Supply Chain Network Resilience

 

Supply Chain Network Resilience

 

Supply chain network digitization has become a  key factor in supply chain resilience with the need driven in large part by VUCA resulting in waves of disruption across markets.   The number of companies seeking approaches to measure and benchmark their digital infrastructure and processes is growing as a result. In order to achieve the improvements necessary to support the demand it is important to incorporate tools that can assess, and perhaps most importantly, monitor the benefits and challenges resulting from the digitization process itself.  This is another variation on a continuous improvement program and requires the same methods and practices to achieve the digitization objectives and benefits.  It is important to review and validate modifications because of the relationships between multiple digitization initiatives and their combined benefits and challenges.  

Kearney’s Resilience Stress Test “Strategic Options To Build Resilience”, assesses supply chain resilience outside of the common disaster scenario capability and capacity planning to be able to rapidly flex, or repurpose, assets, across your extended supply chain network to be able to respond to unanticipated supply shocks, such as trade wars, major weather events, or permanent shifts in demand.  The dimensions of this stress test framework include: geography; planning; suppliers; inbound transportation; manufacturing; outbound distribution; product portfolio and platform; and financial/working capital.

In order to be successful the framework monitoring must be spread widely across all supply network points, and processes, as well as those of suppliers and partners, initially starting with critical processes and partners, with a focus on measuring the degree of digitalization and capabilities in each of these factors. These digitization capabilities and processes include using IoT sensors in logistics or fulfilment operations, robotic process automation in production or distribution, and analytics and machine learning in production centers, inventory management, and financial capital management.  As a starting point, the initial evaluation provides the baseline that should be used to monitor and measure progress and must be developed to support monitoring across your extended supply network.

This is where automated control tower software can and should be utilized to support a process that will continuously monitor the network.  Ideally, this control tower solution would be capable of alerts and even prescribe how to resolve issues as well as actually resolving issues automatically as they occur.  The challenge in the extended supply chain network is caused by the velocity of disruption experienced across your network.  These disruptions can occur with such speed and spread across your network partners that it becomes impossible to perform the necessary analysis and adjustments to react and address the disruption in a timely manner.  It is not enough to identify after the fact because of the potential damage to your business.  The velocity of the disruption and the potential impact requires immediate response and this can be achieved by a robust software solution that spans the supply chain network.

Tom Brouillette

Contact: tom.brouillette@gmail.com

Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition,  Here at my blog I regularly write about management and -technology trends.  To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'

Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Supply Chain Elasticity

There is more and more bluster focused on the dangers of the global supply chain and the only solution is to move manufacturing back to the US. This sounds great in sound bites as an option but is really not feasible and would never move forward to be executed. There are a few significant challenges to moving manufacturing back to the US starting with the fact that no one will pay the increased cost required of products manufactured in the US. The US has been addicted to the cost savings delivered by global manufacturing and it will be next to impossible to wean off that drug. There are a number of additional challenges including; materials supply chain and people and manufacturing plant capacity that have both been redesigned based on global manufacturing capacity and cost savings.

This leaves us in a state of risk for high impact disruption from global events such as pandemic that impacts entire regions and reverberates around the world. The issue is not a global supply chain, the issue is deficient risk identification and mitigation to react and address disruptions as they surface and not after the marketplace has been disrupted. The goal is to limit the disruption to limit the impact. This requires a focus on VUCA analysis and reaction to respond and address the disruption.The solution involves a global supply chain that incorporates key process and partner backup and alternative options for the supply chain including, raw materials, plants and even transport options to reduce the risk of disruption.


This is not a simple solution though because of the diverse and continuously changing supply chain! This requires a coordinated collaborative effort that combines people, process and most of all technology in ways that support the sense and response capabilities of partners and processes across the global supply chain. Luckily, we are entering a time where advances in technology, and especially collaborative technology, can be incorporated to support the velocity of change. The waves of disruption unleashed by the pandemic have started an era of extreme VUCA requiring enhanced technology capabilities to respond with the same velocity.


This is where control tower technologies come into the picture as a means to support a coordinated collaborative response to the waves of disruption. Control tower capabilities and opportunities have come into their own, and really stepped up during the pandemic to quickly show value. With AI, machine learning and process automation added to the control tower tool box you can quickly come to the point where you can quickly meet the velocity of disruption to react to changing demands and continuous waves of disruption. You must come to accept the fact that you will never eliminate disruption, the point is to build the capabilities to sense and respond before the disruption gets out of hand.


Tom Brouillette

Contact: tom.brouillette@gmail.com



Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and -technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'


Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Digital Transformation As A Realization

 

Digital Transformation As A Realization

 

In reflection, we have been going through digital transformation since the 19th century and we have reached a point now where technology and technology tools have reached a point where we can begin to realize our dreams.  Science fiction writers have been discussing digital transformation forever and, in fact, we are now entering another significant time of digital realization because the technology has reached a point where the dreams of transformation can be realized.  These capabilities are now creating the next significant disruption that is driving new realization along with new waves of disruptions.  These new waves of disruption are being driven in large part by the dramatic increase in consumer acceptance, and embrace, of digital capabilities that has been driven by the necessary responses to the pandemic.

To paraphrase Arthur C. Clark - technology capabilities look very much like magic when initially introduced.  Consumers have embraced and are now weaving the technology ‘magic’ into their daily lives in ways and capabilities they would only have dreamed even 5 years ago!  These tools and capabilities are bringing new waves of disruption to the market as consumers and companies both experiment.  The greatest factor and force driving disruption now is not really the technology, it's the way that consumers use the technology combined with an impatience that will not wait for the market to catch up.  This is where the winners in the market will shine with a strategy of resilience and flexibility to allow them to sense and respond quickly to the continuing waves of disruption.

I see a key tool and capability that will allow companies to respond to the disruption is the tools and framework of process automation that will allow these companies to put together new processes across legacy applications to test the response.  This provides a significant value to these companies, the ability to ‘try before you buy’ the functionality in a pilot mode.  This strategy allows the company to iteratively develop and validate the process and functionality quickly without wholesale disruption in the legacy business applications.  The process automation concept, and especially the ability to automate across legacy applications, has been around for years. Now the tools and capabilities to meet the rapidly changing demands are coming together through a number of new and more robust RPA tool sets that allow organizations to react to the waves of disruption.

I would argue that legacy ERP applications do not require wholesale replacement and that the new crop of RPA tools can be utilized to modernize the legacy ERP through efficient integration with new tools. The enterprise financial requirements remain through the waves of disruptions and the legacy ERP implemented has been proven to support the financial business so this allows the enterprise to focus on response to the disruption rather than the herculean effort to replace the ERP.  These times of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) require tools that support the necessary flexibility and resilience to react effectively to the disruption and RPA tools provide the flexibility necessary to  

respond efficiently to the disruption.

Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners

Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition,  Here at my blog I regularly write about management and -technology trends.  To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'

Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Transition Legacy Framework to Digital Enablement

There has been much talk about ‘getting back to normal’ and ‘new normal’ that I have been thinking quite a bit about because of the continued cycles of lockdowns and now the latest pandemic surge. These disruptions on personal lives are also impacting the business world from a loss of jobs and business closing to the continued work from home requirements. It is past that time now to accept the new reality (I refuse to call it ‘new normal’!), if you haven’t already and take the appropriate steps to live in this new reality. We are already seeing the results of change and we really need to focus now on developing and executing a digital enablement strategy. The pandemic has driven change due to health and safety concerns and these changes themselve are driving the digital transformation. This transformation is beginning to increase in velocity as consumers accept and become accustomed to the new reality and we will never go back.


Any business that directly interacts with the consumer, retail - services, restaurants, for instance, have borne the brunt of the pandemic disruptions to the point of breaking and many have been pushed past that point to failure. Consumers have changed the retail and services markets forever through digital interactions that are redefining the consumer relationship. The changes to the market are not really new, but simply and more accurately, sped up dramatically in a natural progression that has been pushed to the limit by the pandemic. The change here is the ability of consumers to shop, and more importantly, to obtain goods and services without contact, whether eCommerce and delivered to their home or via curb-side pick-up.


Retailers must now take a multi-prong approach to their digital enablement activities; they must focus on a strategy that first defines and then delivers the digital enablement while they also focus on immediate response to the waves of disruption driven in many cases from the COVID-19 transition support requirements. This is difficult for all businesses and especially difficult for the legacy retailer that was already struggling with digital enablement before the pandemic. The change and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed digital enablement past the tipping point though and this has now suddenly become a key to survival rather than a progressive transition. Now that this genie is out of the bottle there is no going back. It is now a matter of great urgency to define and implement a digital enablement strategy.


This will be an overwhelming task if the legacy retailers treat this as ‘business as usual’ because there just is no time for them to slow-walk the changes through the organization. If the legacy retailers treat this time of disruption the same as other changes in the market they will be left in the ditch, smouldering. This requires quick actions to move forward without an idea of the end result. At this point we don’t have any idea what the end will look like because the end is being defined and redefined through waves of disruption.


These retailers must implement a strategy of continuous change. They must build a flexible framework that is able to sense and then respond to the disruption. This will require a strategy of digital enablement to be able to sense the disruption and quickly respond. Unfortunately these same legacy retailers are also struggling with labeling applications and cumbersome integration between internal applications and their external partners. The first order of business is to build a flexible framework that will support the velocity of change, while also responding to disruption.


In addition to the above, these legacy retailers do not have the time to figure this out, they must act quickly. Fortunately there are two opportunities for retailers to incorporate in order to survive; consultant organizations to help with the strategy implementation and RPA tools to help bridge the digital enablement between legacy applications and partners. The first step is recognition and the support of senior leadership. This is a huge undertaking and requires a great deal of support from many different areas to succeed and this will require support over time to fail and correct direction. Without full throated support from senior leadership this will only end in failure.


Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners


Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'


Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Digital Transformation Thoughts

 

Digital transformation requires significant support from the C-Suite to ensure success.  Initiative must be lead and encouraged by C-Suite and especially CEO.  Key to remember is this is a huge change management program that will change the way the company and organization works.  This makes it critically important for CEO to display, publicly and privately, support for the program.  

C-Suite must provide resources, people and funding, to ensure success.  This must not be a 'skunk works' initiative because of the signigicance and requirement for the entire organization to be aligned and moving together.  There is a great deal of work to be done and there will be changes, and risks, along the way that must be addressed and these can only really be addressed with the support of senior management.  

This is a long-term program that requires continued support and focus in order to succeed.  This will require a robust plan and management focus in order to succeed.  This is not an program that can, or should, be delivered as a big-bang.  Digital Transformation is a discovery process that will re-invent your business and as such requires experimentation and trial and error practices to validate the tools and processes involved in the transformation. The transformation will succeed by following a continuous improvement model of PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) that supports experimentation and quick adjustments to ensure the feedback is incorporated quickly.

Digital transformation will require a transition to new processes, capabilities and software, some of which will be invented as part of the transformation.  This is a significant business and market disruption program that will grow and solidify as a result of waves of change and disruption.  This requires a tool that can support quick prototype experimentation to validate concepts.  This is where Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tools come into play for a significant role in the success of your program.

RPA tools provide a means to build new connections and process across multiple platforms and technology to eliminate non-value add processes and procedures.  Digital transformation is essentially the most significant Lean program that the market will take on and this requires high level encouragement and support for the business and organization to embrace.  RPA tools can provide the bridge from current business as usual to Digital Transformation.

Next big question is how can you initiate this program to increase the likelihood of success?  How can a strong and experienced supply chain consulting partner help you to build the plan that can help to ensure success?

Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners

Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition,  Here at my blog I regularly write about management and technology trends.  To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'

Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Manage Disruption Through Process Automation

  

In order to manage disruption it is important to focus, focus is the key to success for all strategic initiatives and programs. The challenge then becomes overcoming the day-to-day priorities and challenges that seem to continually interrupt your focus and energy. It seems to me the challenge is to define a process and incorporate tools that allow you to reduce distractions from interruptions and I see the perfect tool for this challenge to be Robotic Process Automation. Process automation capabilities has reached broad acceptance and usage to support mundane tasks in the operation and customer facing activities. This same capability and utilization can also be extremely important in the leadership suite to help maintain focus is a robust Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program.

A key responsibility of senior leadership in any organization is the development and execution of business strategy. Business strategy is the single most valued role of leadership and two things are continuously fighting to distract leadership from this responsibility:

Most significant is disruption in the business or the market. This year has provided not just several major disruptions but waves of ‘complimentary’ disruptions adding to the impact that are being driven by events from the impact of COVID-19, to environmental disruptions such as fires and now hurricane season.

Distractions to the day to day operation that in many cases are driven by aftershocks from major disruptions. Distractions can be just as impactful to the development and execution of strategies.

We are in times of VUCA and this requires focus and determination to sense and respond to disruption in a cohesive manner that enhances business strategy rather than disrupting the business strategy. The goal of senior leadership during these times must focus on limiting distractions so that leadership can remain focused on the business strategy rather than day to day operation and continuous reaction to distractions. The challenge now is to define and understand the distractions so that a response can be quickly. This is where RPA can help leadership to identify and understand the distraction so that it can be addressed with a predetermined response.

Senior leadership can be overwhelmed by the waves of day-to-day challenges and tasks and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic the related recovery plans and activities. This focus on day-to-day becomes a drain on focus that quickly slows the strategy activities and plans that effect the long term success and survival of companies. Many of these challenges and tasks may drive change into strategic plans and because of this they cannot be ignored, however RPA provides a means to identify events and disruption that may impact strategy and warrant analysis.

RPA would allow the monitoring of these many day-to-day challenges and interruptions using process and analytics for an early warning system to define and even identify potential responses to the daily challenges and priorities. This would allow leadership to maintain a greater focus on the higher value objectives of your Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program. 

 Additional benefits to a robust RPA plan include:

1. Utilization of a robust RPA program shows senior leadership commitment and support to a program that adds value at all levels
2. Provides the senior leadership team the opportunity to understand, first hand, the potential of RPA
3. Encourage senior leadership team to evangelize RPA initiatives providing personal experience as examples
4. Expansion of business dashboards that support alerts and views based on current events and defined alert levels
5. Promotes ability to focus on value add objectives and strategy

Focus may be one of the most significant benefits of RPA from a business and market perspective. I am beginning to think that one of the best and most efficient ways to demonstrate value is to increase the focus on automating repetitive tasks and activities performed by senior leadership. We see hundreds of examples and discussions on the benefit of automating repetitive processes and tasks from an operational and customer support perspective and I suggest adding senior leadership tasks and activities to this list.

Senior leadership can be overwhelmed by the waves of day-to-day challenges and tasks and especially during the COVID-19 recovery plans and activities. This focus on day-to-day challenges becomes a drain on focus that quickly slows the strategy activities and plans that effect the long term success and survival of companies, or worse lack of focus and review on current strategies risks implementing an incorrect or ineffective strategy. It seems to me that in order for the process automation trends and especially RPA trends to really push to the tipping point requires a commitment at all levels to the capabilities and the benefits of the RPA capabilities. What better way to display understanding and commitment than to incorporate and expand RPA into the executive suite. This is an important capability that could truly change the focus to allow and encourage more forward view.

A successful RPA strategy must focus on the process and must be viewed as a journey in this example of distraction management. This is because it is difficult to define potential distractions and the response automation in many cases requires refinement in order to truly complete the automation. This continuous refinement process however is one of the RPA 'super powers', RPA allows for quick iterative refinement that supports the necessary enhancements to refine response to the challenge and the distractions.

What does this mean and how can it be delivered? As with all initiatives we must start with the 'what' before we determine the 'how'.

This process automation initiative must start with a clear strategy that defines the first most critical deliverables and then as part of the continuous improvement process that is integral to the success of the process automation initiative the next step is to validate the success of the deliverables and second to confirm and refine the process automation strategy for the next steps. The key to the executive suite adoption is to define the business critical success factors and meaningful alerts that will support the business management at the senior executive level.

It is important to follow this process with the executive suite in order to demonstrate the value and the inherent importance of the process automation movement. It is also important from another perspective - to demonstrate the level of commitment from the executive suite to the organization. It seems to me that in order for the process automation trends and especially RPA trends to really push over the tipping point requires a commitment at all levels to the capabilities and the benefits of the RPA capabilities. What better way to display understanding and commitment than to incorporate and expand RPA into the executive suite.

This is an important capability that could truly change the focus to allow and encourage more forward view.


Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners


Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'


Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Disruption Without Interuption

  

Disruption Without Interruption should be the mantra for all business strategies because it describes perfectly the objective for all strategies. What we are seeing in the business world is a period of continuous waves of disruption that I believe have been triggered by the COVID-19 recovery demands and requirements. The world is not slowing down and disruption begets disruption which then begets more disruption. While the tipping point may have been the COVID-19 pandemic, the difficulty in responding has been related to the waves of disruption triggered by continually developing events and even disasters. These are not black swan events, instead we seem to have entered into a black swan time period or era.

Based on the above, I believe the business response must focus on a strategy that is informed and guided by a robust Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program. This strategy and program is based on a solid foundational process of continuous improvement practices that have been proven and reinforced over time that incorporates a robust risk management process. It is important to develop a program to manage and maintain the strategy through quickly changing demands and new disruptions that is both flexible and focused on moving forward. This can only be done by understanding the demands and cause and impact of the current disruption and most importantly the potential for pending future disruption. This Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program is the foundation that supports your business success through these turbulent times.

Dirruptions and competition are probably two of the key influencers for every business. The interesting thing is that competitors and market competition plays the greater role in business strategy. Looking back over the last nine months shows that disruptions in business, whether supply, demand, or the ability to recover from disruption through an efficient supply chain produced a tremendous impact on business, the market and consumers. It is very clear that a Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program is an extremely important, if not critical, aspect to any business continuity planning. What's more, it is also very clear that the cycle of disruption is quickening rather than slowing and the importance of these capabilities is critical to the survival of any business in this environment. I also believe that the importance of taking the long term view and developing a plan and process for sensing and then responding to these disruptions is also of the highest importance especially to the long term success of the business.

In order to manage disruption and implement, and most importantly maintain, Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program and strategy it is important to focus. Focus is required for all strategic initiatives and the challenge is overcoming the day-to-day interruptions, disruptions and challenges that seem to continually interrupt your focus and energy. The challenge it seems is to define a process or incorporate tools that allow you to reduce the need to focus on these interruptions and the perfect tool for this challenge is robotic process automation.

There are many tools, expertise and capabilities available now that can help in developing a robust Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program to help your business, and the market, to react to disruptions and eliminate or reduce the resulting interruption and impact. Artificial Intelligence and Automation, such as process automation and RPA, are important tools to first sense and then respond to disruption. Other factors in developing a robust program frankly is imagination and consistency in applying imagination. This practice is produced through a commitment and encouragement from leadership that would come from elevating the role to a 'C' level responsibility. I also think audit controls and procedures must be modified to place increased importance on a Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program to limit the impact of the business.

RPA would allow the monitoring and even automated response to many of the daily interruptions and challenges and this would allow leadership to maintain a greater focus on the higher value objectives of your Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program. In addition benefits this demonstrates:

1. Commitment to RPA by implementing daily leadership tasks
2. First hand leadership experience demonstrating RPA allows automation of routine tasks to allow focus on value add tasks
3. Roles change to focus on higher value activities rather than job elimination

This ability to automate the routine to allow focus on high value activities may be one of the most significant benefits of RPA from a business and market perspective. I am beginning to think that one of the best and most efficient ways to demonstrate value is to increase the focus on senior leadership implementation. We see hundreds of examples and discussions on the benefit of automating repetitive processes and tasks from an operational and customer support perspective and I suggest adding senior leadership tasks and activities to this list.

The challenge to the program is complacency! Business must fight complacency and the tendency to slowly allow these types of programs to whither.


Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners


Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'


Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

COVID-19 Disruption Demands Supply Chain Elasticity

The time to react to an extreme disruption such as the COVID-19 pandemic is not when the pandemic is imminent, or in the midst of the pandemic. The time to react is before the pandemic, or the disruption event, to prepare reactions based on the potential. This enables your organization to identify and evaluate potential reactions prior to the event and this dramatically reduces reaction and also ensures appropriate and effective reaction. Reaction to a disruption requires elasticity in the process and the organization in order to bend and stretch rather than break. Reaction to disruption also requires the ability to sense the disruption in time to react.

Recently there is a great deal of bluster focused on the dangers of the global supply chain that suggests the only way to eliminate the risk is to move manufacturing back to the US. This sounds great in a sound bite but is really not feasible and would never move forward. There are a few significant challenges to moving manufacturing back to the US starting with the challenge of an increased cost resulting from

products manufactured in the US. The US has been addicted to the cost savings delivered by global manufacturing and it will be next to impossible to wean off that drug. The other challenge is the people and manufacturing capacity that would be required to meet the consumer demand.

The appropriate solution involves a flexible and nimble global supply chain that incorporates backup and alternative options for both raw materials, manufacturing plants and even transport options to reduce the risk of disruption. The issue is not a global supply chain, the issue is the deficient risk identification and mitigation to react and address disruption. This requires a focus on analysis and reaction to respond and resolve the disruption. The supply chain must be able to react to difficult situations and conditions best described as VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) that requires the continuous ability to sense and react to disruption as it materializes.

As an industry we have implemented the process and the tools to respond to disruptions to ensure business continuity and now the use of these tools must be extended in order to react to the VUCA earlier in order to limit the business disruption. The challenge for the industry is the early planning and preparation for VUCA events so the reaction can be predetermined and practiced so the disruption can be limited. This requires robust tools and capabilities to sense the disruption earlier to allow time to implement the business continuity procedures.

The business continuity procedures must be predefined and practiced regularly so that they can be executed quickly and efficiently in response when the disruption is identified. This is standard operating procedures for businesses in the supply chain. One of the new factors to this continuing challenge is the types of disruption and the ‘surprise’ of the disruption. I think sensing and responding to VUCA must be the key starting point to business continuity. The definition of business disruption must be expanded to focus on VUCA and the analytics must be improved. The business continuity is not all or nothing and should be viewed as modules that should be engaged depending on the situation.

We must accept the fact that we have entered a time of extreme disruption and must focus on the ability to sense the disruption and quickly implement the response to the disruption. This means the business continuity procedures must be extended to be utilized in response more efficiently to the disruption. The first step though is focus on sensing the disruption! This is where tools and technology will play a key role, including advanced analytics and artificial intelligence and even process automation.

Disruption Driving Transformation Of The Supply Chain

 

Disruption displaces an existing market or industry to produce something new and more efficient and worthwhile. It is at once destructive and creative. Disruption in the marketplace is driving a transformation of the supply chain into a more efficient and flexible framework that can support the continuous disrupting forces. This transformation of the supply chain is driven not only by reaction to disrupting forces in the marketplace but also from the enabling technologies developing at a breakneck pace.

Historically, supply chain disruption has been described as a major breakdown in production or distribution nodes that comprise a supply chain. This definition of disruption implies an event within the supply chain that interrupts the normal process and flow that must be overcome to return to the pre-event state. However, technologies, especially eCommerce technology, coupled with improvements in network capabilities that are driven by consumer lifestyle demands have redefined disruption into a break that will never return to the pre-disruption normal, the disruption creates a new normal.

NOTE: The COVID-19 disruption is another example of disruption driven by consumer demands, in this case though there are additional disrupting factors that add to the equation. These factors include disruption in the manufacturing capabilities and also, more importantly, business continuity disruption that has highlighted the brittle nature of the pre-COVID-19 extended supply chain.

This process of recovery into a new normal is what makes up innovation and new capabilities for the market. Rather than a recovery to the pre-disruption state, the disruption produces a recognition of a need for innovation and change based on the market demands for innovation in the process. Disruptive innovations tend to be produced by outsiders and entrepreneurs in startups, rather than existing companies. This innovation cycle is now driven by consumer lifestyle demands colliding with the existing market practices creating an innovation cycle. This innovation cycle disrupted the continuous improvement cycled to a continuous innovation cycle and the market leaders recognized and adjusted to the change.

Currently, the waves of innovation in the market are driven by supply chain participants recognizing and developing features and functionality designed to meet customer expectations, partner needs and financial requirements. Supply chain disruption is the repurposing and realigning of existing capabilities to support changing consumer lifestyle demands. Then, just for good measure, the great disruptors add new supply chain capabilities to enhance the innovation.

The best change agents in the extended supply chain implement these features and functionality before the consumer recognizes the need. This drive to experiment based on sensing a market shift that creates the demand for goods and services is the actual driving force of disruptive innovation in the market. Disruptive innovation in the supply chain is a leading influence in remaking the market to meet consumer demands. Consumer demands are being driven at an enormous speed and this velocity of change requires robust tools and practices to react. I believe the supply chain is particularly ready and capable to develop these required tools and capabilities because of the history of disruption within the supply chain.

Shifting demands from all corners of the market—ranging from product and consumer services to supply chain partners—contribute to supply chain disruption and in turn are driving innovation in the supply chain as a reaction. Consumers as the ‘Great Disruptor’ in the marketplace and are driving the supply chain to innovate in capabilities and flexibility in order to react to the disruption. The supply chain innovators are driven by a spirit of experimentation that in turn allows them to innovate in the face of the discontinuous disruption. The best of the innovators incorporate the continuous improvement (PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act) practice to support the innovation cycles driven by the disruption.

This transformation will only increase in speed as disruption drives new disruption. We have entered an age of disruptive transformation driven by the demands of the market that is no longer accepting the status quo. In order to survive in the age of disruptive transformation the market partners must also embrace a practice of experimentation based on flexibility.

Supply Chain Reshaped By COVID-19 Disruption

There is no question that the Coronavirus has disrupted the world and in the face of all this disruption, the supply chain is being reshaped in reaction to the waves of disruption started by this pandemic. It is safe to say that the world social and economic order has been turned upside down during this time in reaction to the speed and the range of disruption driven by this virus. There has been no area left untouched at this point and the focus is on reaction and adjustments in reaction to the disruption. This requires more than ever extreme flexibility and robust collaboration and communication to sense and respond to the disruption.

I firmly believe that one of the key strengths developed over the years on the extended supply chain is the ability to sense and respond to disruption in a manner that efficiently identifies disrupting factors and resolves through a robust process of continuous improvement. The baseline tools, practices and procedures are in place to respond to the disruption and these have really been the foundation framework that has helped the supply chain to respond and continue to support the market.

The question now is - What process and procedures should be incorporated to allow the extended supply chain to support the multi-faceted waves of disruption that will continue?


These are some key factors that will support the velocity and impact of disruption:

First and foremost is robust, open and holistic collaboration practices. This is key to the ‘sense’ process in sense and response to the disruptions. This requires open sharing of information collected from all quarters in order to better understand relationships and impact of the disruption. Without the collaborative practices the response portion of sense and respond runs a great risk of reaction to the wrong cause of the disruption.

Data collection and analysis provides the information and identifies the relationships that are driving the disruption. There is really nothing new to the level of importance of data in the ability to first sense the disruption and then determine the cause and identify a reaction to the disruption.

Define and implement actions and change based on the data analysis in response to the disruption. One key to the implementation of change is the realization and acceptance that there is no silver bullet that will address the disruption. The disruption is fluid and the changes and reaction must be fluid as well!

The reaction in the system to the change must be reviewed and validated to confirm the response to the change provided a positive impact. This is starting the process over again.

Finally, the most important factor now is speed of reaction! This means multithreading reactions and actions with the analysis of the data. There are two key tool in this time to analyze reactions; the use of Artificial Intelligence and robust collaborative practices.

The guiding factor in this time of disruption must be ‘Don’t Panic and Respond to Data’! This will be the most difficult and greatest time of disruption and when you add the cultural and health disruption to this business disruption the impact can initially seem overwhelming. In order to overcome this feeling we must identify a program that includes a process of actions to address the disruption. We should be using the experience gained over the recent years driven by business and consumer disruption in order to meet the demands of the current disruption.

Robotic Process Automation And You

Robotic process automation is a capability segment that is growing quickly in large part because of the speed in which it can be delivered with limited risk. This is a natural progression to the growing autonomous automation capabilities including robotics. This next logical step of business process improvements combines business process analysis and improvements with software robots identified and driven by artificial intelligence tools and workers. Combine the potential benefits with the limited risk and the robotic process automation provides a very alluring opportunity to quickly add benefits and efficiencies to processes in the operation.



The challenge in the operation is continuous pressure on improvements in efficiencies; to do more work with less human interaction. Unfortunately for the operation, and logistics in the supply chain, robotic implementation can be very disruptive because of the dramatic change to the operation. This is where robotic process automation can bring value to automate the existing process without dramatic disruption. This will provide the opportunity to improve efficiencies while the disruptive projects can be implemented. In fact, I would suggest that robotic process automation be viewed as the first step in a robotic strategy because it provides the first step to proving the automation.



Within the operation the greatest disruption is brought about by the dramatic and sudden change that is demonstrated by physical robotic implementation in the warehouse operations. Robotics not only disrupt the operation and the process and flow of people and operations, it also disrupts the physical layout of the warehouse resulting from the robotics implementation. While there have been dramatic increases in efficiencies, volume and accuracy this must be tempered, initially at least, with the disruption in the warehouse. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong advocate of automation to improve the operation, I am only saying you must go into this with eyes wide open to understand and plan for the holistic impact to the operations.



Robotic process automation allows for a trial at increased automation to improve the efficiencies of the operation without dramatic change. This is a benefit not only to the operation, it is also a benefits strategic planning by providing a point of validation for the automation. This is a critical benefit because of the investment required for increased automation with autonomous robotics. The resulting increased efficiencies delivered by robotic process automation allow for a refocus by the operation to more complicated processes that may be more difficult to automate or require autonomous robotic automation.



Automation is a multi-faceted opportunity for improvement and must be viewed as such in strategic planning and strategic initiatives. The organization and operation especially must evaluate options based on the process and automation opportunity, all processes will not achieve improvement from the same automation tool. This is why it is so important to implement a robust and forward thinking strategic planning process to help identify the improvements.



Automation is another flavor of process evaluation and improvement that brings a new set of tools to the toolbox. It must be remembered that these tools excel in different scenarios and situations and the strategic planning process must be a focus to incorporate these new tools as appropriate. This incorporation of new tools is critical to the long term success of an organization and especially now considering the velocity of disruption. There is no time to wait and see how others use the tools. The key to success is embracing a strategic process that experiments and looks toward incremental change to stay ahead of disruption. Disruption is the tipping point of incremental change, unfortunately it is tool late to react to disruption and best case scenario is creating your own disruption.

Generation AI Influence On The Market

Artificial Intelligence has greatly impacted the supply chain and ‘you ain’t seen nothin yet’ as they say. The market disruption is driven by the combination of consumer embrace of technology and the growing embrace from technology savvy, older generations in the market and the workforce. These converging influences are driving the supply chain now to incorporate these same new technologies in combination with artificial intelligence in order to sense and respond to the disruption. Disruption in the market will only increase because of technology capability improvements and the imagination of the consumer. This imagination and experimentation will increase the disruption as the new generations increase their involvement in the market.

We are seeing now a dramatic increase in market participation by millennials and gen-x and in turn the market must be prepared to incorporate their reactions and demands. As for sensing the demands, there is so much information available now in the market based on the online habits that there is really no way to sift through this vast amount of data to succeed in reacting and meeting the demands without Artificial Intelligence. We are seeing now the results of poor the poor sense and respond capabilities in the marketplace with legacy brick and mortar retailers struggling with the disruption and lurching from one attempt to react to another. The market itself and the consumers have moved on before these retailers can react. This is essentially a real time demonstration of the disruption in action and this will only increase in velocity.

The key disrupting factor now is mobile technology and how the younger generations are using this technology to support their lifestyle demands. This disruption has increased in velocity as the concepts are proven by early adopters and then spread through other consumer groups. Based on the embrace of mobile technology, what was once a strategic weapon is now almost a strategic albatross, I’m speaking of the number of brick and mortar stores. This embrace of mobile technology requires an equal embrace of the omni channel shopping experience by the large retailers. The current major disruption rolling through the retail market is related to the demands of consumers for a true omni channel experience. The retailers struggling are the larger retailers that have been slow to invest in technology to develop the experience.

Now we are seeing the results of this shopping disruption, especially in the large department store sector, where the early adapters are succeeding and the late adaptors are struggling! The struggling retailers are seeing the results of previous strategic practices to hold off on investment until the market settles and the winning technology has been selected by the market. As a result of the velocity of change in technology and use of the technology the winning technology is not selected by the market, instead the technology is embraced and usage of the technology modified and enhanced based on the users of the technology.

I see that the most significant disrupting factor in the market now is not related to technology use by the marketplace but related to the technology use by consumers within the market. Consumers have now turned the table on the market by developing methods that must be adopted by the market and retailers rather than the market pushing capabilities to the consumer. This is really where consumers are driving the market and this is also the most significant opportunity for a retailer such as Amazon or now Wal Mart to really reshape the relationship with the consumer and in doing this reshaping the market itself.

Discontinuous Demands Of The Market

Consumers are driving waves of discontinuous demands that are disrupting the market and all of the partners in the market. The cycles and the velocity of changing demands has increased as a result of the consumer embrace of technologies that allow the consumer to shape their demands based on their changing lifestyle requirements. Just as the market reacts to a set of demands it seems that the consumers shift and change the demands again. This cycle is complicated by the combinations of generational, technology and lifestyle priorities. The market must implement the process and tools to sense and respond to the demands in a manner that allows them to maintain the pace of the discontinuous demands.

Millennials and Gen X’ers are entering and as a result of their entrance are impacting the market in a big way as a result of their comfort with technology and their imagination in supporting and even creating their lifestyle demands. These millennial and Gen X’er generations are the ‘tip of the spear’ in utilizing technology to create new ways to meet their demands. They are also a significant reason for the decline of department stores, large retailers and brick and mortar stores that is especially demonstrated in reductions in mall and store traffic.

The largest impact though is from the baby boomers embrace of technology and capabilities. This generation is a quick learner and perhaps most importantly from a market impact perspective they are also quick to embrace new trends and capabilities. Technology provides the opportunity to explore and rebuild a market and a very large number of baby boomers are searching for ways to support their lifestyle demands. In addition, baby boomers are not afraid of technology and as a result are quick adaptors to new technologies and capabilities that can address their demands.

Technology is the great equalizer in the market from both the consumer and the partners supplying the consumer. The combination of generations and their propensity to new demands and quick adaptation of new capabilities has dramatically shortened the change cycles. This, in turn, has left the market struggling to maintain and react. This cycle and resulting impact is quickening and bringing with it a faster disruption to the market that must be addressed in order to survive.

The change cycle has reached the point now where there is really no time for the market to adjust and extend the new capabilities across partners. The cycle has reached the point where the market must react quickly or fall behind. Falling behind can be the beginning of the end though because of the difficulty in catching up with the market.

This is where the importance of the collaborative social network practices come into play for the market to allow the partners to collaborate in reaction to meet the market demands. In other words, a strong collaborative network allows the partners to react and adjust to changing demands more efficiently and quickly. This is where the social networking technologies and practices make a big impact on the market reaction.

Social network technologies combined with big data and artificial intelligence analytics provide the capabilities to sense change in market demands more efficiently and earlier to allow for reaction time by the partners. Collaborative practices and tools allow partners to react in a manner that does not require each partner to develop a reaction to the demand. Instead the collaborative practices allow partners to take advantage of the specialties of each partner in reaction to the changing demands. The strength of the collaborative network allows market reaction to demands at the speed of the changing demands.

The greatest difficulty though is overcoming cultural practices that historically have viewed the changes in meeting demands as a trade secret to create a competitive demand. The culture needs to change to increase sharing and collaboration to sense and react to the changing demands. The competitive advantage is in the sharing and collaboration to allow the partner to more quickly react to the demands.

The measures especially utilizing collaborative practices to respond to the changing market demands are not overwhelming. These collaborative practices have been utilized for years in the extended supply chain as a means to react and respond to changing demands. The difficult actions from the market reaction perspective have been related to cultural practices both in the market and in the responses to the market demands. This has shown that overcoming cultural challenges in market leadership will be the number one challenge and delays or continuing in the same cultural practices will only cause the continual decline for these current leaders in the market.

Artificial Intelligence - The Common Strategic Thread

All networks, social, business, integration and collaboration, news and extended supply chain networks are all related through a common thread, data and more specifically - how is the data used to drive decisions and execution strategies? The glue then that combines the data in a manner that can be used to sense and respond to the waves of disruption in the market.

I believe that the constant running through all aspects of the market place is the discontinuous disruption that is driven by consumer embrace of technology combined with the market reactions to the consumer demands. Marketplace partners must recognize this new reality and work to incorporate methods to obtain the data necessary to feed the decision making process. The value and the accuracy is based upon the amount and types of data that are incorporated and available to the process. This precept itself drives the need and the value of collaborative analysis and data collection across the partners.

This model is especially important to the retail marketplace where the market is continuously buffeted by changing demands from consumers that are themselves driven by changing technical capabilities. These reactions and impact from technology has been a fact of life for quite some time within the extended supply chain and the pressure of reaction to disruption combined with the demands of cost containment and reductions are driving collaborative partnerships in the extended supply chain. These partnerships along with the resulting data collaboration can be used as a model for the marketplace as a whole. This is a key reason for the importance placed on the supply chain by Amazon and others would benefit greatly by embracing this practice.

In addition to the importance of collaborative data, the marketplace partners must also take into account the level of accuracy changes that occur during the life cycle of the analysis. The accuracy of the decision goes through a measurable life cycle:

• Infancy starts with sensing the potential reactions to the demands. This is an unclear time where many options can be taken in reaction to the data and the analysis. This is the beginning of experimentation to test the options.
• Mid-term or decision childhood where the options are narrowed based on additional data analysis based on the results of experimentation from the infancy stage. This is the refinement of decisions and strategy based on the results of experimentation. This is marked by refinement and addition of experiments to support analysis refinement.
• Maturity or decision adulthood where the strategy is fully formed and executed based on the refinement resulting from the data analysis. This is also where the next disrupting concept begins to form and requires the continued analysis of results from the strategy to form the new concept and strategy.
• End of life of old age where the positive results of the strategy decline and the consumer and market are driving the new disruption. This is end of the strategy value and it is equally important to be able to sense the decline of the strategy as it is to identify the beginnings of a new disrupting factor.

You can see that the process I described above follows the PDCA, continuous improvement process, which is a standard practice of the supply chain. This provides a solid framework to sense and respond to the disrupting factors and has been incorporated across a wide range of marketplace practices. The disrupting factor that drives improvements to this process is the collaborative data collection and analysis that allows the process to sense potential changes earlier and then through AI analysis provides the guidance for experimentation and validation to formulate the change to react to the disruption.

Social Networks Driving Supply Chain Disruption

Social network collaborative technologies have left a mark on the personal communications world in the way that the technologies encourage both immediate connections and in the communications capabilities between connections. You can see the impact across all areas of interaction and these tools and the new collaborative capabilities they enable have disrupted not only personal social interaction but also the retail marketplace and the extended supply chain network. The disruption in the supply chain network can be seen in all aspects of the supply chain that thrive on collaboration and interaction, in other words these capabilities have disrupted the supply chain network practices. The resulting waves of discontinuous disruption will continue to be felt across the supply chain network for a long time to come.

Social network technologies and the resulting collaboration technologies are founded on open and efficient communications through networks and across technology platforms. The extended supply chain and partners processes and procedures require open and efficient communications through networks and across technology platforms so this has been a match made in heaven. This embrace of technologies was simply waiting for the right moment of technology and extensions of network technologies and frankly imagination to rise and disrupt the supply chain.

The pieces and practices have been in place in the supply chain for a long time and really waiting for someone with the imagination and will to define and deliver the potential. The tools for communication between have been available through EDI technologies, for instance. These technologies have been enhanced though to support extended connectivity demands via improvements in network and wireless technologies. The Internet of Things (IoT) has played a key role in the disruption of the communication. These technologies continue to disrupt process and practices as capabilities are developed to support the demands.

The areas of focus and disruption change based on reactions to demands and imagination in delivery and capabilities. The LTL market, for instance is in the throws of a major disruption now based on shared ride technologies. This has flowed into freight forwarders and also customization demands to support inventory management for last mile deliveries. This is a great example of consumer demands driving the market to incorporate social technologies, in this case ride share technologies, into the business process to improve the practices. Another example of technologies and network capabilities impact on supply chain is the Iot tools and capabilities utilization to improve tracking and planning capabilities that has been a continuous improvement process for quite some time.

Blockchain tracking and tracing capabilities are incorporated to support demands of lot trace and date management for food products to provide historic product pedigree information accuracy. These capabilities were initially slow to acceptance and now the combination of market demands (read consumer demands), regulatory requirements to support recalls and improvements in technology and network capabilities are driving this to mainstream usage. Blockchain technologies already provide a great deal of benefits and while already delivered significant impact in the supply chain it is really still in its infancy and I expect the capabilities and usage to expand with new imaginative demand.

Retail disruption has combined with technologies to produce a discontinuous disruption in supply chain to support changing consumer demands. Disruptive forces have always been around and the big difference now is the speed of the disruption. This speed has been increased as a result of technology and network capabilities available to the consumer more than any other factor, the key factor to the discontinuous disruption is the embrace of technology by consumers. The technology, combined with the improvements and growth in networks allowed the consumer to drive change into the market. Then social networks and social network technology encouraged the spread of consumer and business use of the technology. Putting technology into the hands of consumers is driving the rate and size of disruptions.

The challenge for the market and the supply chain is the identification of important and key disruptions, in other words what disruption will have legs that allow the disruption to grow and expand in usage. Unfortunately, there is really no way to determine the winners and losers and so the supply chain must act on all. This is where social networks and collaboration really show their value. Social networks provide the means to sense the disruption and measure the speed of growth along with clarification of the disruption. Collaboration and collaborative development allow the supply chain to respond and react to the disruption.

Retail Renewal

The retail market is in a process of renewal as a result of the disruption brought about by the omni market change by consumers to the marketplace. This is a good thing and a necessary thing that drives the market forward to support consumer demands. This time though the renewal is in part driven by consumers through technology and collaboration and in part driven by consumer focused Internet retailers like Amazon that are themselves encouraging and experimenting with consumer changing demands. I believe though that this renewal cycle is different from previous cycles in that the renewal will be a continuous cycle of disruption and renewal in the market. This is the key theme coming through in this cycle of renewal and this is one of the key differences i this new cycle from previous market cycles.

During the market renew driven by eCommerce and essentially lead by Amazon there was a theme carried through the disruption and the market renewal; the consumer demands to simplify their shopping via the Internet and eCommerce. This theme carried retailers into the next generation of the marketplace to produce and omni channel shopping experience. This was comforting to the market players as well because it was a proven direction that they could copy to produce results. The challenge to this cycle in the marketplace is that there is no common theme that carries through each example of disruption and renewal.

There is no visible common theme that can be reproduced for success, the success of one retailer cannot simply be reproduced by others. There are two key differences in the current cycle of disruption:


There is no common thread of success in the market. At odds with previous cycles of market disruption and change; the success from one cannot be copied by another. One retailer thrives and grows because of the strength of their brick and mortar outlets while another succeeds because of their online presence.


The disruption comes in a discontinuous cycle that does not give the market a chance to really settle. This presents a struggle to maintain the pace of the change and also does not allow for the response to be duplicated for across the market. Almost as soon as a disrupting force is recognized and addressed the next disruption is sweeping the market

This cycle of disruption is driven by consumers rather than by some retailer, as in the past and this is a very important difference in this disruption cycle. The last major disruption to the market in my opinion was the explosion of Amazon on the market. This disruption, like previous disruptions, was driven by a retailer with a vision that was embraced by consumers. This disruption, also like previous disruptions, spread through the market quickly with the concept, in this case the drive for the lowest price combined with ease of purchase and vast selection, was accepted and extended by other retailers until it seems to be embedded in the market DNA. This disruption is also in many ways at the root of the current disruption.

This current disruption started with the concept and the drive for the selection, price and ease of shopping. In the beginning, consumers' focus on low price was supported and driven by the opportunity of Internet retailers to cut prices. This was the result of retailers reacting to consumers and these same retailers attempting to gain market share. This drive from Internet retailers was borne of the drive to succeed and the ability of these new Internet retailers to take advantage of the market and cut costs dramatically because of their reduced overhead. Now this lowest price concept and drive has become the foundation of the retail market in many ways has also in many ways now bitten the creator of the concept.

Now the combination of technology and the growing ability of the consumer to direct and even change their shopping is also disrupting the market in a series of discontinuous changes that are driven by the imagination and the demands of the consumer. Now this new renewal is all about the consumer ability redirect and direct their shopping in ways that support their individual lifestyles along with their desire to spend less and get more in return. This new discontinuos disruption cycle also is creating a model for continuous renewal with technology providing the means and consumer lifestyle demands providing the direction.



This new market driven by continuous disruption requires each participant in the market to sense and respond to the disruption in a manner that is based on their own imagination and capabilities. This is the change that is impacting the market in the greatest manner because in previous cycles there was always time to confirm the most effective response and then this response would be reproduced by others. Now when the most effective response for a particular retailer is identified the market has already entered the next disruption cycle which changes the success factors. Retailers must change their culture then in order to succeed in this discontinuous disruption cycle.

Disruption Driving Transformation Of The Supply Chain

 

Disruption displaces an existing market or industry to produce something new and more efficient and worthwhile. It is at once destructive and creative. Disruption in the marketplace is driving a transformation of the supply chain into a more efficient and flexible framework that can support the continuous disrupting forces. This transformation of the supply chain is driven not only by reaction to disrupting forces in the marketplace but also from the enabling technologies developing at a breakneck pace.

Historically, supply chain disruption has been described as a major break down in production or distribution nodes that comprise a supply chain. This definition of disruption implies an event within the supply chain that interrupts the normal process and flow that must be overcome to return to the pre-event state. However, technologies, especially eCommerce technology, coupled with improvements in network capabilities that are driven by consumer lifestyle demands have redefined disruption into a break that will never return to the pre-disruption normal, the disruption creates a new normal.

This process of recovery into a new normal is what makes up innovation and new capabilities for the market. Rather than a recovery to the pre-disruption state, the disruption produces a recognition of a need for innovation and change based on the market demands for innovation in the process. Disruptive innovations tend to be produced by outsiders and entrepreneurs in startups, rather than existing companies. This innovation cycle is now driven by consumer lifestyle demands colliding with the existing market practices creating an innovation cycle. This innovation cycle disrupted the continuous improvement cycled to a continuous innovation cycle and the market leaders recognized and adjusted to the change.

Currently, the waves of innovation in the market are driven by supply chain participants recognizing and developing features and functionality designed to meet customer expectations, partner needs and financial requirements. Supply chain disruption is the repurposing and realigning of existing capabilities to support changing consumer lifestyle demands. Then, just for good measure, the great disruptors add new supply chain capabilities to enhance the innovation.

The best change agents in the extended supply chain implement these features and functionality before the consumer recognizes the need. This drive to experiment based on sensing a market shift that creates the demand for goods and services is the actual driving force of disruptive innovation in the market. Disruptive innovation in the supply chain is a leading influence in remaking the market to meet consumer demands. Consumer demands are being driving at an enormous speed and this velocity of change requires robust tools and practices to react. I believe the supply chain is particularly ready and capable to develop these required tools and capabilities because of history of disruption within the supply chain.

Shifting demands from all corners of the market—ranging from product and consumer services to supply chain partners—contribute to supply chain disruption and in turn are driving innovation in the supply chain as a reaction. Consumers as the ‘Great Disruptor’ in the marketplace and are driving the supply chain to innovate in capabilities and flexibility in order to react to the disruption. The supply chain innovators are driven by a spirit of experimentation that in turn allows them to innovate in the face of the discontinuous disruption. The best of the innovators incorporate the continuous improvement (PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act) practice to support the innovation cycles driven by the disruption.

This transformation will only increase in speed as disruption drives new disruption. We have entered an age of disruptive transformation driven by the demands of the market that is no longer accepting the status quo. In order to survive in the age of disruptive transformation the market partners must also embrace a practice of experimentation based on flexibility.