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amycross
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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Nothing has been quite as top of mind in the world as supply chains during the past few years. From not being able to find common household items we use every day to the computer chips that power our cars, every one of us has been affected in some way by supply chains meeting their breaking point. As many of us know, managing and maintaining visibility into supply chains on a global scale is extremely complex and difficult to handle.

There are several challenges that you or your organization often run up against when trying to understand inefficiencies and failures in your supply chain. Let’s examine some common problems faced across all industries to gain a better grasp of the issues that can be caused by not having visibility into your supply chain.

  • Inaccurate key performance indicator (KPI) reporting on deliveries or purchases: Without a real-time view of your supply chain, your organization is at risk of acting on obsolete information across your As many of us know, inaccurate reporting comes with its own cornucopia of problems due to erroneous billings and financial complications.

  • Customer churn: When organizations struggle to gain transparency into what’s happening across their supply chain in real time, they can experience customer churn. The end customer is the one who feels the burden of failures in the supply chain the most, and as such, they will often become disillusioned with businesses that fail to deliver properly, leaving your organization with unsatisfied customers who may no longer wish to shop with

  • Increased cost due to inefficient routing or resource consumption: Unsuccessful supply chain management strategies have led to companies all over the world paying more to deliver their This heightened consumption in supply chains can only be explained by a lack of visibility in routing that consumes increased resources over a more optimal path. Without real-time insight into your supply chain, your organization could be paying more to deliver goods than it needs to.

  • Lack of visibility into delivery routes: Many organizations struggle to understand where their products are in a supply chain, regardless of whether they are shipping or receiving the goods. Without real-time, up-to-date information on deliveries across the supply chain, your organization can risk delays, loss of goods, or even


Buyers have a negative emotional response to supply chain shortages: 61% have felt frustrated, 46% impatient, 45% anxious, and 34% angry.1

Seventy-five percent of companies felt negative or strongly negative impacts on their business due to supply chain disruption.2

Thanks to container prices rising as much as 600%, money that could be used for advertising went to freight companies instead.3

What opportunities does real-time supply chain visibility bring to businesses?

Now that we have all the bad news out of the way, let’s refocus on the opportunities that are afforded to businesses who can implement effective supply chain management strategies for increased visibility.

  • Cost-effectiveness: Without real-time visibility into your supply chains, your organization will end up paying more to deliver goods than it needs to. When you have that visibility, though, you can plan more efficient deliveries to consume fewer resources or plan better routes to mitigate delays and bottle necks, saving your organization both headaches and money.

  • Improved customer experiences: Having a real-time view of your supply chain also helps you communicate with your customers to help set expectations with deliveries in terms of timing and availability of This helps your customers trust that your organization knows how much product it has and can deliver in a timely fashion.

  • Reduced risks and more efficient regulatory compliance: Real-time visibility into you organization’s supply chain helps reduce risks such as delays, loss of goods, or even theft. This visibility can also help your organization manage complex regulatory compliance across your entire organization with ease.

  • Better planning and responsiveness to issues that may impact the supply chain: By utilizing real-time insights into your supply chain, your organization can strategize around your supply chain for better resilience and You can also plan for and react to interruptions in your supply chain with greater agility to mitigate any issues that may impact your supply chain.


How SAP can empower businesses with supply-chain visibility in real- time at scale

SAP Integration Suite is SAP’s integration platform as a service (iPaaS) that provides businesses with the tools, features, and capabilities to connect your supply chain for greater visibility and efficiency. With

SAP Integration Suite, you and your organization can achieve seamless business processes at scale, streamline interactions with your customers and partners, and set the foundation to address future needs. Let’s examine the features and capabilities within SAP Integration Suite and how they can help your business unlock the benefits of ascertaining a real-time view into your supply chain at scale.

Cloud Integration

Cloud Integration in SAP Integration Suite provides you with over 2,500 pre-built integrations to simplify integration between SAP and third-party applications and data sources. Utilizing Cloud Integration, your organization can simplify integrations within your own organization and with partners to gain real-time insights into your supply chain, regardless of your IT architecture.

Open Connectors

With Open Connectors, your organization can simplify connectivity to more than 170 third-party applications and solutions for collaboration, messaging, CRM, help desk, and other application types. Based on open-source standards, Open Connectors helps your organization build integrations that conform to your business and your partners to help gain visibility into your supply chains.

API Management

API Management provides you with the ability to create simple, connected digital experiences for your consumers, partners, and employees, unlocking new opportunities and business potential. With API Management, you can simplify how you manage, create, and secure the integrations that your organization needs to power insight into your supply chain from end to end.

Event Mesh

Event Mesh enables your organization to build applications that can communicate asynchronously in real time at scale across distributed landscapes, using a fully managed cloud service that supports event- driven architecture. With Event Mesh, your organization can take advantage of a decentralized approach and manage, monitor, and visualize supply chain events across distributed landscapes.

Integration Advisor

Using Integration Advisor, your team can take advantage of powerful AI and machine learning technologies available today to help you plan the most efficient integrations possible and support multiple business partners using different industry-standard message formats.

Trading Partner Management

Trading Partner Management allows you to create and maintain trading partner profiles with their unique business-to-business (B2B) requirements, which allows you to easily communicate with any business or partner in your supply chain.

Integration Assessment

We also offer Integration Assessment, which helps you to determine how well your integrations are serving your business across your entire IT landscape, helping you get the most out of your integrations and unlocking the best possible view of your supply chain.

Gain a full view of your supply chain today

Learn how SAP Integration Suite can help you and your organization gain a full view of your supply chain with the resources below and continue your journey with SAP today.

Interested in learning more? Check out these resources:

1 Dan Berthiaume, “Survey: Supply Chain Delays Present Retail Crisis – and Opportunity,” Chain Store Age, October 4, 2021.

2 "Supply Chain Disruption,” Accenture.

3 Adrianne Pasquarelli, “Supply Chain Issues Threaten Ad Spending Comeback This Holiday Season,” AdAge, September 22, 2021.