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This Open Call to Business Leaders is Part of Project Zebra, an Open-Source Think Tank Driving Supply Chain Improvement
Output From This Initiative Will Culminate as Input to Redefine the Industry-Standard Supply Chain Operations Reference Model (SCOR)
DALLAS, March 16, 2022 – :o9 Solutions, a leading enterprise AI software platform provider for transforming planning and decision-making, and research firm Supply Chain Insights today jointly announced an open call for business manufacturers to participate in pilot testing outside-in supply chain planning concepts.
Through a reverse RFP process, a panel of business leaders, academics, and o9 leaders will select two companies to participate in the research.
This open call to businesses builds upon Project Zebra — an open-source think-tank initiative to drive supply chain improvement that began in January 2021 and was initially funded by o9. Project Zebra’s goal is to define, test, and validate the value proposition of an outside-in approach for planning and decision-making. A departure from traditional ways of thinking about supply chain management, outside-in planning requires a process redesign to minimize latency in aligning supply chain response with shifting market demand. Currently, approximately 60 business leaders are participating in Project Zebra’s outside-in planning training — a testament to both the need and potential of this new supply chain management approach.
The results from these two pilots will help redefine the cross-industry global standard for supply chain excellence, the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model from the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM). SCOR is the world’s leading supply chain framework — linking business processes, performance metrics, practices and people skills into a unified structure.
“For two decades, as an industry analyst, I have written about the need for outside-in processes but failed to define them to drive the required shift in the industry,” said Lora Cecere, Founder of Supply Chain Insights. “I am proud to work with o9 to build a safe way for business leaders to test and learn the value of an outside-in approach. I am excited to support this work and celebrate the leadership of o9 to drive this industry open-source initiative.”
“Today’s supply chains are not very good at sensing, so it is difficult for them to respond,” said Igor Rikalo, President & Chief Operating Officer, o9. “The majority of the market, channel, and supplier data is available but is not used to help companies make decisions at the speed required by the business. New planning capabilities exist but cannot be leveraged to their full potential unless business leaders change their business models and planning processes. That’s why we are excited about the potential of Project Zebra and support this open call to companies to help redefine supply chain processes based on this outside-in approach and new forms of analytics.”
“Lora and I have spoken about the necessity of outside-in processes and the differences between inside and outside-in approaches many times in recent years,” said Peter Bolstorff, ASCM Executive Vice President, Corporate Development. “I am now more convinced than ever that Project Zebra will redefine planning and set the bar on how organizations need to relearn how to leverage data to improve the forecast-ability of their plans. ASCM looks forward to supporting the pilots and continued engagement in both process and data standardization.”
To learn more about Project Zebra and download the application form, go to zebra-project.org.
About the authors
o9
The Digital Brain Platform
o9 Solutions is a leading Enterprise Knowledge and AI-powered platform helping companies build Agile, Adaptive & Autonomous Planning & Execution Models for transforming enterprise decision-making in environments of rising volatility and uncertainty. Whether it is improving forecast accuracy, matching demand and supply and driving collaboration across the multi-tier supply chain to improve resilience at optimal costs and inventory, or optimizing new product and commercial initiatives to drive revenue growth and margins, decision-making processes from long-range to tactical to execution horizon can be made faster and smarter and connected on o9’s Digital Brain Platform.
o9 brings together game-changing technology innovations — such as innovative enterprise knowledge graph modeling, big data analytics, advanced algorithms for forecasting, demand/supply balancing, scenario planning, real time learning, collaboration, generative and agentic AI, easy-to-use interfaces and cloud-based delivery, and innovative management methods — as well as organization, process and change management best practices to transform decision-making speed and intelligence.
