In its recent report, ALM Vanguard Supply Chain Planning Consulting, ALM Intelligence found that companies look to consultants to help them align and synchronize their cross-functional planning activities through operating model and process design, but they increasingly seek opportunities to use data — made available by the ongoing digitization of their supply chains — to improve supply chain planning performance.
A major focus of consultants is helping clients to extract more value from existing ERP-based planning systems, which have proven inflexible in meeting actual business requirements. While the solution can be as simple as Excel spreadsheets, more complex environments benefit from new cloud-based software solutions that scrape and shape data from existing systems and enable a master data set or single source of truth from which the entire organization can make more informed decisions from planning through execution.
With this digital infrastructure in place, companies can begin to use their data more strategically, that is, not only in pursuit of reducing cost and inefficiency but also in enabling distinctive capabilities that support growth by improving lead times and service levels. Consultants are helping companies embed powerful new analytical tools and methods that enable planning organizations to streamline and improve their processes. The two areas ripest for applying planning analytics are in improving demand forecasting accuracy and improving organizational responsiveness to changing market conditions.
