________________________________________________________________________________________________ Global Strategy
▲ John Buckley its ability to plan amid the new normal of repeated disruption, it also becomes a more efficient, unified operation across the board. The front office and the back office become one office.
Start small but start now
It’ s not easy to do, but we’ ve seen customers benefit. One, a toilet-paper maker, was able to withstand whipsawing coronavirusera demand because of the improved visibility their cloud ERP enabled. More recently, a high-tech customer considering potential tariffs as well as critical-mineral shortages, drastically sped up and improved its contingency planning and strategic prioritization without having to deploy a small army of data jockeys to crunch the numbers.
The grand notion of value chain visibility in the name of resilience, agility, and profitability can seem daunting. If you’ re just embarking on that journey, start with a specific problem. Maybe it’ s improving day sales outstanding. Maybe it’ s improving the way you exchange data with your key suppliers, or how you track ESG metrics, or how demand sensing feeds back into manufacturing and the supply chain. There are lots of options. Given the disruptions ahead, CPGs should be exploring them. ■
Shady Ghattas and John Buckley www. sap. com / products / scm. html
Shady Ghattas is SAP’ s global VP and head of the consumer products business unit. He is a trusted advisor for the consumer products industry; accelerating innovation and drives profitable and sustainable growth. John Buckley is SAP’ s Midwest Consumer Products Industry Advisor, providing industry perspective, strategic solution advice, and thought leadership to support key priorities for SAP’ s new and existing customer base.
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