AI Supply Chain Orchestration for UK SMEs in 2026

A telecoms tower business running nearly 15,000 sites across nine countries doesn’t get to blame “the system” when things go wrong. If a shipment misses, a contractor isn’t on-site, or fuel prices spike overnight, the impact hits uptime, customer trust, and costs.

That’s why Dawn McCarroll’s interview about Helios Towers stuck with me. She’s leading supply chain and business excellence in an environment where volatility is normal, partners do a huge share of the work (Helios supports around 11,500 indirect contractors and partner staff), and the mission is tangible: connect communities across Africa and the Middle East.

If you run a UK small business, you’re not managing 15,000 tower sites. But the operational problem is the same: you need reliability without hiring an army. And in 2026—especially as energy costs, carbon reporting expectations, and customer delivery standards keep rising—AI and automation are becoming the practical way to do it.

This post translates the big-enterprise lessons from Helios into something you can actually apply: AI-powered supply chain automation, partner performance control, and process improvement that supports the Climate Change & Net Zero Transition agenda rather than fighting it.

Supply chain orchestration: the real “AI use case”

Supply chain orchestration is the act of removing silos so decisions flow end-to-end—from demand to purchasing, warehousing, delivery, returns, and disposal. McCarroll repeatedly comes back to this idea, especially as Helios moves from SAP Business ByDesign towards SAP S/4Hana and expands AI use in procurement and risk.

For UK SMEs, the trap is thinking “AI” means a chatbot or a flashy dashboard. The higher-value play is usually simpler:

• One source of truth for products, suppliers, prices, and lead times
• A repeatable process from quote → order → fulfilment → invoice
• Alerts when reality diverges (late supplier, stockout risk, price spike)

What orchestration looks like for a small business

You don’t need SAP to orchestrate. You need connected workflows.

A practical SME stack might be:

• Accounting: Xero / QuickBooks
• Inventory / order management: Unleashed, Cin7, Katana, Shopify, or even a disciplined Airtable setup
• Purchasing and approvals: Microsoft Power Automate / Zapier + rules
• AI layer: built-in copilots (Microsoft, Google), or a controlled internal assistant that drafts POs, flags exceptions, summarises supplier emails

The aim is the same as Helios: reduce manual chasing and make the work predictable. Predictability matters for net zero too—because firefighting creates waste (rush shipping, over-ordering “just in case”, unnecessary site visits, excess packaging).

Operational excellence isn’t motivational posters—it’s training + measurement

Helios isn’t treating improvement as a slogan. The company has trained over 65% of its workforce to Lean Six Sigma green or black belt level, and it plans to train 60% of partner staff in those principles over the next five years.

Most small businesses don’t need formal belts. But they do need the underlying discipline:

• a clear process baseline (how it works today)
• a small set of measures that reflect customer outcomes
• a cadence for fixing recurring issues

A simple “SME excellence” scorecard (that AI can help maintain)

Pick 5–7 metrics you can review weekly:

1. On-time delivery rate (customer promise kept)
2. Perfect order rate (right item, quantity, address, paperwork)
3. Stockout incidents (and lost sales estimate)
4. Supplier lead time accuracy (promised vs actual)
5. Expedite count (rush shipping is a cost and carbon signal)
6. Returns rate (quality + waste)
7. Energy/fuel spend per order (rough but useful)

AI helps by doing the annoying parts:

• categorising returns reasons from emails/notes
• summarising what changed week-to-week (“late deliveries rose because Supplier B slipped by 4 days”)
• generating an “exceptions list” so your team looks at the 10 problems that matter, not 300 lines of data

This is where the Climate Change & Net Zero Transition theme becomes operational. Lower waste and fewer expedites generally means lower emissions. You don’t need perfect carbon accounting to start making better decisions.

AI in procurement: “you’d need an army” (and that’s the point)

McCarroll makes a blunt point about procurement tooling: with contract management, supplier performance tracking, sourcing, and price scanning, “You would need an army of staff” to do manually what tools can do at scale.

That’s the opportunity for SMEs. Procurement is full of repeatable tasks that can be automated without risking customer relationships.

High-return procurement automations for SMEs

Here are automations I’ve seen deliver results quickly:

• Price variance alerts: flag when supplier prices shift beyond a threshold
• Renewal reminders: contracts, insurance, maintenance agreements
• Three-quote sourcing pack: AI drafts an RFQ email with specs and terms
• Supplier performance log: auto-tag late deliveries and quality issues
• Purchase order drafting: generate PO lines from reorder rules or sales demand

A key constraint: procurement automation must be governed. If you let an AI tool “buy things” without controls, it will eventually buy the wrong thing.

Use rules:

• reorder points approved by a human
• supplier list locked
• spend thresholds requiring sign-off
• audit trail kept in your system of record

Resilience is a climate issue (not just a risk issue)

Helios operates in “currency-volatile markets” and responds to shocks like the pandemic, the Ukraine conflict’s knock-on effects, and regional fuel crises. UK SMEs face different versions of the same pressure: import delays, sudden carrier price jumps, or a key supplier going bust.

Resilience and sustainability are linked. When you don’t have resilience:

• you expedite shipments (higher emissions)
• you overstock “to be safe” (higher waste, higher storage energy)
• you switch suppliers last minute (often to less efficient options)

Practical AI-enabled resilience moves

1. Second-source your top 20% of SKUs

   • AI can help identify which products drive most revenue and which suppliers are single points of failure.

2. Build a “risk inbox” that your team actually reads

   • Helios uses scanning for security and socio-economic risks. SMEs can start with simpler signals: supplier delays, carrier disruption updates, currency swings.

3. Scenario planning that isn’t a spreadsheet nightmare

   • Use forecasting tools (or AI-assisted models) to answer: “If demand rises 15% in March, what breaks first?”

4. Inventory policies that reflect uncertainty

   • Don’t aim for “max availability”. Aim for “availability at sane cost and carbon”.

Warehouse and fulfilment: where AI saves money and carbon

McCarroll talks about “AI-leveraged warehouses” and an end-to-end digital experience—right through to disposal.

For SMEs, warehouse AI doesn’t have to mean robots. It can mean:

• pick/pack checks using barcode workflows
• slotting recommendations (fast-movers closer to packing benches)
• batching orders to reduce walking time
• fewer mis-picks and returns (returns are expensive and carbon-heavy)

A net-zero friendly fulfilment playbook for small teams

• Reduce returns before you reduce packaging. Returns usually outweigh packaging wins.
• Stop expediting by default. Make expedite a tracked exception with a reason code.
• Bundle shipments. Offer customers incentives for fewer deliveries.
• Choose carriers with clear emissions reporting where possible (even basic reporting is better than none).

A good one-liner to keep you honest:

If your operation relies on heroics, it’s costing you money and carbon.

“People first” AI: confidence, capability, and partner performance

McCarroll describes AI and digital tools as “confidence-givers”. I agree. When AI is deployed well, the biggest win isn’t headcount reduction—it’s removing cognitive load.

For SMEs, that shows up as:

• junior staff handling purchasing without fear of making costly mistakes (because the system checks)
• better handovers when someone is off sick
• consistent customer comms
• clearer accountability with contractors and third parties

Managing partners like Helios (but scaled down)

If you rely on installers, couriers, subcontractors, or outsourced fulfilment, borrow Helios’s stance: treat partners as part of the system.

Set up:

• a partner scorecard (on-time, quality, responsiveness)
• standard operating procedures (SOPs) that you share and update
• training (short Loom videos beat “tribal knowledge”)
• monthly review focused on fixes, not blame

AI helps by summarising partner performance and turning messy comms into structured insight.

A 30-day implementation plan for UK SMEs

You can make meaningful supply chain automation progress in 30 days if you keep it narrow and measurable.

1. Week 1: Map one workflow end-to-end

   • Example: “customer order → purchase order → delivery → invoice”.

2. Week 2: Define your exceptions

   • Late supplier, out-of-stock, price variance, quality issue.

3. Week 3: Automate alerts + reporting

   • Daily exceptions email/Teams message.
   • Weekly scorecard.

4. Week 4: Add one AI assistant task

   • Draft supplier chaser emails.
   • Summarise inbound supplier updates.
   • Categorise returns reasons.

A good target outcome:

• 20–30% fewer “where is it?” chases
• fewer expedites (track count)
• clearer supplier performance without extra admin

Those are operational wins that also support net zero efforts by cutting waste and unnecessary transport.

Where this is heading in 2026

Helios’s direction is clear: integrated processes, AI across planning and procurement, and a partner ecosystem trained to improve continuously. That’s not “enterprise theatre”. It’s a response to real-world operational pressure.

UK SMEs can take the same approach without buying heavyweight platforms: connect your systems, automate the repetitive work, and use AI to surface exceptions early. Then measure what improves—especially where improvements reduce waste, returns, and expedited shipping.

If your business has net zero ambitions (or customers pushing you for sustainability proof), supply chain orchestration is one of the most credible places to start. It’s measurable, it improves service, and it reduces the operational chaos that drives emissions.

What would happen to your costs—and your carbon footprint—if you stopped expediting “just this once” and started designing a supply chain that doesn’t need panic?