Four Compass Points for Global Supply Chain Management

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the September-October 2015 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

September-October 2015

It’s September, which means the kids are going back to school, and soon, you’ll spend the evenings helping them with their lessons. September is also the month that we publish Gartner’s annual look at the Top 25 supply chains. While the Top 25 is a celebration of great supply chains, the leaders also offer lessons for the rest of us who aspire to the top. It’s news you can use right now in your planning. And, we’ll have you home for dinner on Tuesday. We hope you’ll join us for this inaugural event.

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The points on a compass have kept travelers headed in the right direction for hundreds, if not thousands of years, even as they sailed off into uncharted waters or ventured into new territories. Managers of global supply chains are in a similar boat as their ancient counterparts. Their world’s are changing rapidly as their companies enter new, emerging markets and they confront a host of new cultures and broader trends.

For example, technological advancement has raised consumer expectations for the rapid and convenient delivery of products, while a rising generation of middle class consumers has increased the demand that those products be ethically and sustainably sourced. Supply chain executives can work to maneuver through these challenges when they consider the following trends:

• emerging markets;

• mega cities;

• millennial consumers; and

• e-commerce.

Think of them as four interconnected points on the supply chain compass­—modern global supply chain managers who take them into consideration when designing their processes and networks will stay headed in the right direction. Let’s take a look at each in turn.

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