Three bodies of independent research now point in the same direction. Organisations using advanced supply chain planning systems outperform those that do not, across revenue, cost, inventory, and resilience. The gap is material. The question is what it takes to actually realise it.
The case for investing in digital supply chain planning is no longer built on vendor claims or anecdotal references. There is now a substantial body of academically rigorous, peer-reviewed research that quantifies what advanced planning systems do, and do not do, to supply chain financial performance.
For supply chain directors building or defending a business case, this research changes the conversation. It shifts the question from whether to invest to how to ensure that the investment delivers.
The findings cluster around three distinct but connected themes: the financial performance gap between organisations with and without advanced planning systems; the operational improvement ranges that organisations can realistically expect; and the resilience advantage that digital planning confers when disruption hits. Each body of research is independently significant. Together, they make a compelling picture.
The Financial Performance Gap Is Measurable and Persistent
The most striking evidence comes from research conducted by Professor Morgan Swink, Executive Director of the Center for Supply Chain Innovation at TCU's Neeley School of Business. Professor Swink analysed 644 firms across six industries over three years, covering the period from Q3 2019 through the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most disruptive episodes in modern supply chain history.
The financial divergence between companies using advanced planning systems and those without was significant across every major metric. Companies not using Maestro (then RapidResponse) saw revenues fall by 9%, return on assets decline by 0.6%, and experienced both higher direct and indirect costs (+3.2%) and elevated inventory levels (+6%). Companies using the platform navigated the same environment with materially better outcomes.1
7.7%
Cumulative superior return on assets for Maestro users vs. non-users over three years. Professor Morgan Swink, TCU Neeley School of Business
What makes these findings particularly significant is that Swink's research spans a genuine disruption event. The pandemic was not a controlled experiment: it was an exogenous shock that affected every firm in the dataset simultaneously. The divergence in outcomes therefore reflects something structural, a systematic difference in how well these organisations could process information, respond to change, and make decisions under pressure.
For a supply chain director, this framing matters. The value of advanced planning is not primarily about running smoothly in calm conditions. It is about maintaining performance and recovering faster when conditions are not calm.
The Operational Improvement Ranges Are Broader Than Most Expect
A second body of research documents the operational performance improvements that organisations achieve after implementing Maestro. Compiled across multiple customer deployments and validated by Professor Swink's independent analysis, the range of outcomes spans every major supply chain KPI.
Forecast accuracy improves by 7 to 25% at item/location level. Total inventory falls by 5 to 25%. Obsolescence decreases by 6 to 26%. Expediting costs drop by 5 to 28%. Customer service metrics, including OTIF, line fill, and CLT, improve by 8 to 37%. S&OP cycle times reduce by 10 to 43%.2
70%
of companies implementing Maestro saw significant KPI improvement within the first 12 months. Kinaxis / Professor Morgan Swink, TCU
The breadth of this range reflects something important: the outcomes organisations achieve vary considerably, and they vary for reasons that are well understood. The research consistently identifies the same differentiating factors, namely the quality of the implementation, the degree to which processes are redesigned around the new system, and critically, the capability and confidence of the people using it.
This is why the 70% figure deserves careful attention. It is an encouraging headline: the majority of organisations see meaningful KPI improvement within a year. But it also implies that a significant minority do not, at least not within that timeframe. The system is a constant. What varies is what surrounds it.
"The technology creates the conditions for better supply chain performance. Whether those conditions are realised depends on whether the organisation has genuinely adopted it, in its processes, its behaviours, and its people."
The Resilience Evidence Is Perhaps the Most Striking of All
The third and most recent body of research, published in Production and Operations Management (2025), addresses a question that has become central to every supply chain director's agenda: does having an advanced planning system make your organisation more resilient when disruption strikes?
The answer, based on analysis of firm performance through the COVID-19 pandemic, is unambiguous.3
The study found that firms using supply chain planning systems experienced fewer negative financial impacts throughout the disruption period, and recovered faster than their peers. Critically, it also found that inventory buffering, the traditional defensive tactic of holding excess stock as a hedge against uncertainty, provided no evidence of improving resilience, even in industries that experienced positive demand shocks during the pandemic.
This is a significant finding for supply chain directors who are still defending large inventory buffers as a resilience strategy. The research suggests that the answer to volatility is not more stock. It is better information, faster decisions, and the planning capability to act on both. Advanced planning systems provide the infrastructure for all three. Excess inventory, by contrast, ties up working capital without delivering the protection it promises.
67%
of supply chain decision-makers admit they are not satisfied with their response time to major disruptions, with an average response time of five days. IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by Kinaxis, April 2024
The five-day average response time documented in the IDC research is a useful benchmark against which to measure the value of concurrent planning. Maestro's architecture, built on an always-on computational engine that enables real-time scenario modelling and concurrent planning across the full supply chain, is specifically designed to compress that window. The financial and operational performance data shows what happens when it does.
What the Research Does Not Tell You
It would be a mistake to read this research as a straightforward advertisement for a planning platform. The findings are robust, but they come with an important caveat that the research itself makes explicit.
The performance gap between organisations using advanced planning and those that do not is real. But that gap exists between organisations that have genuinely adopted the system and those that have not, not simply between those that have licenced it and those that have not. The implementation approach and the quality of change management are cited consistently as the primary determinants of whether organisations land in the 70% that see significant improvement within 12 months.
Professor Swink's conclusion is direct: CFOs and supply chain leaders need to understand that the financial case for advanced planning is strong, but realising it requires treating the transformation as an organisational change, not a technology project.
The Grange Perspective: Technology and Adoption, Together
At Grange, we support organisations through Maestro by Kinaxis implementations. We are deeply familiar with the research referenced in this article, and with what it takes to land in the 70% rather than the 30%.
Our conviction is simple: digital planning only delivers value when people adopt it. That means pairing implementation expertise with human-centred change enablement, building the capability, confidence, and behaviours in planning teams that allow them to use Maestro as it was designed to be used.
The numbers in this article represent what is possible. Our job is to make sure your organisation actually gets there.
Is your organisation set up to realise the full value of Maestro?
Grange supports Maestro by Kinaxis implementations end to end, from solution design and process redesign to capability building, change enablement, and post-go-live adoption. If you are planning an implementation or looking to get more from an existing one, we would welcome the conversation.
Book a conversation with the Grange team →
References
1. Swink, M. (2021). Academic analysis of key CFO metrics pre- and post-COVID for ~50 global companies. Center for Supply Chain Innovation, Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University. Commissioned by Kinaxis.
2. Kinaxis / Swink, M. (2024). Rapid Value: KPI improvement ranges across Maestro implementations. Center for Supply Chain Innovation, TCU Neeley School of Business.
3. Swink, M., Kovach, J.J. and Roh, J. (2025). Inventory and Supply Chain Planning Systems as Drivers of Supply Chain Resilience: Analyses of Firm Performance Through the COVID-19 Pandemic. Production and Operations Management, 34(8): 2486-2505.
4. IDC InfoBrief (2024). Supply Chain Orchestration: Leveraging End-to-End Supply Chain Orchestration to Deliver Next Generation Supply Chain Management, Intelligence, and Responsiveness. Doc #CA52004924, April 2024. Sponsored by Kinaxis.
Statistics cited are drawn from published academic research and industry reports. Readers are encouraged to verify figures against the latest available editions of each source, as data is periodically updated.