Forging the future of supply chains

The buzz around supply chains has been intense. Pandemic disruption heightened awareness of the complexity of global supply chains and how important they are to our communities and economies. Now rising factors, including inflationary pressures, have intensified the spotlight. Supply chain leaders face fresh demands for sustainability, adaptability, and value creation—all of which can expose new risks as well as enhanced opportunities.

In this catalytic environment, the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) brought together the top supply chain executives from dozens of leading organizations to explore the key lessons and action points for this moment. Drawn from a series of open-forum discussions, as well as quantitative primary research from extensive C-suite data, the IBV has identified 5 top playbook essentials for supply chain leaders for 2022—and beyond.

These 5 imperatives encapsulate strategies to embrace, reimagine, and optimize the supply chain of the future. Expectations include digital transformation, improved sustainability, and workforce evolution, as supply chain operations adapt to meet the immediate and evolving needs of customers, employees, shareholders, and society. Chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) who rise to this moment and embrace higher-value supply chain strategies can distinguish themselves, their teams, and their organizations. 

CSCOs are using an expanding kit of tech-fueled tools to modernize supply chain operations

Playbook essential #1: Secure the right supply chain talent 

Great supply chains require great people, with skills and talent primed for the digital future. But pandemic-driven changes to the ways of working—and a shortage of skills and employees—require leaders to re-examine supply chain processes and create new ones that take advantage of new technologies.

Playbook essential #2: Insist on customer centricity 

Initiatives focused on the customer experience can define the future success of today's supply chain execs. To meet customer demands and needs, they are building automated, artificial intelligence-powered workflows embedded with predictive capabilities. These intelligent workflows can fuel data-driven, real-time decision-making across the value chain.

Playbook essential #3: Embrace sustainability 

The C-suite focus on sustainability and stakeholder capitalism has forced supply chain leaders to turn environmental and social challenges into opportunities that may benefit both society and the profitability of the individual enterprise. Analytics can help reduce waste among supply networks and align consumption to sourcing and procurement activities, as well as improve flexibility when faced with volatility.

Playbook essential #4: Invest in automation

When physical operations are automated and digitized with robotics (drones, robots), robotic process automation, and Intelligent Workflows, the value employees deliver can be greatly amplified. To optimize the human-machine partnership across supply chain processes, leading CSCOs are reskilling their workforces to perform higher-value tasks, such as analytics and workflow monitoring.

Playbook essential #5: Model risk in new ways

To support resiliency and risk management, organizations are developing and expanding their use of real-time data and supply signals to build more resilient supply chains. Operating models are leveraging technology-infused workflows to become both predictive and proactive to anticipate issues and prepare for unpredictable ones.

Read the full report to explore these strategies in more depth—and to see points CSCOs should ponder as they build their digital supply chains of the future.