Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 research agenda for Operations and Supply Chain, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations across industries derive optimal value from business technology and improve outcomes.
Our practice of expertise is concerned with all aspects of Operations and Supply Chain, but we have six focus areas for 2022.
We craft our annual research agenda using our firm’s expertise in business requirements, especially the complexities of accounting, tax and capital markets, combined with our knowledge of technology vendors and products. As a result of our market research, we are able to offer insights and best practices to both the lines of business and IT as well as across industry verticals, providing guidance that will help every organization reach its maximum potential.
Continuous planning supports enterprise-wide, high-participation and collaborative planning processes, enabling organizations to execute rapid planning cycles across all departments and business units. Such a process provides executives with detailed answers to what-if questions in real time. Continuous planning employs technology such as in-memory computing, advanced analytics and interactive planning to make planning and budgeting processes more agile and easier. We assert that by 2025, just one-fifth of organizations will incorporate economic and market data into continuous planning processes to enhance profitability and improve revenue management effectiveness. Organizations must shift from silo-based planning to continuous planning to achieve better results.
We are conducting Benchmark Research in 2022 to identify business planning best practices. Our Business Planning Value Index assesses and rates technology vendors’ offerings and the potential of these systems to meet current business planning needs.
ERP technology is evolving to enable a continuous supply chain approach for manufacturing and services industries. ERP in the cloud advances processes for service and supply chains and their efficiency. By 2024, fewer than one-third of organizations will use a cloud-based ERP platform to optimize market share and profitability objectives through superior supply chain management. ERP also increasingly includes technologies such as collaboration and the use of artificial intelligence, using machine learning to support more efficient, accurate and rapid process execution while reducing the need for training. We are conducting Benchmark Research to identify best practices that will help organizations address emerging ERP system requirements.
Product information management technology improves product experiences by enabling consistent management of product-related information used in business processes and by consumers. Organizations are modernizing PIM to support a superior digital experience across supply chain operations and the product life cycle. These applications also enable more effective marketing. By 2025, one-fifth of organizations will connect product information networks with virtual agents supporting the enterprise and customers’ requirements for responsiveness. The transition to the cloud will speed the return on investment and help organizations provide excellent product experiences. There is also pressure for organizations to take advantage of machine learning and robotic process automation. These technologies address product information quality by highlighting issues and opportunities for improvement. One aspect of improvement is the distinct nature of product life cycle management that is not connected to PIM but should more directly share information together and across the supply chain.
To provide guidance on effective product experience management technologies, we are conducting Benchmark Research to identify best practices and will publish a Value Index to assess and rate technology vendors’ potential to meet emerging product needs.
Watch for new Benchmark Research into property technology, which will determine the requirements for innovation and transformation that are desired from the range of parties and relationships.
The role of sourcing and procurement is evolving to facilitate transactions and achieve better results by making buying organizations easier to do business with. Having tighter supplier coordination and deeper visibility into vendor capacity and capabilities is essential in an environment that requires supply chain agility and a high level of responsiveness in dealing with customers. By 2023, one-half of organizations will realize the experiences in supplier relationships damaged by pandemic communications and policies will continue to detract from operational excellence.
Plans for 2022 include new Benchmark Research into Supplier Relationship Management to ascertain the challenge in the applications and processes required to sustain desired outcomes from partnerships.
Subscribe to our Ventana Research community to stay up-to-date on our 2022 research efforts. Visit our Operations and Supply Chain expertise and topic areas to see the detailed agenda and continuously updated 90-day calendar as well as more research facts and best practices.
Regards,
Robert Kugel