The research addresses some chronic problems that exist in supply chain planning today:

• Over half of companies surveyed in the research have limited or no ability to understand trade-off decisions.
• Although 79% of companies use spreadsheets for planning, the majority of companies say they make it more difficult to manage their supply chain planning process.
• Less than half of companies using spreadsheets collaborate effectively in their planning process, and only a fourth have supply chain plans that are integrated with manufacturing, procurement or sales.
• Only 47% of companies have accurate supply plans.

The research advises that by leveraging prescriptive analytics technology for the supply chain planning process, all of the above problems can be addressed. Prescriptive technology is able to transform an inefficient, complex, silo’d process into a process that drives agile, collaborative, optimized decision-making. The research also stresses the importance of linking financial data to operational decisions in order to understand the cost and profit implications of every decision while appropriately accounting for financial constraints and KPIs.

Download the research perspective via this link.