Supply Chain Control Tower (SCCT) solutions are emerging as a tool to tackle supply chain fragmentation and allow organizations to get ahead of disruption. Global technology intelligence firm ABI Research forecasts global SCCT revenues to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.2% to 2030, rising from US$8.4 billion in 2023 to over US$20 billion. North America holds the lion’s share of SCCT revenues. Still, growing regulations across Europe and high market potential across Asia-Pacific and Latin America will shift market share over the coming years.
“Supply chain fragmentation results from disconnected systems and disparate data feeds. Growth in digitalization has created a myriad of data feeds that, when disconnected, only deliver value within their siloes. SCCTs offer a means of data consolidation and normalization that allow organizations to take an eagle-eye view of their network, unlocking greater optimization capabilities and the ability to re-organize stock flows to avoid disruption,” explains Ryan Wiggin, Supply Chain Management and Logistics Industry Analyst at ABI Research.
Established supply chain system and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendors such as Blue Yonder, o9 Solutions, and Kinaxis have developed SCCTs by bringing together solutions into a single, end-to-end platform, but the SCCT market is not limited to only supply chain-focused vendors. Companies like IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and Siemens are all leveraging their extensive software offerings to deliver unified platforms for SCCT solutions. And big data analytics firms like Palantir and Hitachi Vantara are utilizing their expertise in data consolidation to provide SCCTs that can mold to organizations’ unique operations, expanding the use of SCCTs to more industry verticals.
Developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have greatly expanded the capabilities of SCCTs. The ability to process and analyze vast data sets enables network optimization and scenario modeling. It supports decision-making, helping to define SCCT capabilities over traditional visibility platforms and justify more significant investment. Effective applications of AI will continue to be a defining factor between vendors, but growing automation does not come without critical considerations around AI guardrails and the user’s role.
“While vendors continue to expand solutions with cloud-native applications and AI-enabled tools, sticking points remain for end users. Trust in data sharing and cloud-based platforms continues, and the promise of out-of-the-box integrations doesn’t hold in a lot of cases. That said, end users should not hold back on partnering with SCCT vendors to begin harmonizing their data given the value available, and vendors should facilitate this through scalable cost models,” concludes Wiggin.
These findings are from ABI Research’s Supply Chain Control Towers: Market Analysis application analysis report.
