By Thamara Ramirez-Walker and Natasha Pergl, SAP
The role of the Chief Operating Officer (COO) as a guardian of efficiency and cost control has matured. Today, COOs are at the epicenter of transformation, tasked with steering their organizations through a maze of new global regulations and tariffs. The landscape has shifted, and with it, the COO’s role has expanded from operational oversight to strategic leadership, requiring them to build resilient, responsible, and future-ready supply chains.
Against this backdrop, COOs must harness data, AI, and collaborative platforms to gain end-to-end visibility across their supply chains, ensure regulatory compliance, and establish sustainable operations that can adapt and thrive.
The Expanding COO Mandate
Global industry trends and regulatory shifts are rapidly reshaping supply chains. The founder of SAP’s The Future of Supply Chain podcast, Richard Howells, shared that these shifts are forcing COOs to now incorporate sustainability KPIs and deliver not just compliance, but trust, transparency, and long-term value too.
Legislation like the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) demands transparency and traceability far beyond tier-1 suppliers. Additionally, companies in scope for the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) must now provide visibility into Scope 3 emissions, covering emissions across the value chain. Jessika Castañon, Deloitte Supply Chain lead, reports that navigating complex and evolving regulatory requirements is one of the biggest challenges her customers are facing.
But if compliance is playing not-to-lose, transparency of supply chains is playing-to-win. End-to-end visibility and control benefits companies by protecting and strengthening brand reputation, maintaining customer loyalty, and offering opportunities to identify and reduce waste and emissions. Businesses that are successful in this endeavor don’t treat sustainability as a separate function but embed it at the core of their operations.
To effectively achieve this, COOs need reliable, real-time data across their supply chains. Challenges lie in identifying which data to collect, ensuring its accuracy, and integrating it into decision-making. COOs must turn insights into meaningful outcomes. After all, insights mean nothing if they are not acted upon.
Key Priorities for Today’s COOs
To meet their new mandate and future-proof operations, COOs should focus on a few critical priorities:
1. Redesigning Supply Chains for Resilience
Today’s COOs must look beyond cost and efficiency to build adaptive, future-ready supply chains.
2. Turning Scope 3 Emissions into Actionable Insights
Scope 3 emissions remain the biggest blind spot—and risk—for operations leaders. “Having visibility across the supply chain is one of the biggest challenges COOs face,” says Richard Howells. Identifying emissions hotspots by product, material, and supplier tier enables targeted decarbonization and more informed capital allocation.
3. Digitizing for Speed, Clarity, and Compliance
Technology isn’t just a tool—it’s a strategic enabler. COOs must champion digital platforms that integrate operational, sustainability, and financial data into one source of truth.
4. Embedding Cross-Functional and Supplier Collaboration
No COO can deliver transformation in isolation. Driving alignment across finance, procurement, manufacturing, and compliance functions is foundational.
Catena-X: Leading on Collaboration
Catena-X provides a compelling example of collaborative, insight-driven action. It involves major players in the automotive supply chain together with technology leaders like SAP. By working collectively, these organizations are achieving traceability of parts, calculating component-level emissions, and minimizing waste throughout the production process. This kind of cross-industry collaboration proves that with the right tools and mindset, sustainable transformation is not only possible, it’s already happening.
Using Technology to Turn Insight into Impact
Technology is essential to the execution of these priorities, which is why SAP is investing heavily in sustainability solutions that empower COOs to drive measurable change across their operations.
COOs and supply chain managers are already using applications including SAP Sustainability Data Exchange (SDX), SAP Sustainability Footprint Management (SFM), and SAP Responsible Design and Production (RDP), which combine with advanced data services like SAP Business Data Cloud and have embedded AI capabilities to facilitate data collection, sharing and utilization.
Another standout software helping companies account for both financial and sustainability metrics in tandem is SAP Green Ledger. It allows organizations to move from estimated emissions averages to actual, providing auditable environmental data for decision-making and reporting.
Together, these tools help integrate real-time financial, operational, and ESG data to give a 360-degree view of supply chain performance. They empower COOs at every step of the supply chain. Their AI capabilities act to enhance productivity, automate ESG reporting, and uncover opportunities for efficiency and innovation.
Preparing for What’s Next
Sustainability is no longer a standalone agenda—it’s a core operating principle that must be embedded across every part of the business. COOs and supply chain leaders must act today to build the resilient, transparent, and sustainable supply chains of tomorrow.
By investing in robust data collection and management, embracing AI-driven insights, and fostering deep collaboration, they can stay ahead of regulatory demands, reduce environmental impact, and unlock long-term business value.
Whether it’s through solutions designed to anticipate regulatory deadlines or tools like SAP Sustainability Footprint Management, SAP is helping COOs turn insight into action—enabling faster, smarter decisions across the entire supply chain.
Learn More
Find out how business leaders are moving from insight to action using SAP’s Business Suite integration and AI-powered sustainability tools to unlock efficiencies and build resilient, responsible, and future-ready supply chains by signing up for SAP Sapphire 2025 events in May taking place in Orlando, Madrid and virtually.
In addition, tune into our SAP Expert Series for Sustainability webinar to hear topic experts from SAP and Deloitte discuss their guidance on how to achieve a sustainable supply chain, and check out the SAP Sustainable Supply Chain product page.
