Author

Harry Menear

Published

7 August 2024

Estimated Read time

4Mins

Laure Collin, SVP of Human Resources, Global Supply Chain, at Schneider Electric, discusses the value of human capital in supply chain management.

The benefits of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies for supply chains are clear – greater operational efficiency, sustainability outcomes, and resilience. 

As companies are deploying these digital solutions throughout their organisations, they are faced with a challenge – how to ensure their people develop the skills needed in this new, more digital supply chain. Here are four aspects any supply chain leader should consider.

Digital Supply Chains must be Human-centric

The manufacturing industry is facing a huge labour shortage. According to the World Economic Forum, more than 10 million manufacturing positions are open today. 

Ther’es no denying AI and machine learning have made significant advancements in recent years. However, people remain the backbone of any successful supply chain. Why this labour gap? One significant cause is the higher demand for tech skills.

As companies go through digital transformation, ensuring people remain at the heart of their supply chain strategy is critical. It’s a simple equation: training current industrial talent for the digital world while also investing in the new generation builds a more vibrant, efficient, and future-ready operation. It’s unlikely we will see a sudden surge of digital supply chain talents on the market soon. Therefore, the most obvious step for organisations to take is ensuring their workforce is upskilling and reskilling for the future.

Between 2021 and 2023, Schneider Electric increased digital talents across our supply chain organisation by 67%. This upskilling took place from the shopfloor to senior management. Here’s how we did it.

Reskill, upskill: connecting and nurturing digital skills in shopfloor employees

No matter how advanced technology becomes, it is the people at the ground level who are its primary users. Employee skills can make or break the success of implemented technology. Any digital skills strategy must be inclusive and include your employees working in your factories and distribution centres.

At Schneider Electric, we are equipping our shopfloor employees to become data-driven wizards and automation gurus. One critical step is ensuring they are digitally connected. 

We have connected approximately 40,000 employees across 175 factories and distribution centres to a digital communication tool, enabling them to receive and send communication in real-time. 

This breaks down traditional barriers and connects the shopfloor teams to managers and remote experts. It also ensures the team has greater access to knowledge and problem-solving, sharing best practices and troubleshooting tips across sites. This helps us scale best practices, including digital solutions, across the organisation.

You can’t change what you don’t measure. That’s why we have mapped digital competency across the supply chain organisation – from individuals at the site level to leadership. This transparency has tangible benefits: personalised learning paths for talents across the organisation, skill-gap analysis that empowers managers to drive development of their teams, and executive visibility so we can make informed decisions on where to invest.

We have also created a dedicated program to develop and engage shopfloor employees in automation manufacturing, focusing on three critical domains: programing and automation, digital and technological proficiency, and data analysis interpretation. This ensures these employees can develop the skills and expertise they need for today and tomorrow.

Fostering a Growth Culture: A Collaboration of Learning and Adaptability

The volatility and uncertainty we have seen over the last few years has revealed the new skills, capabilities, and mindset needed for success. Our new world requires new ways of working, and it’s crucial to create a culture that values continuous learning, creative problem-solving, and innovation.

It’s important for leaders to encourage curiosity and open-mindedness, recognize and reward behaviours that demonstrate learning and innovation, and offer flexible learning opportunities that accommodate individual needs. This way, both organisations and their employees can adapt to new technologies and changes in business operations at their own pace, ensuring a smooth digital transformation. 

Our Catalyst Leadership program gives our people managers the skills to be more agile leaders and support their teams in their development.

But there are digital tools that can shape the culture too. Open Talent Market is an AI-driven technology that has helped Schneider Electric match our internal supply and demand of talent in a transparent, borderless, and unbiased way. Employees use it to develop, grow, and shape their futures. Now, they can select a mentor, contribute to a project, or even apply for a new role.

Navigating Towards the Future

As we navigate towards an exciting yet ambiguous digital future, it’s crucial to remember that people make technology work. The key is to create a digitally competent and operationally effective workforce that can navigate the stormy waters of digital transformation.

Building digital expertise and instilling a culture of continuous learning within your supply chain organisation is not easy. However, those willing to invest time, effort and resources will find that they are better prepared to tackle future challenges, seize opportunities, and effectively drive their organisation’s digital transformation journey.

  • Collaboration & Optimization
  • People & Culture

Author

Harry Menear

Published

30 July 2024

Estimated Read time

4Mins

Kevin O’Marah, Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer at Zero100, tracks the trajectory of today’s supply chain leaders headed for the CEO role.

When choosing a new leader to sit at the helm of a major multinational company, there’s no such thing as a low-risk appointment. So, it’s no surprise that more than three-quarters of current Fortune 500 CEOs are internal appointments. Sure, outsiders can bring valuable new perspectives and approaches but, when it comes to the crunch, it’s a lot safer to give the top job to someone who already knows the business inside and out. 

Looking inside the company for a new CEO

No one knows the day-to-day details better than the Chief Operating Officer (COO). Just ask Tim Cook, who spent half a decade as COO at Apple prior to becoming CEO of what is today one of the most valuable companies in the world. 

Apple’s share price has risen 4x over the past five years alone, and much of this success can be traced back to decisions Cook made while he was COO, such as paring back the number of supply chain vendors, adapting advanced manufacturing models and forming critical deals with manufacturers on flash memory.

In an era defined, on the one hand, by the pursuit of global brand dominance and, on the other, by the relentless need to satisfy shareholder and market expectations, COOs aren’t always the most high-profile choice for the top job. But as Tim Cook’s journey shows, they’re more than capable of making the transition. However, the business world is ever-changing. The past few years have forced Fortune 500 firms to battle relentless macro headwinds, from COVID, geopolitics and trade wars, to inflation, talent shortages and heightened environmental and sustainability pressures. 

Boards have been forced to relearn the time-honored truth that business success is ultimately defined by operational efficiency and resilience. In the vast, complex and interconnected global marketplace, this means focusing on supply chain supremacy.

It’s why more and more Fortune 500 firms are adding dedicated supply chain roles to the C-suite. And it’s why today’s Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) could be in pole position to become tomorrow’s Fortune 500 leaders. 

From COO to CSCO (to CEO)

There’s already plenty of precedent here. From Mary Barra at General Motors to Gerry Smith at The ODP Corporation and Christophe Beck at Ecolab, a growing number of companies have appointed supply chain executives as CEOs in recent years.

Supply chain leaders are on the hook to deliver top-line business value like never before. The mainstream media constantly scrutinises supply chain performance, as external shocks come thick and fast. Not only that, but quarterly calls with Wall Street analysts frequently focus on supply chain successes and failures. Supply chain performance underpins shareholder sentiment, influences stock prices, and could even determine a company’s future license to operate.

It’s a tough gig, but it’s also giving supply chain leaders an unmatched opportunity to hone their approach, think strategically, and showcase their skills. The nature of the CSCO role lends itself to individuals who possess several key leadership qualities necessary for success at the very top level. 

Winning CSCOs must immerse themselves in every facet of end-to-end operations to balance supply and demand. They’re comfortable with accountability – they have to be, as the buck always stops with them. They’re analytical and data-driven, well-versed in problem-solving (because the next problem is always around the corner), which means they’re able to stay calm and think clearly in a crisis.

Not only that, but as seasoned practitioners who began their careers on the shop or factory floor, they’re empathetic and humble, commanding the respect of their subordinates as well as their boardroom peers. In short, CSCOs have the skills and the temperament required to assume the greatest corporate responsibility of all. 

CSCOs are digital transformation champions

And there’s another critical factor working in their favour: digitisation. 

Right now, the entire corporate world is seeking to embrace AI and enter a new era of digitally driven productivity and profitability. There’s a growing convergence of supply chain and IT within many of the world’s largest organisations. It’s an accepted reality that the supply chain leaders are far better placed than the chief technologists and innovation officers to make digitisation an operational reality.

Fortune 500 CSCOs are already leading the digital charge, figuring out which technologies to embrace and where to deploy them, as well as determining the future talent requirements and upskilling necessary to deliver AI-powered, 100% digitised supply chains. This immense task requires rethinking several decades of normalised business practices and embedded behaviours and convincing their board to back them at every stage in the journey.

In this respect, the plight of the CSCO is synonymous with the race to embrace AI. The Fortune 500 firms that successfully reorient their businesses around AI will be the ones that win, and win big, in the long run. 

Likewise, the CSCOs that succeed in their digitisation mission will have passed the ultimate litmus test – the requirement to lead.

  • People & Culture

Author

Harry Menear

Published

29 April 2024

Estimated Read time

2Mins

“T-shaped” supply chain professionals combine deep specialisation backed up by broad industry knowledge.

Around the world, supply chains are increasingly under pressure. 

Geopolitical and environmental pressures like conflict in Ukraine or the intensification of the climate crisis aren’t entirely to blame. For many supply chain and procurement teams, the inherent complexity and volume of their roles is increasing. Most allarmingly, workloads are growing without the additional headcount needed to support them. 

“Skills shortages are now seen across all points of the supply-chain continuum, from sourcing to production, logistics, and delivery of goods and services,” author and researcher Joe McKenrick wrote for the Harvard Business Review in September 2023. While McKendrick admits that technology has advanced sufficiently in recent years to “fill in many of the gaps resulting from skills shortages,” he stresses that technology alone cannot solve this problem.    

The future of procurement and supply chain is T-shaped 

One of the issues contributing to the skills shortage in the supply chain sector is an increased trend towards hyperspecialisation. 

Driven by increasingly rapid tech advancement cycles, the as-a-service economy, and a rise in third-party consulting, disciplines have become increasingly refined. 

Organisations today are often comprise expert professionals with high levels of competency in a single specific area. These employees work in silos that lack connectivity with other branches of the larger business. This specialisation not only makes organisations less agile, but slows the process of replacing, retraining, and upskilling workers.  

These specialised workers, with a narrow knowledge base, are known as “I-shaped.” Increasingly, supply chain leaders are feeling the need for workers with a more holistic understanding of the discipline. However, generalists lack the deep, specialised knowledge that can translate into strategic wins and competitive advantage for an organisation. 

The answer is the T-shaped professional. T-shaped professionals or procurement teams are individuals or groups with deep specialisations in a mixture of fields. However, unlike “I-shaped” workers, T-shaped procurement and supply chain professionals also have a broad, generalised knowledge base. This type of employee is more capable of acting outside their area of advanced specialisation. Not only this, however, but their skill makeup make sthem significantly better at collaborating with other professionals. 

This is an age of procurement and supply chain staff shortages. For organisations looking to overcome these pain points, focusing on hiring people with a mixture of deep, specialised knowledge and generalist skills will allow teams to do more with less.

  • People & Culture
  • Sourcing & Procurement

Author

Harry Menear

Published

5 April 2024

Estimated Read time

4Mins

Macroeconomic turbulence is making it harder to predict customer purchasing, which is in turn hurting supply chains.

Supply chain issues will cost consumer goods brands more than $800 billion in top-line growth over the next five years. At the heart of it, the problem is unpredictability. However, some experts suggest that unpredictability in the supply chain can be a force for increased revenue and strategic opportunity. 

A hostile supply chain landscape 

During the pandemic, global supply chains were exposed for just how fragile they had become. Hyper-globalised just-in-time organisation buckled overnight under the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the supply chain sector has repositioned itself. Increasingly, supply chain leaders are seen as sources of resilience as they capture value and deliver wins despite disruptions. 

However, the current economic landscape may be—as strange as it seems—more hostile than the climate of 2021. Today, supply chains are being placed under unsustainable pressure. This pressure originates from increasingly unpredictable customer buying behaviour, in addition to ongoing material shortages, and macroeconomic turbulence. 

Supply chain problems aren’t being solved 

“To thrive in this uncertainty, businesses must take control of their supply chains and deliver value. But despite valiant efforts, supply chain problems aren’t being solved,” a report by Celonis found recently. 

The ripples of geopolitical conflict and climate-crisis-driven disruption continue to disrupt global supply chains, with no signs of going away. At the same time, economic pressures are growing more severe. In addition to a global slowdown, multiple post-industrial nations are teetering on the brink of (or already sliding into) recessions. The result is widespread uncertainty as to customer and consumer behaviour. 

Is uncertainty a supply chain killer?

Traditionally, uncertainty is anathema to supply chain managers. In a 2023 Gartner survey of 164 supply chain executives, 63% predicted that supply chain uncertainty would lead to a loss. 

Source: Gartner (November 2023)

Strangely, 9% of CSCOs believes that uncertainty would result in an increase in revenue. This data challenges (in a very small way) the assumption that uncertainty in the supply chain is a bad thing. 

“The inability to cope with uncertainty is driven by a misallocation of initiatives to the wrong strategy,” asserts Tim Payne, Vice President Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain Practice. In many supply chains, he argues, processes and systems are set up to “keep keep uncertainty outside the supply chain.” 

However, this is a world where uncertainty is the only state of existence that supply chain managers can count on. Under these circumstances, this methodology comes badly apart at the seams. “This overinvestment in a barrier to keep uncertainty out actually stifles the ability to learn from it, keeping most supply chains today in a fragile state,” Payne says. 

Antifragility in the supply chain

The answer, according to Gartner’s experts, is cultivating an “anti-fragile” supply chain. 

“Rather than trying to keep uncertainty out of the supply chain, antifragile supply chains embrace uncertainty with the objective of learning, evolving and adapting their capabilities based on their improved knowledge of it,” notes Payne. “An antifragile mindset changes how CSCOs approach and shape their capabilities, including in areas such as integrated planning, ROI calculations, supply chain redundancy and assessing uncertainty.” 

According to Gartner’s research, several capabilities are useful in reducing the fragility of supply chains and increasing their potential to capitalise on uncertainty, rather than be disrupted by it. 

 The most impactful antifragile supply chain capabilities identified by Gartner include:

  • Decision Processes and Collaboration. Organisations that enable dynamic decision processes during uncertainty were 4.9 times more likely to have a positive revenue impact.
  • Calculating ROI for Supply Chain Investments. Those that accurately assess the value of investing at different times due to uncertainty saw a 4.5 times increase in positive revenue impact from uncertainty.
  • Managing the Assessment of Uncertainty. Organisations that performed a high degree of experimentation on their supply chains to stress test them saw revenues increase 3.7 times due to uncertainty.
  • Supply Chain Redundancy. Supply chain managers that viewed redundancy (whether from inventory, capacity, or multiple suppliers) as an investment opportunity rather than an inefficiency to be eliminated saw a 3.6 times revenue spike from uncertainty.
  • Supply Chain Planning. Organisations with a focus on end-to-end planning policies in the midterm and accurate functional short-term planning saw revenues increase by 2.5 times.
  • Monitoring, Adjustments and Responsiveness. Businesses that practised monitoring at “arm’s length” to intervene only if policies are breached and empower local stakeholders to adjust within policies saw a 2.1 times increase.
  • People & Culture
  • Risk & Resilience

Author

Harry Menear

Published

Estimated Read time

5Mins

Supply chain leaders face a challenging world. The nature of supply chain management has changed. As a result, supply chain…

Supply chain leaders face a challenging world. The nature of supply chain management has changed. As a result, supply chain leaders get more recognition for their role in supporting the business than they used to. However, the challenges facing supply chains today have rarely been more daunting. The outset of 2024 has been defined by new challenges and old complications. Skyrocketing shipping costs, logistics disruptions, economic downturn, and other significant issues ranging from the climate crisis to confrontation with labour unions are all conspiring to derail and disrupt supply chains. 

In the midst of this supply chain leaders are feeling the pressure to not only mitigate risk and avoid disruption, but be a source of strategic wins for the business, from environmental reform to simple cost containment. 

Without a skilled supply chain leader, organisations will struggle, and perhaps even fail. Here are the top seven skills setting today’s best supply chain leaders apart from their peers. 

1. Holistic 

The supply chain is no longer an appendage bolted onto the side of a larger organisation. Supply chain leaders need to take a holistic view that accounts for the entire business. The ones who succeed will drive real success for their organisation.

Holistic supply chain leadership also requires a deep understanding of the wider industry. This involves a constantly evolving understanding of events, key players, and the trade-specific knowledge underpinning the sector. Taking into account the entire value chain from sourcing through to the customer is a challenging prospect, however. 

2. Daring 

In an environment where risk management and resilience are prized almost as much as cost containment, risk-taking supply chain leaders might sound a bit out of place—a dying breed. They’re certainly a rare one. A recent Gartner survey found that only “9% of supply chain organisations expect to achieve revenue gains due to uncertainty.” 

However, the report also pointed out that supply chain leaders who were willing to take steps to capitalise on uncertainty could also realise huge strategic wins for their organisations. After all, no one changed the world by playing it safe. 

“An antifragile supply chain starts with the Chief Supply Chain Officer’s mindset,” said Tim Payne, VP Analyst at Gartner. “Rather than trying to keep uncertainty out of the supply chain, antifragile supply chains embrace uncertainty with the objective of learning, evolving and adapting their capabilities based on their improved knowledge of it.”  

3. Communicative 

One of the key aspects of successful supply chain management in challenging times is being able to find ways to collaborate, coexist, and drive efficiency. According to Beatrix Praeceptor, CPO of Mondi Group, “A high-performing supply chain is not so much about processes and tools as about people collaborating and communicating effectively.”

Supply chain leaders need to find ways to drive end-to-end collaboration throughout the value chain. Those that do will end up creating tangible benefits for their stakeholders, partners, and customers alike. 

4. Digitally Driven 

Procurement is becoming a more digitally transformed discipline every year. With 2024 expected to see generative artificial intelligence adoption, increased automation, and a surge in the number of electric vehicles throughout supply chains, leaders will need to be able to evaluate new technologies from a point of authority. 

Digital transformations guided by overexcitement for a shiny new toy you don’t understand are just as dangerous as holding off on embracing technology out of fear or stubbornness. An effective supply chain leader needs to understand the technology they’re using. They also need to understand the market and what’s available to them so they can effectively communicate with vendors about their organisation’s IT needs and advocate for technology solutions that support their goals.  

5. Agile 

It goes without saying that supply chain leaders who are able to prepare, respond, and find ways to turn crisis into opportunity will have a huge advantage in the supply chain sector. The industry itself is in a state of constant disruption. From Houthi attacks in the Red Sea to the worsening effects of the climate crisis, supply chains have rarely looked more precarious. 

As a result, supply chain leaders need to be ready to adapt quickly in order to alter their strategies as demanded by the changing circumstances around them. 

6. Inspiring

The supply chain is the lifeblood of a modern business. It traces the story of a product from its raw materials and creation to the customer, and supply chain leaders are the architects of that story. However, the ability to convey that purpose and inspire those around them might be one of a supply chain leader’s greatest tools. 

Employees who recognise the importance of their work are more likely to work harder, longer, and create better output.   

7. Ethical 

Supply chains will play a significant part in whether or not we can overcome the challenges posed by our world. Every supply chain that starts with deforestation, slavery, strip mining, and other objectively unethical practices is complicit. Every supply chain that passes through a sweatshop, uses forced prison labour, or endorses a fascist regime by doing business within their borders is complicit. 

A heavy ethical burden has been laid at the feet of supply chain leaders. While there may be increased pressure from consumers and stakeholders to improve ESG throughout many organisations, without champions in the supply chain, change will be slow, incremental, and keep many organisations mired on the wrong side of history.

  • People & Culture

Author

Harry Menear

Published

Estimated Read time

3Mins

To overcome macroeconomic and environmental challenges, supply chain leaders must foster greater collaboration within their supplier ecosystems.

As 2024 continues to unfold, the lessons of the past three years are more clearly visible than ever before. Economic pressures, geopolitical conflict, and climate disruption are no longer freak events. They are the new normal and they are here, in one form or another, to stay. 

Supply chains face an increasingly complex and challenging landscape where the strategies that translated to success pre-pandemic are no longer viable. “Greater efficiency [comes] at the expense of diminished flexibility and effectiveness — a tradeoff the pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions have made painfully clear,” analysts from the Boston Consulting Group argue. 

Resilience, cost, and environmental impact all need to be held in a much more even balance in 2024 than they did five years ago. As a result, supply chain leaders need to reevaluate their approach to building and maintaining relationships throughout their supplier networks. 

A collaborative approach to supplier ecosystems 

In the face of a hostile supply chain landscape, supply chain leaders can potentially mitigate risk and exposure to disruption by taking a less transactional approach to supplier relationships. As noted by Fraser Robinson, co-founder and CEO of Beacon, in a recent interview, “there’s no way to eliminate risk and volatility from your supply chain entirely, but improving information sharing and collaboration across stakeholders can go a long way to help control the fallout.”

This more collaborative approach rests on the twin foundational pillars of trust and technology. 

Collaborative digital tools that allow suppliers and buyers up and down the value chain increased visibility can proactively address and mitigate potential delays while replicating wins. This level of visibility can ensure that all parties along the value chain can see exactly where goods and materials are at the same time—in real time. In a market defined by disruptions, this holistic visibility increases organisations’ ability to identify and respond to said disruption dramatically. 

This level of information sharing obviously requires an amount of trust. This is especially true in a climate where cyber attacks are ever on the rise, with ecosystem partners being an increasingly common source of successful breaches. 

Despite this, however, there are significant benefits of creating trust up and down the supply chain. According to Robinson, these positives are measurable all the way from raw material production to the consumer. Robinson notes that “Certainly, in our world, it takes time to build that trust from the ground up, so that’s why we just have fact-based solutions. Trust is built much faster if the system accurately reflects reality, and users learn that very quickly.”

  • Collaboration & Optimization
  • People & Culture

Author

Dan Brightmore

Published

6 March 2024

Estimated Read time

3Mins

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Our cover story this month focuses on the work of Arianne Gallagher-Welcher. As the Executive Director for the USDA Digital…

Our cover story this month focuses on the work of Arianne Gallagher-Welcher. As the Executive Director for the USDA Digital Service, in the Office of the OCIO, her team’s mission is to drive a tech transformation at the USDA. The goal is to better serve the American people across all of its 50 states.

Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!

Welcome to a new year of possibility where technology meets business at the interface of change…

Read the latest issue here!

USDA: The People’s Agency

“We knew that in order for us to deliver what we needed for our stakeholders, we needed to be flexible – and that has trickled down from our senior leaders.” Arianne Gallagher-Welcher, Executive Director for the USDA Digital Service reveals the strategic plan’s first goal. Above all, the aim is to deliver customer-centric IT so farmers, producers, and families can find dealing with USDA as easy as using an ATM.

BCX: Delivering insights & intelligence across the Data & AI value chain

We also sat down with Stefan Steffen, Executive Leader for Data Insights & Intelligence at BCX. He revealed how BCX is leveraging AI to strategically transform businesses and drive their growth. “Our commitment to leveraging data and AI to drive innovation harnesses the power of technology to unlock new opportunities, drive efficiency, and enhance competitiveness for our clients.”

Momentum Multiply: A culture-driven digital transformation for wellness

Multiply Inspire & Engage is a new offering from leading South African insurance provider Momentum Health Solutions. Furthermore, it is the first digital wellness rewards program in South Africa to balance mental health and physical health in pursuing holistic wellness. CIO, Ndibulele Mqoboli, discusses re-platforming, cloud migrations, and building a culture of ownership, responsibility, and continuous improvement.

Clark County: Creating collaboration for the benefit of residents

Navigating the world of local government can be a minefield of red tape, both for citizens and those working within it. Al Pitts, Deputy CIO of Clark County, talks to us about the organisation’s IT transformation. He explains why collaboration is key to support residents. “We have found our new Clark County – ‘Together for Better’ – is a great way to collaborate on new solutions.”

Also in this issue, we hear from Alibaba’s European GM Jijay Shen on why digitalisation can be a driving force for SMEs. We learn how businesses can get cybersecurity right with KnowBe4 and analyse the rise of ‘The Mobility Society’.

Enjoy the issue!

Dan Brightmore, Editor

  • People & Culture