DEFINING A TOP 25 / MASTERS COMPANY
For 2021, the Top 25 and Masters companies highlighted in the Gartner Top 25 Supply Chains report embraced three key trends that highlighted their purpose, enabled transformation, and accelerated digital capabilities: 1. Integrated, Purpose-Driven Organizations In 2020, many of the supply chains in Gartner’s Top 25 study ranking helped keep society running during the darkest days of the pandemic. Now they have an opportunity to solve some of the world’s longer-term social and environmental challenges. Amaturity differentiator among purpose-driven organizations is that those farther along in the journey are not simply supporting a varied list of “green” initiatives and people-related programs. Instead, they integrated these into a larger strategy alongside commercial partners. Some are even leveraging product marketing budgets to fund this work and integrating it into brand messages, instead of treating environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) investments as a purely operational cost. 2. Customer-Driven Business Transformation Along with intermittent supply disruptions and larger-than-normal demand swings, the pandemic has driven an accelerated level of business model transformation across industries that required supply chains to be highly adaptive. “Many changes were driven by an outsized uptick in products and services delivered direct to customers and patients, instead of through more traditional, centralized locations such as physical stores and medical facilities,” says Mike Griswold, vice president teammanager with the Gartner Supply Chain practice. 3. Digital-First Supply Chain A Gartner survey of board of directors, taken late in 2020, showed that nearly 70% of companies accelerated their digital roadmaps during the pandemic. Some leading supply chains have reached a point in their transformation journeys where they consider themselves “digital first” in the use of technology to enable more seamless customer experiences and more automated and insightful decisions in supply and product management, at scale. However, digital transformation would not be possible without the right talent. Leading companies conduct formal skills assessment and strategic workforce planning. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data analysis are the most common capabilities, and most are simultaneously recruiting and developing these skills in their organizations. Several advanced supply chain organizations run digital literacy and dexterity programs to enable employees to better understand and exploit digital business opportunities. “Leaders must position new digital technologies as a means for employees to stop spending time on manual, non-value-added activities, so they can focus on providing value for their customers,” says Griswold.
220 Inbound Logistics • January 2022
Powered by FlippingBook