(3-4 min read)

The need to safeguard supply chain against today’s world of uncertainties, be it political or natural has never been so significant. In such scenario, one of the most important decisions that most supply chains need to take is whether to prebuild the stock and carry excess inventory, or rather plan ahead of the time if there is any additional production required. Each of the options has its own pros and cons. However, what is important is to have the right visibility in terms of volumes and costs to enable effective decisions. In the following blog, let us take a view on how this information could be derived using the power of technology.

The planning capabilities of SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) for Response is always compared with a much matured and stable product, SAP Advanced Planning & Optimisation (APO). While SAP plans to discontinue the support for APO in the near future, the businesses have now started looking forward to IBP for Response as a potential replacement for planning in order series. This module is yet to reach the pinnacle of its maturity in terms of functionalities, but the progress has been rapid and the road map looks stronger. Further, it looks promising in terms of speed and flexibility which was not possible in APO.

In this blog I will explore features of IBP for Response & Supply. This includes integration of IBP for Response with external systems and the time series counterpart of it followed by the planning operators being offered