How SAP is Bringing the Digital Supply Chain to Life
Over the course of several decades, SAP’s purpose has been to help the world run smoothly and, in doing so, improve lives.
Founded more than 50 years ago, in 1972, the German tech powerhouse now has dozens of offices around the world. In each location, its talented teams support businesses to perform to the best of their abilities.
Over in San Jose, California – the technology capital of the world – we find David Vallejo, the man responsible for product marketing for SAP’s global digital supply chain. During turbulent times, he has led a team of experts in the development of a host of forward-looking strategies.
David’s function is responsible for articulating SAP’s strategy to the outside world, while also communicating what the business can offer customers to evolve their supply chains and roadmaps. But, even more importantly, the department pays close attention to the market to understand emerging trends and what’s required to prepare for the future.
“We talk with customers, industries, councils, analysts and more to understand what SAP should do,” David explains. “We’re essentially the conduit of the market back into SAP’s development organisation.”
What’s more, David and his team work hard to determine which innovations should be prioritised, as well as the partnerships worth pursuing or strengthening.
“In close collaboration with SAP’s product innovation teams, we bring the digital supply chain to life,” he continues. “Then, we also share that strategy with customers, partners and analysts.”
Leading by example
David joined SAP back in 2014 to take up a role as Senior Director Product Management and went on to progress through the ranks in admirable fashion.
Having been promoted to Vice President and Global Head of Digital Business Planning in 2019, he steered his team through the various impacts of COVID-19; then, as Vice President and Global Head of Supply Chain Planning, Manufacturing and Logistics, he helped alleviate the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and SAP’s subsequent exit from Russia and Belarus.
In his current role as Global Head of Digital Supply Chain, David’s priorities include demonstrating strong leadership and ensuring plans are in place to negotiate whatever future challenges may arise.
“Motivating by purpose is the number one principle I aspire to,” he says. “I have a high-performing team of subject-matter experts, so I help my team understand the purpose of what they do, articulating the value of what we’re doing for our customers.
“I try to lead by example and be highly collaborative because we’re so networked within the organisation, with touchpoints internally and externally, that we have to be highly collaborative to be effective.”
When he joined SAP a decade ago, David already recognised the immense potential of artificial intelligence, from robotics becoming more prevalent in factories to virtual assistants keeping households organised. Now, AI is undoubtedly a major strategic element of SAP’s various innovations.
“For our customers, we embed business AI into our portfolio,” David goes on. “In my day-to-day work, I use generative AI (GenAI) most frequently, often to help articulate or summarise topics and create a narrative.
“My team and I use AI in meetings, asking questions which frequently result in insightful responses that can help us shortcut the thought process. For example, we may ask what challenges customers are facing or what an impactful agenda is for a specific group of personas. It’s that additional worker in the meeting.”
Partnerships crucial to supply chain management
David sees successful supply chain management as an open ecosystem relying on numerous partnerships in order to function effectively.
“In business planning, for example, we bring in outside data about signals like the weather, traffic, market economics, consumer trends and risks from partners like Google, Everstream Analytics and Alloy.ai,” he says.
This data then complements customers’ business data and is used to derive insights or improve forecasting and risk management.
On the manufacturing side, SAP has partners like Kinexon to bridge physical machines with our enterprise systems. It’s an alliance that combines Kinexon's advanced understanding of automation and IoT with SAP’s digital supply chain portfolio and vast suite of tools.
Together, Kinexon and SAP are looking to advance how manufacturers approach efficiency and sustainability in the age of Industry 4.0. Their united goal is to improve supply chain and production operations, as well as upgrade business process innovation and intelligent enterprise development.
Over the next year or so, SAP plans to continue helping customers to improve business performance by making their supply chains their innovation engines.
“To do that we’re focusing on expanding AI and GenAI capabilities across our digital supply chain portfolio,” David concludes.
“We’re also helping our customers to move their supply chain footprint into the cloud, along with their broader enterprise management software portfolio. This will help them maintain the pace and level of innovation that the cloud enables, especially in conjunction with their ERP, through our RISE and GROW with SAP motion.”
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