Meeting/Event Information

The way we manage global supply chains will be different in the future for a number of reasons. These changes will be driven by FOUR underlying realities:

1.      Work itself is being redefined. COVID-19 lockdowns inadvertently changed the trajectory of remote work. Employees are questioning the need to “go to an office” to execute their mostly digital work at the same time employers are questioning the need to invest in hard assets like buildings and furniture.

2.      Information systems, especially cloud-based ones, are providing unparalleled insights through the layers in global supply chains. Planners and procurement professionals will be fully entangled, digitally allowing them to make decisions they may not have been qualified or approved to make previously. Decision rights will ultimately move to lower levels in supply chain organizations.

3.      Supply chain professionals are adapting to greater distances, increasing complexities, cross-cultural and multi-language factors faster than expected. This is almost entirely driven by direct and adjacent technologies.

4.      Supply chain practitioners at all levels have substantially more education in global supply chain issues, mostly due to universities retooling their supply chain related curriculum, and the substantial influence of the various ASCM certifications.

When all is said and done, a day in the life of supply chain professionals will be impacted less by individual technologies and more by the convergence of powerful new technologies such as:

1.      Cloud-based AI-assisted decision support tools that predict the quality of input data as well as output results in ERP-type information systems.

2.      Deep and routine insights through multiple layers of suppliers, provided by global consortia information systems.

3.      Enhanced voice, image, and data communications capabilities that connect everyone all the time.

4.      Substantial robotic innovations in material handling, distribution, logistics and warehousing.

These driving technologies, working in concert, will mandate global supply chain professionals build different skill sets. The process of reacting to system-generated action messages will be replaced with scenario recommendations with imbedded risk assessments for most critical day-to-day planning and scheduling systems. This transition to “outcome-based planning” will require INCREASES in critical thinking skills (CRS) and judgement, contrary to the popular view that decision automation will require less CRS and judgement.

The goal of this presentation is to alert supply chain participants to the new skills they must develop to remain relevant and useful to their employers over the next two decades.