AIOPs: Why supply chain leaders should care

Resilience and agility: that’s what supply chain professionals are hoping to achieve from their technology investments in 2021 and beyond. A recent Gartner survey polled 1,300 respondents worldwide, and found that 87% plan investments in supply chain resiliency within the next two years and slightly more (89%) intend to invest in agility. 

At the same time, six out of ten admit that their supply chains have not been designed for resilience and agility, but for cost-efficiency. The challenge then, says Gartner, will be to create an operating model for supply chains that combines the best of both worlds and also delivers supreme customer service. 

At Avantra, we also know that one of the most regular complaints we hear from supply chain professionals is that the costly, sophisticated SAP systems that their company has already invested in – often over many, many years – simply isn’t performing well. This shows up in:

• Too much/too little inventory
• Delays to production schedules 
• Inability to take advantage of fluctuating component prices or exchange rates 
• Regular order errors
• Late deliveries to customers

When core SAP systems and related supply chain/logistics applications hit a wall, there’s little hope of resilience and agility and the whole business suffers as a result.  

At the same time, inventory and supply chain management systems, and the wider business processes they support, are often extremely complex and interdependent. That can make it extremely difficult for supply chain executives and their colleagues in the IT department to accurately pinpoint systems problems and resolve them quickly. 

This is where Avantra comes in. By using AI and machine learning to underpin IT systems monitoring and remediation, our AIOps - artificial intelligence for operations - technology drills deeply into the SAP systems and related applications that underpin core supply chain processes, remediate issues and ensure those systems run optimally, in order to drive business success.  

This enables supply chain executives to plan production runs and logistics with confidence and, importantly, enables them to respond quickly and smartly to unexpected external disruption without worrying that underlying IT systems aren’t functioning as intended.

To get involved, supply chain leaders don’t need a computer science degree or an intimate understanding of IT operations - just a willingness to collaborate with IT and explore the options available. It’s time for line of business leaders to proactively recognize and support the requirement for highly functional IT systems, managed by their IT counterparts.

To find out more about how Avantra can help organizations connect the dots between line-of-business performance and IT operations, read our E-book "The Road to Business Success and AIOPs: Why Business Leaders Should Care".