On the night of April 14, 1912, the crew of the RMS Titanic saw the iceberg that was bearing down on them. They just didn’t see it in time to get out of its way.

The unpredictable events facing global supply chain process owners may be less dramatic, but they can still be disastrous. No matter how advanced and comprehensive a supply chain solution is upon its adoption, the business environment in which it operates remains unpredictable. And that’s a problem.

Supply chain professionals must constantly hustle to keep up with that unpredictability. No one could foresee the chaos that COVID would cause at west coast ports in the US, or the standstill in international shipping that resulted from war in the Red Sea. Unexpected jumps in customer demand, the sudden bankruptcy of a key supplier, or even trucks that don’t arrive as scheduled can also disrupt daily operations. By continually enhancing and expanding their supply chain management platform, you can become more resilient, reduce costs and be ready for whatever life throws your way.

It affects all manufacturers
Preparing supply chains for the unexpected is a challenge that is as broad as it is complex. It affects not just transportation and logistics companies, but all manufacturers in both discrete and process industries, energy production and distribution, and more. Each key player in an organization – including the CFO and COO – has a distinctive view and role to play. Sometimes, there’s no disaster to spur supply chain enhancements – just the knowledge that costs are too high to maintain competitive advantage and support profitable business growth.

How a manufacturer prepares its supply chain solution for the unexpected depends, in part, on the maturity of its current solution. If you’re happy with your existing supply-chain platform, you might only need a point solution to enhance or fill functional gaps. Alternatively, manufacturers with outdated or suboptimal systems might want to adopt a fully new platform. This could be in line with a fresh supply chain strategy, a wider transition to the cloud or to enjoy the ask-an-expert benefits of Microsoft Copilot to streamline troubleshooting and reporting for your teams.

Supply chain meets AI – and more
The Avanade Intelligent Supply Chain platform and series of point solutions are a great choice for manufacturers regardless of the maturity of their current technology. It builds on existing supply chain solutions, like SAP and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. It incorporates advanced intelligent technologies, including generative AI, the Internet of Things (IoT), digital twins, virtual reality, blockchain, vision detection and real-time location tracking. All these are unified by consistent data models and bolstered by the reliability of cloud infrastructure. This means you can:

• Start your journey anywhere with a solution that addresses your most immediate pain point.
• Create new value at every step of your digital journey by focusing on clear business outcomes.
• Leverage a digital ecosystem that goes beyond the enterprise to create interconnected value chains with suppliers, partners, customers, and others.

The result is a supply-chain transformation that delivers the insights, agility, speed and sustainability that manufacturers need to make better business decisions, extract greater returns from your investments and meet business goals. This isn’t a solution just for the largest companies. Smaller and mid-sized companies may have an even greater need for such solutions, to punch above their weight against larger competitors.

Manufacturers see financial and operational benefits
The financial and operational benefits of Avanade Intelligent Supply Chain are real – and are being realized right now. Industrial manufacturers report seeing stronger and faster ROI on average than most other initiatives. Typical metrics include:

• 2% to 4% reduction in the Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)
• 10% lower logistics and freight costs
• 40% enhanced shipment arrival predictions
• 3% to 5% decrease in revenue at risk
• Carbon footprint reduction
• 5% to 8% improvement in team productivity
• 70% increase in fulfillment accuracy
• 20% and 15% reduction in production and holding costs

Avanade works with companies including:

• A global fashion retailer that is now able to fill cargo trucks more efficiently and reduce the total number of trips they need to take, lowering CO2 emissions and fuel use, improving warehouse efficiency and decreasing transportation costs with AI, the IoT, Microsoft Azure Digital Twins, computer vision and edge computing.
• An aircraft maintenance company that has doubled the percentage of work orders that can be processed in less than 30 days without raising costs using Avanade code accelerators and big data machine learning capabilities.
• The Nordic logistics company that is predicting shipment dates for inventory with accuracy improvement by a factor or three and average deviation from shipment date cut in half using supply-chain analytics based on transit, inventory and shipping-date data.

How can we help you reinvent resilience?
Want to join the list of companies that benefit from the Avanade Intelligent Supply Chain platform and catalog of point solutions? We can help you decide how to maximize value realization from your existing investments, benefit from Microsoft Copilot or custom generative AI solution in addition to Microsoft Power BI dashboards to help you prepare for whatever’s ahead.

For information on our one-day workshops, assessment and architecture engagements, accelerators and solutions, please contact me via manufacturing@avanade.com.

Read our ebook – Resiliency in the making – to discover how to turn adversity to advantage.