Register for the SAP Innovation Day for Supply Chain on June 19, 2025
Planning is an integral part of our daily lives, often occurring without our conscious awareness. Whether it’s deciding when to leave the house to arrive at work on time, budgeting for a vacation, or making a grocery list, we seamlessly incorporate planning into our routines. Unbeknownst to us, we have all become unconscious planning experts. However, the notion of applying these everyday planning experiences to supply chain planning can often seem daunting. This blog aims to demystify supply chain planning and inspire supply chain innovation within a straightforward context.
Falling Behind: The Consequences of Insufficient Innovation in a Rapidly Changing Market
When planning a trip, we often have a general idea of the type of vacation we desire—whether it be a city tour, a ski adventure, or a seaside getaway. We also understand what to pack in preparation, establishing a clear outline of our expectations and requirements. However, the most time-consuming aspect involves refining the finer details. Decisions about which excursions to undertake, prioritizing activities, considering seasonal availability, selecting accommodations, and estimating travel times all require significant attention. Before finalizing the itinerary, booking hotels, and confirming excursions, one can easily spend hours, if not days, in planning. This does not even account for the numerous adjustments needed if a hotel is fully booked or an excursion is unavailable due to seasonal constraints.
Often, there is a lack of consolidated information to provide a comprehensive overview, making it difficult to compare options and make optimal decisions tailored to your specific needs and circumstances. Translating this scenario to a corporate context, where the efficiency of business operations relies on visibility into market conditions, seasonal impacts, production capabilities, and material availability, the stakes are considerably higher—yet such visibility is frequently lacking.
Imagine having a travel agent capable of addressing all critical questions and accounting for potential trip disruptions. Or having access to a website that consolidates your entire travel itinerary, contacts, and costs, with the ability to compare different travel scenarios based on cost, satisfaction, and sustainability. All this without spending days planning a single trip.
Embedded AI enhancing administrative and operational efficiency
This is precisely what SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) offers for your supply chain planning operations. With a built-in planning assistant named Joule, SAP IBP provides instant visibility into all your planning queries and acts as a navigation aid, directing you to the necessary applications and information. It also issues alerts for potential changes to your plans. This support ensures you can optimize your planning, stay informed with real-time information, and maintain an overview of current planning operations without extensive searching.
Specific AI functionalities of SAP IBP that support this include:
- Automatic Outlier Correction
- Advanced Forecasting Algorithms
- Customer Service Level Prediction
- Supply Chain Network Optimization
- Embedded JOULE
By leveraging AI, organizations can enhance visibility, streamline automation, and boost agility, leading to more resilient and future-proof business processes. AI empowers companies to adapt quickly and maintain a competitive edge in a rapidly changing environment. These capabilities are enabled through the sophisticated embedded AI SAP IBP.
SAP Innovation Day for Supply Chain
Don’t let planning challenges hold back your supply chain’s potential. With SAP Integrated Business Planning and advanced AI capabilities, you can transform your operations into agile, competitive powerhouses. Uncover the future of supply chain innovation at the SAP Innovation Day for Supply Chain on June 19. Register now and take the first step toward a smarter, more resilient future.
