How reinventing
the supply chain
can transform theplanner role

In today’s shape-shifting world, companies need to do
more than just meet customer needs — they need to
anticipate them. Customers want on-demand access toproducts that are specifically tailored to their preferences.
In response, companies and their supply chains need to
be able to deliver as fast as customers think. This needfor greater agility, while being mindful of the bottom line,
places pressure on supply chain planning and the planners
who are expected to keep pace within an ever-accelerating
environment.
In a recent EY survey of more than 500 senior-level
executives from companies across the Americas withmore than US$1b in revenues, 53% of respondents said
that fast-changing customer preferences require supply
chains that can turn on a dime. In consumer products andautomotive, responses were even higher (68% and 65%,respectively).
The same study suggested that the top two mostimportant factors in creating a successful supply chain
were end-to-end visibility and real-time responsivenessto external and internal factors because markets areexpecting supply chains to move at supersonic speeds.
In fact, more than half of all respondents agreed thatthe ability for supply chains to respond in real time wasan imperative. For automotive, consumer products andretailers, the imperative was more acute — 82%, 79% and77%, respectively.
For many companies, this velocity of change can beoverwhelming. It is particularly true when global supply
chains are exposed to geopolitical uncertainty, trade andtariff disruptions among disagreeing nations, and theever-present threat of natural disasters and pandemics.

Cascaded planning and legacy systems hobble today’s supply chains

Much of the challenge for companies is that the current states of their supply chains, planning capabilities, organization
structures, processes and systems are ill-equipped for today’s business environment. This, in turn, places an undue burden onplanners, who have to contend with greater workloads, complexity and frustration with planning as a career path. Let’s look atsome of the reasons.

Sequential supply chains and cascaded planning
Many companies still operate under a sequential supply chain model, where information and materials move insequence from one supply chain partner to the next rather than moving across a connected supply chain network.
Without the connectivity, companies have neither end-to-end visibility nor the capacity for real-time responsivenessto customer demands.

Outdated technologies
This lack of visibility is exacerbated by outdated technologies, including spreadsheets. Organizations struggle to deliver
solutions that respond in real time to changes in supply chains. In a recent current state analysis of a Fortune 100
manufacturer, we found the organization had nearly 200 spreadsheets supporting supply chain planning.

Disparate systems
A series of waterfall deployments of systems that failed to live up to their full potential has left companies withdisparate, disconnected systems that have made it increasingly difficult to effectively manage supply chain
operations and sustain data quality. Similar to outdated technologies, disparate systems limit a company’s capacity
for real-time responsiveness.

Siloed structures and processes
From an organizational and process perspective, centralized supply chain planning has existed for decades, yetorganizational structures and processes continue to remain siloed, further impacting visibility and inhibiting theability to anticipate and deliver on customer needs before they know what they need.

Misaligned key performance indicators (KPIs)
Some companies have different leadership hierarchies for planning, production and even logistics. Plant leaders havetheir own goals related to asset utilization and throughput, while planning leadership’s focus is often on flexibility
and lower inventory. These competing priorities typically lead to competing KPIs and misaligned goals — all of which
influences the customer experience.
In an environment where product life cycles are getting shorter and mass customization is the new norm, these types of supply
chain planning challenges — and the lack of visibility and real-time responsiveness — in many cases lead to competing objectives,
wasted resources, lack of agility and fragmented data. Add to that global threats stemming from political and economic
uncertainty, globalization of organizations and teams, and an increasing importance regarding environmental impacts, not tomention rising regulatory burdens, particularly in emerging markets, and it is easy to see why companies are struggling to adapt
to today’s fast-moving business landscape.

2| How reinventing the supply chain can transform the planner role

Concurrent planning offers real-time, end-to-end visibility
and responsiveness
Fortunately, there is another way. For companies looking to reinvent their planning processes, a transition to concurrent planning
can make all the difference. With concurrent planning, a company’s entire supply chain is always in sync, thanks to a single
platform for all planning functions. Concurrent planning instantly and continuously balances a company’s end-to-end supply
chain, allowing for greater responsiveness and overarching visibility. Supply, demand, capacity and inventory, and even sales
and operations planning and integrated business planning are all aligned. Information is available in real time, and everyone has
instantaneous access to the people, data and results they need. Specifically:

Supply chain planning no longer relies on a sequential process.
With the interconnected nature of concurrent planning, all business functions within the organization are able
to collaborate throughout the process. This enables teams to quickly address pain points. It also decreases
lag times, leading to more efficient processes. In other words, companies can actualize end-to-end real-timeplanning.

Concurrent planning enables centralized planning.
Instead of certain data sets sitting with the demand team and another data set sitting with supply, concurrent
planning gives all functions access to the same information, allowing for centralized planning.

Breaking down silos facilitates shared KPIs across planning, manufacturing, salesand marketing.
Breaking down the silos of the past empowers organizations to set KPIs that span more than one business
function, with a greater understanding of the trade-offs throughout the network. This allows the organization
to frequently work toward common goals and common objectives, instead of disrupting one for the sake ofanother.
Using a centralized, global system of record to manage all planning functions, companies can unify supply chain planning acrosstime horizons, processes, information granularity and organizational boundaries. Meanwhile, using artificial intelligence (AI)and robotic process automation, companies can automate time-consuming, repetitive processes and tasks, freeing up scarce
resources to focus on more strategic objectives.
Near-real-time data across supply chain partners and functions, real-time plant monitoring and intelligent machines that remove
the requirement for boots on the ground at plants or in the regions provide instantaneous, end-to-end visibility responsiveness.
In addition, systems that offer robust “what if” scenario analysis improve the speed and efficiency of organizational decisionmaking.
The benefits of networked supply chains and concurrent planning across the organization are clear:

Greater network agility

Increased cost avoidance

Better use of resources

Improved crossenterprise collaboration

Capability to respond tothreats and opportunities

Better businessperformance to plan

Enhanced forecast
accuracy

How reinventing the supply chain can transform the planner role |3Reinventing supply chain planning leads to the evolution of thenetwork planner
Traditionally, the life of the supply chain planner has notbeen an enviable one. For years, skills such as “ability tonegotiate,” “ability to work in a dynamic environment,” “abilityto synthesize data from multiple sources” and “ability to work
independently and be a self-starter” have been key criteria in
job descriptions.
These required skills have highlighted the stressful, sometimes
unsupported and data-starved nature of the role over the past
several years. Distribution and production planners have had
to gather data from disparate systems and spreadsheets, andfirefight and negotiate with production schedulers who often
have different KPIs, agendas and supervisors at their likewise
stressful roles at plants. Further, demand planners have been
traditionally located closer to customers and sales, while
supply has been located closer to the manufacturing base.
Unfortunately, this has led to atrophy as planners are cut off
from ready support, onboarding and continuous improvement
training. As such, it is of little surprise that the supply chain
planning role has a large turnover rate. Our survey of supply
chain leaders suggested that a lack of skilled employees was
the no. 2 obstacle to meeting supply chain goals.

4

As a consequence, when an organization reimagines its
supply chain planning model, it makes sense to also consider
reimagining the role of the supply chain planner. Under aconcurrent planning model, where the company’s entire supply
chain is always in sync, planners have access to information,
people and processes in real time through interconnected,
networked systems. It eliminates silos, automates repetitive
tasks and aligns KPIs.
Planners go from functionally siloed data gatherers focusedon only demand, supply, inventory or production to becoming
network planners with a network-wide view of both demandand supply considerations, and the impact of their demand andsupply decisions, all of which makes planners more productive,engaged and willing to see supply chain planning as a career
rather than a dead-end job. It will also allow companies toaddress their supply chain talent shortage by using existing
resources more effectively. Additionally, they’ll be able toattract and retain top talent. It’s a win-win for everyone.

| How reinventing the supply chain can transform the planner role

Talent for the future network planner

Advances in supply chain technologies and supply chain
concepts must be matched by advances in talent management
capabilities. This includes accessing new sources of talentthrough the gig economy. Future supply chain professionals
must drive the organization’s strategy rather than justthe supply chain strategy, and having the right people onyour team is essential. To help clients assess their talentstrategy, we have identified a framework of four personas
that will be vital to the future supply chain. Rather than each
persona being an individual, it’s more likely that the supply
chain professionals of the future will have a mix of these
personas and getting the right mix in your team will be vital toembracing the network planner approach.

Four future personas for the supply chain

Orchestrator

The technologist will work to design, configure,
implement and maintain emerging technologies suchas robotics, AI and machine learning tools. With ahigh aptitude in data and emerging technology, thetechnologist understands whether a human capabilityor technology solution is required. Where emerging
technology is a suitable option, technologists will thendetermine how best to deploy and manage it. They
will enable the rapid integration of new supply chain
partners and reconfigure machine learning algorithms
to incorporate new demand data. They embrace
disruption and seek opportunities to pioneer technology
to the business.

The orchestrator unlocks opportunities for improvementand drives internal and external collaboration froma holistic view of the ecosystem. If you are breaking
down the silos in the supply chain and you have datathat provides end-to-end visibility, you will need theskills to be able to understand that end-to-end view anddecide what to do with it. Orchestrators maintain a deep
understanding across operations and external partners,
and make key business decisions based on their insight
into interdependencies, cause and effect. They workwith customers to optimize ordering behavior and canmake decisions based on all pertinent factors.

AnalystThe analyst drives data-led modeling and scenario
planning to assess their impacts on the supply chain.
Analysts possess the conceptual analysis skills
to approach scenarios with a logical, systematic
perspective and the process analysis skills to identify
gaps that could be filled by technology or changes
in business approach. Using advanced analytics,
they model different scenarios to test them anddrive business decisions. For instance, they may
highlight gaps in material availability for emerging
supply scenarios, which then triggers an automatedcommunication to the supplier to ring-fence theincreased quantities. They are open-minded and driven
by insight. New skills are required to work in this way.
Supply chain professionals will need to look at how
they manage divergent views from the automated andhuman planning decisions, guiding machine learningalgorithms to align with business strategy, integrating
new data sources and supply chains, and acting on theinsight from scenario-based simulations.

Style

MindsetStyle

MindsetInvestigative

Data driven

CollaborativeTechnologist

Vision led

Innovator
The overarching role for the innovator is to drive newopportunities and sales and bring a commercial lensto the business. Innovators are the horizon gazers
who look at the big picture and drive innovation tocreate new commercial options. They will work withthe customer-facing organization as well as R&D andengineering to define the right service portfolio fortarget customer segments and draw out different
ideas. People in this role will configure multiple, uniquesupply chains and build effective and agile networks
that enable a differentiated service and increase overallprofitability. Innovators will work closely with analysts
and technologists to model scenarios and orchestrators
to implement changes to the supply chain.

How reinventing the supply chain can transform the planner role |5With concurrent supply chain planning, companies can moveat the speed of change
Given that the top two most important factors in creating a
successful supply chain as ranked by EY survey respondents
are end-to-end visibility and real-time responsiveness toexternal and internal issues, a move to a concurrent supply
chain planning model and transforming the planning role tothat of a network planner can help companies achieve thissuccess. Greater agility; better, faster decision-making; more
efficient use of resources; and cost savings are only a few ofthe benefits a concurrent planning model can offer.
More important, concurrent planning gives companies thepower to reach beyond simply meeting customer needs toanticipating them. In doing so, companies can develop long-lasting relationships that turn fickle customers into loyal brandambassadors by delivering individual customer experiences
and tailored products on demand.
Within the organization, concurrent planning, automationand an alignment of KPIs will make planners better, moreproductive and happier contributors to the company’s purpose.
In today’s ever-accelerating business environment, reinventing
supply chain planning can help keep companies moving at thespeed of change.

Contacts

Jolyon Austin
Principal, Ernst & Young Global
UK Supply Chain and Operations+44 20 7980 0753
jaustin@uk.ey.com

Matthew Brown
Senior Manager, Ernst & Young LLP
Americas Supply Chain and Operations+1 216 906 9172
matt.brown3@ey.com

EY | Assurance | Tax | Strategy and Transactions | Consulting
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