Supply chain management and planning tools viewed as the most mission critical technologies for European supply chains

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and forecasting technologies top the list of most useful and widely deployed technologies for European firms in 2025

European supply chain professionals report that supply chain management systems are their most used technology and most likely to improve resilience

Against a backdrop of US tariff uncertainty and geopolitical instability, European supply chains are backing technology as a key response, with supply chain management software and forecasting technologies found to be deployed most widely and the capabilities most likely to generate resilience.

According to a survey of nearly 400 European supply chain professionals from Maersk and Reuters Events, Supply Chain: 90% of European organisations have deployed supply chain management software/ERP; 88% have done so for forecasting and analytics; and 85% for supply chain monitoring, tracking and visibility solutions.

According to the survey, the need for European businesses to make supply chain decisions quickly and accurately within an environment of high volatility has led to ERP, forecasting and analytics systems to be prioritised.

The full findings of ‘the state of European supply chains in 2025’ can be downloaded for free here.

Technology used to enhance resilience

The report notes that the popularity of these technologies is being driven by the high return on investment possible through their deployment, coming in ahead of other technologies for their ability to generate resilience.

Seventy-six percent of respondents reported that supply chain management software helped to make their organisation more resilient, making it the most effective technology, followed by 69% for forecasting and analytics and 65% for supply chain monitoring tools.

Organisations are principally using analytics to optimise inventory levels (60%), improve customer experience (59%) and cut operating costs (57%).

Consensus regarding AI adoption is mixed

In contrast, the report finds a much more mixed picture when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Despite a major 19% year-on-year increase in the share of European supply chain professionals reporting current usage of AI, the share that think it is making their organisations more resilient actually fell between the 2024 and 2025 surveys, declining from 32% of the sample to 28%.

The report cautions that this appears to be a case of “new entrants rushing into the technology without the right expertise, or even use cases, to justify their investment and acts as a cautionary tale against the technology itself being the objective. Instead, organisations must identify first what gaps a system may help to address before diving headlong into setting it up.”

Complex analysis key to resilience

The research noted that organisations need to lean into complex analytical capabilities utilising technologies like machine learning and therefore cannot be deterred by these difficulties in setting up new technologies.

The report also analysed the capabilities and behaviours of highly resilient organisations, and found that among these more adaptable and flexible organisations they were 21% more likely to be deploying predictive and prescriptive analytics, with a 10-point gap in the former and an 11-point gap in the latter.

Additionally, it was found that these high performers are leveraging this greater predictive capacity to be more agile by ordering and positioning inventory ahead of potential disruptions. They are +14% more likely than the wider survey to be using analytics to pinpoint developing disruptions and +13% more likely to be slashing their lead times via analytics.  

These results therefore stress the importance of having robust oversight of supply chains and then utilising this capability to rapidly understand where supply chains are stressed and to forecast how demand patterns are evolving at this

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