often those deviations occur — that frequency of occurrence, that is your opportunity.”

Being able to quantify that opportunity and understand what those little deviations actually add up to, and how that impacts the business financially, is one of the key topics around what customers will hear about resiliency from SAP, says Castro.

“Sustainability is an overlay to that, sustainability is a byproduct of efficiency,” says Castro. “Being a sustainable enterprise means that you're an efficient enterprise.