Industrial B2B supply chains are evolving in response to geopolitical developments, rising consumer demand, sustainability requirements, and the impacts of climate change. As a result, traditional, siloed operations have become outdated.
Two keywords for survival today were considered by many in the recent past to be mere buzzwords: adaptability and agility. A fundamental shift is needed to break free from the constraints of legacy supply chain systems and embrace new models, workflows, and platforms.
Modernized supply chains are designed to enhance resilience, increase agility, and improve efficiency. However, many businesses are held back by old ERP systems, fragmented data, and a lack of ease of use for end-users, all of which limit capacity for real-time insights that would enable adaptability and agility.
SAP RISE is a subscription-based bundle of SAP products and services, including cloud ERP (SAP S/4HANA Cloud), business process intelligence, and technical migration support. It addresses challenges such as fragmented systems and legacy ERP constraints by simplifying the migration to SAP S/4HANA Cloud and enabling AI-powered, cloud-enabled, data-driven supply chains.
Recent work Cognizant has been doing as an SAP partner is enabling properly structured pathways to supply chain modernization via AI-driven analytics and cloud-based platforms. These capabilities are offered by way of RISE with SAP and span across Retail, CPG, manufacturing, and oil & gas, utilities, and other asset-intensive industries. (See, Cognizant—RISE with SAP: The Fast Tract to Intelligent Supply Chains)
These capabilities aim to:
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Help companies navigate global disruptions.
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Enable the adoption of AI and generative AI to manage supply chain risks.
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Reduce total cost of ownership (TCO).
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Increase operational flexibility.
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Integrate seamlessly with other cloud services and applications.
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Support future business growth.
Cognizant’s solutions, built on industry best practices and preconfigured S/4HANA accelerators, can accelerate the move to RISE with SAP by up to 30 percent. The push for best-practice supply chain modernization is driven by several key factors:
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End-to-end visibility: Real-time tracking of supply chain operations to support data-driven decision-making.
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Agility and resilience: Quick response to disruptions using AI-driven insights.
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Data-driven decision-making: Predictive analytics for accurate demand forecasting and inventory optimization—especially critical for retail and CPG companies, where competitiveness depends on anticipating and meeting customer needs.
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Cloud adoption and scalability: Flexible infrastructure to support business growth.
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Sustainability and compliance: Reducing carbon footprints and meeting regulatory requirements.
These capabilities help end-users deliver real-time, hyper-personalized insights on any device, anywhere. The platform’s scalability also paves the way for greater value as Agentic AI and widespread industrial data fabrics expand the range of use cases and benefits.
AI and the Future of the Supply Chain
AI is pivotal in unlocking the full potential of a modern supply chain. By leveraging solutions like RISE with SAP and collaborating with experienced partners such as Cognizant, companies can develop and execute AI-embedded strategies that extend beyond data teams—empowering a broader range of business users.
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Peter Manos is Director of Research for Electric Power & Smart Grid, on the Energy Sector team at ARC. He analyzes the latest trends across People, Process, and Technology to uncover business and digital transformation best practices for electric, gas, and water utilities, and the supply chains that support them.
