Imagine you had an entire team of crack assistants that brought so much benefit to your operations that it was hard to know how to describe it. Now imagine that they work 24/7 without a break and seem to get better and smarter at what they do every day.

That’s how it can feel to describe what Microsoft Copilot can do – and is beginning to do – within the world’s supply chain network.

“No,” someone will tell me when I talk about what it can do. “That’s crazy.” But it’s not.

Risk and reward: weather, pirates and everything in between
At its core, incorporating AI into a supply chain management system allows you to sort through, analyze and categorize untold amounts of data, turning it into actionable information for better decision-making.

For example, add Copilot to your existing ERP and supply chain applications landscape – harnessing the power of Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Power Platform – and the possibilities are endless. A few examples:

Product recalls
Quickly identify partners, suppliers and end-users of impacted products, for example in the food and beverage sector, generating a communication to all that can be distributed in near real-time to ensure defective or potentially unsafe products are accurately and rapidly recalled.
Vendor management
Continuously analyze current and prospective vendors for best value and reliability, generating recommendations for proposed changes according to pre-determined criteria.
Risk mitigation
Analyze risks across a global supply chain network – from storms to online criminal networks to real-world pirate attacks – in multiple languages, providing alerts and recommended actions in near real-time when risk factors reach a stage pre-set by supply chain planners.
Demand planning
Identify and track changes in the markets and customer buying patterns that impact resource supply and/or customer demand, allowing demand planners to react long before changes would have been visible in a pre-AI world.
Workflow efficiencies
Provide continual end-to-end visibility across multiple data sources to identify potential bottlenecks and recommend areas of improvement.
Boost traceability
Create a chain of custody for each product, based on individual identifiers such as serial numbers or batch numbers, across a supplier chain and throughout the product lifecycle to understand suppliers’ sourcing practices and the provenance of raw ingredients and materials for required Environmental Social Governance reporting.

But that’s not all. All these capabilities are covered by Microsoft’s commitment to data security and Responsible AI principles.

Where to start?
These aren’t “someday” possibilities. Our teams are in the field now, working with companies to identify and prioritize use cases, build pilots and then deploy Copilot to larger enterprise environments.

One of AI’s superpowers is its ability to be customized to accomplish exactly what a company’s business objective requires. That’s also where Avanade shines, based on our extensive global experience with gen AI and Copilot.

Maybe you don’t need protection from pirates or the ability to recall food. If you would like to dig into what Copilot could accomplish in your exact environment, let’s set up a time to brainstorm together.

AI has already moved from fantasy into the real world of work. Let’s put it to work for you.

Reach out to connect or check out our full copilot for manufacturing offerings here.

Microsoft Copilot for supply chains: Lightning in a bottle