Scarce resources, rising costs, uncertain demand... supply chains are under constant pressure. Supply chain managers have to manage complex data, meet tight deadlines and make decisions that have a direct impact on profitability.
Despite this, many companies still rely on isolated spreadsheets, scattered tools and unconnected systems. The result: rigid, unreliable planning that's difficult to update. Errors accumulate, arbitration takes time and performance erodes.
This is where EPM(Enterprise Performance Management) makes the difference. Long confined to the financial sphere, it is now establishing itself as a cross-functional management tool, capable of enhancing the agility and precision of industrial processes.
Less instinct, more predictability
One of the first concrete benefits of an integrated EPM is the automation of forecasting. When a new range is launched, it is necessary to model demand, anticipate volumes and rapidly engage production and supplier orders.
Today, this phase is still often based on intuition, or on time-consuming and imprecise manual analysis. With an EPM, data is aggregated and analyzed, scenarios are simulated and coherent proposals are automatically generated. The planner remains the decision-maker, but works faster and on a more solid basis.
This technology secures production quantities, reduces inventory discrepancies by "pushing" products to the right place, and improves coordination between teams (Supply Chain and Logistics Warehouse, for example).
From forecast to margin: everything becomes controllable
Once demand has been estimated, management doesn't stop there. Thanks to EPM, costs are tracked as closely as possible: raw materials, labor, subcontracting... Every variation can be measured, analyzed and readjusted.
Key indicators - gross margin, production costs, inventory levels - are accessible in real time. Reporting adapts to business challenges. Data becomes usable, and decision-making faster.
But above all, this increased visibility strengthens dialogue between functions: finance, production, procurement... Everyone has the same information, which speeds up decision-making.
Anticipate for better sourcing
Reliable planning also means better purchasing control. If requirements are known in advance, volumes can be better negotiated, lead times better managed, and the risk of shortages or cost overruns greatly reduced.
With this in mind, EPM becomes essential. It consolidates business data and enables flows to converge - from upstream to customer service - in a single dynamic. It's no longer just a question of forecasting, but of optimizing decisions across the entire chain.
Luxury as a field of experimentation
A player in the luxury goods sector recently deployed an EPM solution to better manage the planning of its collections. Until then, teams had been working with independent spreadsheets, manual processes and heterogeneously applied business rules. This slowed down arbitration and increased the risk of error.
The transformation enabled us to unify data, automate calculations and align sales forecasts with production constraints. The result: more reliable plans, tighter deadlines and much more precise margin management. This new rigor in planning has also had a tangible financial impact: within one region, tens of thousands of euros have been saved thanks to better inventory allocation between warehouses.
The impact is immediate: operations run more smoothly, decisions are made more quickly, and teams focus on analysis rather than data entry.
EPM at the heart of the value chain
What makes EPM so powerful is its ability to connect functions. It is not an isolated tool, but a cross-functional lever, capable of linking finance to operations, strategy to the executive.
It becomes a common foundation that aligns decisions, structures processes and gives coherence to the whole. By facilitating exchanges between businesses, it breaks down silos and accelerates transformations.
What's next? Moving up a gear
The gains are there, but the prospects go even further. With the arrival of AI, the integration of external data (weather, geopolitical events, competition, etc.) and the growing power of predictive models, EPM opens the way to a proactive supply chain, capable of reacting in real time to every variation.
Supply departments need robust, adaptable and connected tools. EPM is no longer a reporting tool: it's a nervous system that feeds the entire supply chain, giving companies the means to make better, faster and more integrated decisions.
Imane El Azhry
EPM Consultant
Micropole, a Talan company
