How SAP IBP helps Bru Textiles boost sustainability

‘Cut costs’ and ‘raise efficiency’: these are usually the main drivers for companies to optimise their supply chains. Not for Bru Textiles, though. This supplier of interior furnishing fabrics decided to implement SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) to support their sustainability strategy. However, they are, of course, just as enthusiastic about how the solution helps them improve their operational excellence.

A passion for fabrics, a can-do mentality, limitless curiosity and a continuous quest for innovation: that’s what has made Bru Textiles big in the world of interior furnishing fabrics. From the world’s leading fabric brands and furniture manufacturers to healthcare and hospitality businesses: they all love Bru’s high-quality materials and services. To ensure outstanding services, Bru built a state-of-the-art, fully automated warehouse – one of the first in their sector – and relies on SAP S/4HANA.

In an SAP webinar, BruTextiles’s CEO Jason Neirman gave 5 reasons why his company decided to implement SAP IBP, zooming in on their sustainability committments that were, in fact, the key driver for BruTextiles to embrace SAP’s supply chain planning tool.

Want to hear his story? Get in touch and we’ll send you the recording.

The road towards sustainability

In 2020, Bru decided to extend SAP S/4HANA with SAP IBP, SAP’s supply chain planning tool. While supply chains are usually optimised for profitability, Bru saw SAP IBP as an opportunity to accelerate their sustainability journey, says Stijn Schepers: “Bru ships tens of millions metres of fabrics to over 100 countries. With so many fabrics crisscrossing the globe in ships, trucks and planes, Bru’s environmental impact is quite big. During a brainstorm on how to reduce their carbon footprint, the team realised that optimising the supply chain is a great starting point for greater sustainability.”

How SAP IBP drives sustainability

Although no standard functionalities currently exist in SAP IBP for sustainability planning, the tool supports Bru in planning for a more sustainable supply chain.
“By gathering data and enriching it, SAP IBP provides end-to-end visibility over Bru’s supply network. In addition, they can now forecast demand and needs, make on-the-fly simulations and plan scenarios. These insights help Bru Textiles rethink how and where to store their stock, which suppliers to choose or which transport mode to use – as a way to reduce the kilometres travelled by their products and people.”

3 more reasons to go SAP IBP

More than helping Bru reduce their carbon footprint, SAP IBP also helps them further raise the operational excellence that is so crucial for their business success. With SAP IBP, Bru can analyse demand around the globe, forecast sales and simulate different resource planning scenarios. In this way, SAP IBP helps Bru to:

Optimise demand planning by ensuring that the right products are in stock at the right time;
Improve the distribution of inventory;
Unlock freight efficiencies and reduce costs.

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Closer collaboration with customers and partners

“While sustainability was our main driver for embracing SAP IBP, we’ve seen how improving the information flow across our supply chain also offers plenty of opportunities to cut costs, be a more efficient company, plan our stock better and, as a result, provide better customer services”, says CEO Jason Neiman.

And this is just the beginning. Bru Textiles has plans to collaborate more closely with customers and partners in the future to further optimise their entire supply chain with SAP IBP. In this way, SAP IBP brings the fabric expert one step closer to its mission of ‘setting the industry standard for innovation’.

Interested in getting started with SAP IBP? Flexso guides you in three steps.

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