Reinventing your supply chain with generative AI

Transform the consumer goods supply chain with generative AI

Supply chain networks in the consumer goods industry are ushering in a new era with generative AI.

By applying generative AI to the supply chain function, consumer goods companies can improve collaboration and visibility across the end-to-end supply chain, from sourcing and planning to manufacturing, fulfillment and customer service. This enables organizations to produce the right product and service, for the right location, at the right time.

Our study reveals that 29 percent of supply chain executives plan to fundamentally reinvent their supply chain management using generative AI. Its implications are astounding as generative AI-powered reinvention can help companies realize the vision of enterprise planning centered on integrated business planning, allowing them to efficiently tap into growth opportunities.

However, it is important to identify the functions of supply chain networks where generative AI could be implemented to achieve greater value, given that supply chain activities involve numerical processing and need complex reasoning. For that, Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) must see generative AI as a connected technology, rather than a standalone tool.

The game-changing power of generative AI

Generative AI is deeply intertwined with technologies within the digital core—cloud, data and AI. When combined with the right technology and context, it opens a broad array of possibilities, enabling tailored insights that are otherwise hard to ascertain and driving real-time value chain collaboration that is otherwise impossible to orchestrate.

It can help companies transform supply chain network operations. From democratizing access to insights for improved planning and execution to enabling real time hyper-personalized consumer experiences, generative AI can unlock the next-level supply chain of the future.

As leaders embark on their supply chain transformation journey, here is my perspective on how they can capitalize on generative AI and connected technologies to drive more business value.

Get your data generative AI-ready

Generative AI enables the integration of unstructured insights from public online sources with traditional data to create richer demand and supply signals. For example, consumer goods companies can analyze vast amounts of data from social media and Internet searches, funnel valuable signals for cross-functional vetting and recommend the best action to capitalize on the market signal.

Enabling store and supply chain collaboration through next based action prompts, complemented by conversational AI, they can ease value chain collaboration for optimal response to consumer demand.

In such an instance, utilizing social-listening in real-time allows supply chains and manufacturing to operate as fully integrated, demand-responsive entities, which can autonomously adapt to operations and prioritize fulfillment.

A global food and beverage company has integrated its marketing and supply chain operations to swiftly respond to real-time market signals. By leveraging advanced data analytics, the company monitors consumer trends at a granular level, identifying specific demand patterns. For instance, it detected a surge in interest for a specific fruit among Hispanic consumers in certain areas and promptly targeted a rapid plan-to-deliver response with a new product with that fruit flavor. This proactive strategy led to a significant increase in same store sales at these specific locations, showcasing the benefits of a connected supply chain that aligns with market signals.

Consumer goods companies need to have a robust enterprise data strategy for successful generative AI adoption, given that customizing and improving Language and Learning Models (LLMs) demands a substantial amount of data.

This poses a challenge for organizations grappling with issues around data quality, explainability and governance. Additionally, organizations often use too many applications to manage their supply chain, including numerous legacy tools, general purpose productivity tools, and multiple resource planning solutions. This fragmented approach creates too many siloes, leading to inefficiencies and difficulties in data sharing.

While legacy technology structures don’t make this easy, organizations need to converge to robust data foundations, adopting cloud-native platforms and applications, powered by cloud, data and AI. A solid foundation in place can help companies unlock incremental growth and significant performance gains with a clear return on investment on a use case by use case basis.

As maturity increases, they can leverage AI-based tools to access both internal and external data across the supply chain networks to generate and refresh the most current plans.

Build trust and minimize risk with responsible AI

Establishing trust and mitigating risks are paramount in AI-driven supply chain implementations.

One of the primary challenges faced by CSCOs is identifying their n-tier suppliers and evaluating their potential risk and vulnerability. Having a comprehensive understanding of these supplier networks is essential for enhancing supply chain resilience.

By integrating generative AI to supply chain control towers, organizations can improve explainability and foster greater trust in decision-making processes.

AI-driven logistics control towers can help in predicting and mitigating disruptions. Accenture's solution, for instance, leverages unstructured data from news alerts to forecast delays, enabling swift inventory reallocation and disruption mitigation.

With our SynOps for Supply Chain platform, companies can gain better visibility into their end-to-end supply chain operations, actionable data-driven insights and the ability to execute recommendations across key functions. The solution features a Supply Chain Digital Assistant powered by generative AI, aimed at improving planning, detecting supply chain risks and bolstering logistics control towers. The supply chain teams can also use generative AI chatbot interfaces to access and analyze large volumes of data to get a better view of the supplier network. Collaboration with stakeholders facilitates the identification of new opportunities and promotes the widespread adoption of AI technologies.

Focus on people and processes

The integration of generative AI across the supply chain presents a transformative opportunity, potentially enhancing productivity by 50% to 75%. Consumer goods companies can strategically repurpose this newfound capacity to focus on real-time market responses, collaboration and growth. By doing so, companies can leverage AI-driven insights to adapt quickly to market changes, optimize inventory levels and improve demand forecasting. This agility enables businesses to meet customer needs more effectively and stay ahead of the market dynamics.

To realize the benefits, companies must view generative AI as part of the continuum of automation capabilities, which cover both traditional process automation to handle repetitive tasks and classical LLMs to gain capabilities in complex analysis and decision-making. This convergence promises to free up supply chain teams to engage in more valuable work, consequently amplifying productivity and overall efficiency.

However, as the supply chain operations evolve due to the impact of generative AI, it is important for the companies to invest in employee upskilling. Supply chain leaders must ensure that their teams are equipped with the necessary skills to effectively interact with these technologies and interpret the insight they provide. By aligning workforce capabilities with AI capabilities, organizations foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.

Taking the next step

Investing in building a consumer-centric, resilient supply chain is no longer optional. It is not about making incremental improvements in efficiency and productivity or exploring the potential of cutting costs. It is about acting with a deliberate strategy of reinvention, with modern technologies and new ways of working to reach new levels of business performance and growth.

Contact Adheer Bahulkar to explore how our enterprise technology solutions can help you lead with a highly agile, responsive and consumer-centric supply chain.