While the need for resilient supply chains has been a consistent rallying cry over the past year, resiliency does not happen on its own. It requires the ability to respond to change and rapidly deliver value.
This includes the ability to prioritize and utilize software to areas of the business that need it most. This kind of transformation requires new technologies that unlock new ways of running a business and staying ahead of an industry.
Reflecting on the importance of supply chain transformation, we began the work at SAP to support this cross-industry need to offer modularity with our technology, helping customers attain agility and flexibility as well as speed time to value.
In this environment, transformation needs to be bite-sized, following the speed that best suits a customer’s needs and timelines.
Our answer to these needs is the introduction of SAP Digital Supply Chain Management, edition for SAP S/4HANA. A composable package of solutions for supply chain professionals, the edition can be deployed independently from other solution implementations. This means it can easily serve as a stepping-stone to broader enterprise transformation offered through SAP S/4HANA, while helping customers focus on their immediate supply chain needs: logistics, manufacturing, planning, and operations.
With the modularity and interoperability of the edition of SAP Digital Supply Chain Management for SAP S/4HANA, companies can quickly implement essential capabilities to address immediate disruption threats with long-term sustained benefits beyond those threats. The user experience benefits from seamless, cross-functional integration vertically and horizontally for end-to-end scenarios and can be deployed in the cloud for greater agility and accelerated time to value spanning the complete plan-to-fulfill cycle.
Addressing critical supply chain capabilities quickly means the journey toward broader transformation with SAP S/4HANA can be taken incrementally.
Reflecting the reality that supply chains are networked businesses, our new offering integrates seamlessly with SAP Logistics Business Network to offer complete visibility for execution as well as capabilities to simulate and effect changes.
Among the many rich capabilities included in the edition are:
- SAP S/4HANA Manufacturing for production engineering and operations
- SAP S/4HANA Manufacturing for planning and scheduling
- SAP Transportation Management and SAP Extended Warehouse Management
- SAP Service Parts Planning
SAP Digital Supply Chain Management, edition for SAP S/4HANA, will seamlessly work with our other products such as SAP Integrated Business Planning, SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud, SAP Logistics Business Network, and SAP S/4HANA.
It’s an exciting time for supply chain; its critical role means it can now be an accelerator toward business transformation.
Franz Hero is head of SAP Digital Supply Chain Development.
