Stop spreading your supply chain investments thin, invest in what matters

Supply chain leaders don’t necessarily need an entirely new strategy; rather, they benefit more from sharpening their focus on what truly drives value. Data from our upcoming Horizons report on intelligent supply chain shows that four primary capability areas—real-time planning, smart warehousing, post-sale orchestration, and automated procurement—consistently account for more than 70% of total spending across consulting, business processes, managed services, and IT implementations (Exhibit 1), reflecting where enterprises are seeing the fastest and most measurable returns.

These four capabilities address long-standing supply chain inefficiencies that are magnified during disruptions. From mitigating inventory risk to accelerating order cycles, they have a direct impact on financial performance and customer satisfaction. Leaders are under pressure to show outcomes fast, and these areas provide the most straightforward path to delivering results at scale without overhauling the entire operating model.

Exhibit 1: Enterprises spend more than 70% on real-time planning, smart warehousing, post-sale orchestration, and automated procurement

Sample size: 10 customer references
Source: HFS Research, 2025

The top four levers that deliver tangible and rapid value

Real-time planning, smart warehousing, post-sale orchestration, and automated procurement form the digital backbone of a modern, customer-focused supply chain.

• Real-time planning enables organizations to reduce safety stock and decrease forecast errors, thereby freeing up essential capital for other uses.
• Smart warehousing shortens travel time within facilities, lowers the incidence of workplace injuries, and manages the increasing complexity of stock-keeping units (SKUs) and seasonal fluctuations.
• Post-sale orchestration enhances the customer experience by streamlining the process for returns and ensuring parts are readily available when needed.
• Automated procurement strengthens compliance, consolidates organizational spending, and reduces procurement cycle times.

These capabilities are the operational levers that release working capital, reduce cycle times, improve safety, and enable a seamless customer experience. When enterprise leaders focus on real-time planning, smart warehousing, post-sale orchestration, and automated procurement, they are employing strategies that can significantly impact business results.

Many are already experiencing the benefits of strategic planning. Cognizant partnered with a prominent US-based automotive manufacturer to implement integrated planning and real-time tracking, driving +10% profitability and +50% site-level operational efficiency. Likewise, Infosys partnered with an American cosmetics company to consolidate planning via an offshore model, reducing cycle times by 40% and costs by 30%.

But an over-focused core risks creating brittleness at the edges

While concentrating investment within the core areas generates significant value, there’s the risk of neglecting adjacent capabilities. Underfunding areas at the periphery, such as circularity, cognitive logistics, post-sale orchestration, and last-mile visibility, can lead to brittleness in the supply chain, potentially limiting an organization’s agility and resilience in the long run. The risk isn’t immediate failure; it’s the slow build-up of organizational debt.

Moreover, regulatory pressures surrounding sustainability and circularity are intensifying and becoming more stringent, while customer expectations on transparency and service precision, especially in last-mile fulfillment, are rising rapidly. Being prepared for disruptions is now a baseline condition, not an exception. Enterprises that can’t dynamically reroute around bottlenecks or anticipate service failures through AI are already at a disadvantage. Investing in cognitive logistics, traceability, and closed-loop returns is no longer experimental but a necessity.

So build a resilient supply chain core with flexibility and partner with those that can anticipate what’s next

Supply chain leaders must ensure that every investment in the core lays the groundwork for what follows. This means choosing platforms and partners that not only solve today’s challenges but are modular and future-ready. Integration flexibility, data interoperability, and AI extensibility must be non-negotiable. Providers should deliver more than mere implementation; they must bring strategic foresight, domain-specific accelerators, and embedded intelligence. Those that only optimize the core without building the connective tissue to edge capabilities risk boxing clients into brittle architectures. The key is to hold them accountable for co-creating roadmaps that strike a balance between short-term impact and long-term adaptability.

The bottom line: Don’t allow short-term ROI to come at the cost of long-term resilience.

Supply chain leaders must strike a balance between targeted investment in core capabilities and a readiness to evolve at the edges. Modern supply chains are not linear; they’re dynamic, adaptive ecosystems. If your partners can’t deliver flexibility at scale, it’s time to challenge them or replace them.