A Pulse on Supply Chain Planning

In the 2024 end-of-year survey done for the Indago supply chain research community members, Supply Chain Planning was one of the topics respondents said they wanted to see more research on in 2025. In January 2025, some initial questions were explored again with members — who are all supply chain and logistics executives from manufacturing, retail, and distribution companies — on this topic.

By a large margin, ERP topped the list of solutions members use for supply chain planning, with 88% of the respondents selecting it. This was followed by Demand Planning & Forecasting (50%), Production Planning & Scheduling (46%), and Transportation Planning (46%).

Source: January 2025 Indago survey of 24 qualified and verified supply chain and logistics executives from manufacturing, retail, and distribution companies.

Only 29% of the respondents said their demand and supply forecasts were 80% or more accurate on average; 30% said that their demand forecasts were less than 70% accurate, while 25% said the same about their supply forecasts.

Source: January 2025 Indago survey of 24 qualified and verified supply chain and logistics executives from manufacturing, retail, and distribution companies.

“Supply Planning has been long overlooked and is a significant opportunity at our organization,” said one supply chain executive member. “Our biggest challenges are around lack of visibility to clean data, lack of integrated tools, lack of expertise, and internal resistance to change. We plan to integrate a demand planning tool with our ERP and roll-out a robust S&OP process in parallel.”

Here are some other comments submitted by Indago supply chain executives:

“Being in the CPG space, we have a great idea of what our customers will purchase, however, given the current economy, it has been more challenging to forecast. Even our customers’ forecasts are overstated. We are investigating AI demand sensing to assist with more accurate planning.”

“Lack of collaboration, lack of relevant and accurate data, lack of real-time performance monitoring, lack of fundamental process ‘rules’, allowing exceptions to create disruptions in the planning/execution to plan, and lack of overall alignment across functional areas (including the customer) are the root causes of the planning challenges we face.”

“Most of our challenges revolve around our approval and trust related to the forecasts we generate. Delays and issues often occur because senior leadership doesn’t trust the models and other inputs we receive on our forecasts.”

“Lack of good systems and skilled supply chain planners make processes twice as difficult as they need to be.”

Source: Talking Logistics