Unlocking the Secrets to a Profitable Supply Chain Digital Transformation

Supply Chain Digital Transformation

The Supply Chain function plays a crucial role in any business or industry. Though the criticality of the Supply Chain function may vary from industry to industry as very critical to supporting or enabling function, its contribution to business is undeniable. As the businesses continue to transform to drive growth, the Supply Chain function must follow. In specific cases, Supply Chain transformation leads to business growth.

Though transformation is a broad term covering processes, people, systems, and data, the focus is on digital. With rapidly evolving technologies, customer expectations change for price, speed, and experience. In today's age, no transformation without digital is true transformation.

While it gives goosebumps to talk about digital transformation, few teams realize the mammoth task ahead and need help through this adventurous journey. This article aims to highlight critical factors in the Supply Chain Digital Transformation journey.

Purpose

As a function, it is critical to understand the reason for taking this journey. There could be multiple reasons with no right or wrong answer. As a function, we need to be completely honest with it. The more honest we are with purpose, the easier the would-be journey. Questions we need to ask ourselves :

• Are we struggling to meet business and customer expectations for price, speed, and experience?

• Are there constant complaints and escalations from internal users and customers?

• Are we perceived as lagging and reactive functions rather than leading and proactive ones?

• While we can meet today's business and customer expectations, what about tomorrow?

• Are we ready to meet tomorrow's business and customer expectations?

• Do we have all the skills and systems to do so?

• How can we continue to be leading and proactive function?

• Where are our competitors in this journey?

• Are we already at a very advanced stage of the journey?

• What do we need to do to maintain this competitive advantage?

Vision

Once our purpose is clear, it is critical to define vision. It should come from the Top with commitments in terms of budget and resources. The only vision with no budget and resource support is a clear NO-GO. It is not advisable to expect the operations team to manage transformation. These are different scopes for skills and competency. Vision should be clear enough to convince the team and stakeholders. All should be able to envisage an ideal future!

Success Criteria

Post purpose and vision, we should be quantitative for current and future scenarios. It will be a kind of success criteria to measure. It can consist of different and more than one indicator. e. g. % of automated transactions, customer and user feedback, employee satisfaction score, Cost of Operation, Speed of processes, and so on. Though it is better to have data, it may be challenging for all the indicators. In such a scenario, we can use our understanding of the business and function.

Team Commitment

With a clear purpose, vision, and success criteria, it is time to put things into action. The first action is to take the team into confidence and explain the

purpose, vision, and success criteria. It is critical to address as many questions and doubts as possible. We may not have answers to all the questions. It is OK, no need to think a lot about it !!! Though it is challenging to convince everyone, maximum participation is a good step forward. As leaders, we need to identify persons perceived as GO-TO persons by the team and get them as promoters in this journey. As they already command respect from the team, their say is critical in the journey. Team members not aligned should be managed in a way that they don't become a hindrance to the vision.

Program Management

As everything is ready, it's time to form the team and set up the program It must be the program with clear leadership and governance. Branding and marketing best practices will create awareness about the program. It will help to ensure positive vibes within the team about the program. The team should feel proud to be part of the program and should account for their performance reviews. Do make sure that teams do not consider it an additional burden!

Continuous Learning

Usually, it would take anywhere between a year or two to complete the journey. Be careful with scope and timelines! Many and frequent extensions of the timelines will hurt team motivation and quality of work. It is not absolute but relative to business. Consider changes in the business environment and adjust the plan throughout the journey. No point in transforming if not beneficial to business! Keeping eyes and ears open all the time is the key. Ensure the continuity of key personnel on this journey. A change of hands would affect the quality and timeline. Do not take failures to heart !! It is a learning lesson.