Many times it has happened to me that an idea comes to my head and I think it is the most original, I consult Google and find that it already exists, that many people have been developing it for a while… well, this is not the current case.
Little is written about “Supply Chain Planning as a Service” (PAS) on this topic in my sources of consultation, except for one or two companies with particular approaches and an article that only has the title on the subject, so I let myself be carried away by logic and imagination to propose a concept that could be very important for companies in the future.
I would dare to say that demand and supply planning is the most complex process that companies face today… in fact, I referred to these two topics in my previous article published on LinkedIn: “Big Data + Artificial Intelligence. Where are sales forecasts going?” where I explained the demands towards which demand planning is heading in modern times and the tools that will be available to achieve a more accurate number for demand.
It does not matter if it is a repetition to talk about the volatility of the markets, the need for shorter delivery times, the demands in innovation and personalization, which customers demand more every day and which increasingly complicate the process.
Nor does it matter to talk again about the fierce competition that occurs every day for the lowest price, in most economic sectors, adding to the above the excessive pressure that is often exerted on companies for results.
However, the tools that most companies have to do supply chain planning work have not changed since they were invented in the 1950s… which has generated a proliferation of Excel in our Supply departments… this being an inadequate tool for this.
Why does the above happen? Why, if we have advanced so much technologically in the last 30 or 40 years, have the companies, tools and methodologies with which demand and supply planning work is carried out, not evolved at the same rate?
In the second part of this article, I continue with some hypotheses to these questions.
