Trend vision Anaplan: “An effective supply chain is more crucial to growth than ever before”

Evan Quasney, Anaplan: 'An effective supply chain is more crucial to growth than ever before'

The far-reaching impact on supply chains caused by the coronavirus pandemic has actually been on the cards for some time. These extraordinary developments acted as a trigger, forcing companies to improve their flexibility in order to be able to respond quickly to changing circumstances. This is accelerating the demand for connected planning.

“This year, the supply chain has been one of the most crucial factors enabling a response to the radical changes in customer demand since the start of the lockdown,” says Evan Quasney, Global VP Supply Chain Solutions at Anaplan. “What I find fascinating is that the biggest changes mainly took place in the first few months, such as a huge shift in demand and a couple of high-profile bankruptcies. That was the main shockwave. The current challenge, which will continue into 2021, is for companies to find a new operational paradigm so that they can get back on their feet again.”

Strategic decision

For Anaplan, this means that the company was right to make the strategic decision to focus on this particular area ten years ago. “All the trends we’re seeing now are related to what we call ‘connected planning’, i.e. the combination of supply chain with all relevant stakeholders; Finance, HR, Sales and marketing both inside and outside the organisation. The current developments are the result of all the external factors that are forcing companies to digitally transform. Many of them have been delaying the transformation for some time, but the current circumstances leave them with no choice.”
“For us, digital transformation means removing obstacles within and between organizations. We do that by providing companies with a platform for real-time decision-making and also by enabling them to immediately see the effect of those decisions throughout their entire organization, such as the revenue impact and the consequences for profitability. That gives organization what we call the ‘agility imperative’ – the ability to make decisions quickly and to know when they can expect to see results.”