Conversational Commerce

Conversational Commerce

The retail omni market, along with the entire retail supply chain collaborative network, is being driven by consumer demand towards a significant disruption that will transform the legacy consumer focus into a social commerce, or conversational commerce, marketplace. I think the conversational commerce name is highly descriptive of the transformation and provides a highly descriptive name to the next transformation wave. The next transformation wave will be focused on the two-way interaction between customer and retailer or customer and service provided or retailer and service provider, I’m sure you get the drift, creating an eComerce network market. The next transformation will eliminate the hierarchy across the retail marketplace and replace the hierarchy with a network of direct connections to the appropriate partner at the appropriate time in the retail transaction. The benefits of this model are dramatic for all parties involved and provide the framework for interaction through the next transformation wave.

Conversational commerce is the next logical step in the transformation of the social commerce marketplace network and provides a great way to frame the transformation. The focus of conversational commerce is a network of two-way interaction between consumers and partners to support shopping and purchasing in the omni market. This is a further clarification and more importantly an enhancement to shopping and purchasing in the marketplace. This creates a virtual shopping capability that incorporates virtually the interaction that normally occurs in the physical retail shopping trip. It provides the ability to interact across all of the parties involved in the shopping experience to provide the value-added services and products during the shopping experience that would be difficult in the current standard eCommerce or omni market shopping experience. The two-way interaction is a very powerful tool that will improve the shopping experience and increase the opportunities for additional sales and add-on services.

The transformation definitely requires a means to coordinate and direct the communications across the involved parties and this is where the control tower concept and technology comes into play. A control tower framework is required to provide a plug-and-play framework for communication and collaboration with external partners and even consumers that allows the partners to focus on the business benefits rather than the communication requirements. The control tower framework must be embraced and implemented across all of the partners to maintain the communication and realize the benefits. This framework provides the basis for integration from a message perspective to allow the partner to communicate with a partner in the most efficient manner for the partner while maintaining a clean and stable interface with their own internal systems. The framework provides an externally facing tool that is flexible and robust to simplify the addition and integration with other partners, it does not eliminate the work to external partners, it eliminates the work on the internal integration though to the business applications.

Conversational commerce focuses on the two-way communication between partners, including manufacturers, transport, service providers and consumers. This model will transform the omni channel retail marketplace again based on the consumer lifestyles and the consumer embrace of technology to support the social network. Conversational commerce is another term for what I have been calling social commerce which is the two-way direct communications with all players or partners involved in the retail marketplace. Consumers view retail shopping as a social experience which is why malls were so successful and now the consumers are using conversational commerce to create a virtual mall.

Artificial Intelligence Improving Logistics

Over the last few years there has been a great deal of interest and development in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) and the potential to improve the supply chain and logistics. There is an immense amount of data available across the supply chain from a combination of Internet of Things (IoT) devices connected directly to supply chain partners and then also a great deal information from your partners across the supply chain network. In addition to the data produced internally through process actions and functionality, there is now an immense amount of data available from external customers to the supply chain network via direct interaction within the extended network through partner portals and direct interactions and integration with supply chain external customers. The Internet and online interactions from eCommerce (B2B and B2C) provide a great deal of this data and supply chain partners would be foolish not to use this data to improve their logistics capabilities.

The challenge for the supply chain network has been two-fold;

• How to utilize the data
• What data to collect for both analysis and use

Artificial intelligence starts with the collection of data for analysis and this is an important starting point. There is no way early on in the collection of data to determine what will be important. This is because the analysis must be performed first to understand the potential use and value of the collected data. The intelligence part of the analysis also requires a great deal of information in order to validate the hypothesis and then to determine direction based on this intelligence. Starting with the data you can see why it is so important to collect everything because the intelligence part of the equation will generally require additional data from the same periods to confirm and validate direction.

It is important to collect all data then because you cannot tell what may be important for the analysis when determining direction. The good news here though is that storage is cheap and the technology to analyze vast amounts of data has been improved through game-changing improvements in technology. These two points have probably done more for the growth and development of artificial intelligence than any other developments over the last few years. These improvements in technology allow the supply chain to refine and redirect logistics activities and practices based on facts and data rather than hunches and hopes. Combine these two technologies with the growth of the Internet of Things capabilities and related technologies and the potential for improvements is almost overwhelming.

These increased capabilities bring improvements and opportunities in automation as well, including warehouse location and slotting, along with drones and robotics to improve efficiencies and especially accuracy while reducing costs. These are not the only areas of improvement than can be achieved through artificial intelligence. There will be improvements in volumes, inbound and outbound forecasts for instance, that will bring dramatic change to the supply chain as manufacturers and transportation providers revise their processes to incorporate the analytics into their plans and procedures. The warehouse operation though will also be dramatically impacted as artificial intelligence brings analytics to the equation that allows the operation to understand and immediately adjust labor forecasts to changes in the operation during the date based on near real time events. Artificial intelligence is just another factor bringing transformation to the supply chain and the supply chain must start with a baseline of continuous improvements in the flexibility and continuous change practices in order to meet the transformations.

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.

Solution Is A Stop In The Strategic Journey

A solution is merely an interim stop or milestone in the journey that is your business strategy. Your strategy is your map that guides your way and methods of taking your journey, just like setting up a destination Google Maps with interim stops along the way. Your strategy must be capable of sensing changes and disruption early to be able to respond and most importantly to evaluate your interim deliverables, or solutions, required to meet your long term strategy. Perhaps most importantly, these adjustments in response to disruption allow you to evaluate your strategy to improve, update, improve and focus over time. The ability of your business and market strategy to sense and respond to disruption must also improve over time in order to survive. This, in essence, is a basic tenant of the continuous improvement process and this continuous process makes up the foundational framework to sense and respond to business, market and environmental disruption.

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 where real time federated networks and control tower capabilities come into play to provide the capabilities necessary to sense the disruption in time to respond to the issue and even recover in time to limit or even eliminate disruptive results. What we are seeing now is the impact from disruption causing additional waves of disruption that in turn impact the supply chain and dependent businesses. This does not need to be the case and should be a critical focus and objective to the supply chain strategy.

We are seeing now a realization of the continuous impact to the market as a result of the state of extreme VUCA we are experiencing. This is difficult to react and address because, frankly, if feels as if the market is in an almost continuous state of disruption. This requires a collaborative technology that brings together the extended partners across the supply chain on a foundation of a federated network that provides the means to collect and analyze the data generated across the supply chain in forecasting the disruption and then providing suggestions for reactions to the disruption. This is complicated by the volume of data available and necessary to analyze and forecast results and the speed of data generation from each of these data points

Control tower technology combined with machine learning and artificial intelligence combine to help to address the challenge. The technology is in a state now that can quickly and efficiently sense and respond to disruption by utilizing the large volumes of digital data through machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to analyze and identify the disruption along with potential reactions and responses to the disruption. We have entered into a time now where large volumes of data that is collected and available for analysis can actually be processed in a manner and timeframe that allows the supply chain to respond. This is the power of control towers and this next logical step in the strategic journey to the benefits that can be achieved through a robust digitalization strategy.


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.

Digital Transformation Starts With You and I

 

Digital transformation starts with your own personal commitment to digitize your personal and professional data to eliminate paper. This is important first to show your commitment to ‘walk-the-walk’ and second to help you to experience both the benefits and challenges from the digital transformation. I have personally committed to digital transformation for all of the reasons expressed for your business and market transformation, however the key reason for me is the ease of maintaining my personal records.  The first time that you quickly find an electronic receipt or a reference to a business question that was discussed in a meeting a month ago will turn you into a convert! 

Look at one example; the My Lowes customer account.  This is not a typical rewards card, or account,  because you do not receive discounts or accumulate points for rewards.  What it does provide though is a digital record of all your purchases and most importantly purchase details for future ease of reference.  A couple of examples of the benefits I've realized are elimination for a need to maintain receipts for returns and ability to purchase the same paint tint for a repair after I've disposed of any physical record and the most valuable example for me is the ability to return products without receipt.  Don’t get me wrong, rewards are an important feature of store loyalty programs, I think that these features provided by the Lowe’s program provide a pretty compelling encouragement to join.

A major challenge to any digital transformation initiative is the start-up effort to build out the framework and foundation of infrastructure to support the transformation.  Any transformation is difficult and the initial start-up must provide a reason and incentive to commit to starting the journey.  Digital transformation, whether personal or professional, is no different and requires the commitment to work through the initial challenges in order to benefit from the improved capabilities.  A personal commitment to digital transformation provides the basis and background for you to evangelize a professional business transformation.   

Fortunately for this movement, the tools currently available, along with the personal experience and acceptance of the digital age delivered by personal computing tools make the commitment a little more palatable.  This is a good thing for business digital transformation because it encourages people to question ‘why not’ and push for business digital transformation.  Every major successful transformation in my memory was driven in large part by the consumer interest and pushing business to change.  It really comes down to expanding and providing the average consumer the encouragement and incentive to embrace the change, once this initial hurdle is overcome the next step is business transformation.

We are at a crossroad now in the digital transformation journey.  Consumers are now embracing the tools and technology provided for personal use and opportunity.  I know that my own personal use of these new tools has dramatically increased as new capabilities have increased to the point where I too am pushing to extend transformation in my business activities.  The pandemic lock-down has also added to my push as I increased digital and video interactions in my work. 

The decision and action points are all converging into an increasing wave of disruption in the market.  The opportunity now is for us in business to embrace and encourage the embrace of these capabilities.  It is important now to review and revise your business strategy to support and implement a resilient and flexible framework that can respond quickly to the changes.  Do not make the mistake in thinking that you have time to respond to these changes!

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 Enablement

  

We have reached a tipping point in the market relating to digital enablement and transformation that is fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery efforts. This has been a long time coming and the market was moving in this direction very slowly prior to the pandemic, in large part I believe because of market infrastructure (especially brick and mortar real estate), retailer culture (waiting for widespread acceptance to work out the bugs) and the consumers using shopping as a physical social exercise engaged in malls. Consumers quickly recognized and embraced the benefits of digital enablement in large part as a result of the necessity to adjust to the pandemic and these same consumers are now dragging retailers and the market to deliver on digital enablement.

The market is currently fragmented in both priority and direction of this enablement while at the same time struggling to react and recover from the pandemic. This disruption has produced a multi-prong disruption that has been extremely difficult for some retailers to react to and their reactions to these disruptions in many ways are spawning new disruptions. These disruptions are driven by the legacy retail market culture that has never really reconciled their practices with the increasing consumer embrace of digital enablement and the resulting market demands. In the past, large retailers have been very hesitant of the ‘bleeding edge’ technology and practices. This ingrained culture of the legacy retail leadership has now impeded their ability to respond effectively and efficiently to the mounting demands of the pandemic recovery, consumer demands and most importantly the resulting disruption and re-making of the retail market.

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 process. 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. Retailers must now take a multi-prong approach to their digital enablement activities in order to react to the multi-prong market disruptions. They must focus on a strategy that first defines and then delivers the digital enablement while also focusing on immediate responses 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.

There are tools that can be utilized to support the digital enablement and transition strategy that support the necessary transition from legacy retail applications and processes. This is where retailers should focus first and foremost on defining the objectives and deliverables. The next step then requires defining the ‘how’ to deliver the objectives and deliverables. The tools should be incorporated to support the two pronged delivery to enable the transition to the new objectives and requirements while also responding to the continuous disruptions that are buffeting the market.

One tool in particular can and should be utilized to support these transition efforts to digital enablement This tool can also help in responding to the significant disruption and unanticipated impact and reaction still occurring in reaction to the pandemic. I believe a key to digital enablement and disruption response is a robust RPA tool that supports automation of test data and test execution. It is very common to hear testing horror stories regarding costs, labor and schedule requirements in the range of 40% of the implementation. These challenges are a huge impediment to the ability to respond and recover from disruptions and critical business improvements concurrently. RPA can deliver dramatic testing automation improvements in both data generation and test scenario execution that will reduce time and effort to deliver.

RPA is by no means a ‘silver bullet’ solution to your business demands. RPA does however provide a significant tool that can enhance and enable current process improvements and optimization as a first step to your digital enablement strategy. The first step now is to develop your RPA strategy based on demands and opportunities - this will guide you through your second step which is tool implementation. One more important point to take into account, is the benefits of working with an experienced partner to help and guide you in your strategy development and tool selection process to quickly recover costs.

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.

There Is No Normal

 

I am concerned about what I see as a strong tendency to return to the status quo rather than learn, and plan, for change as a reaction to the disruption cycles, or waves, that we are currently experiencing.  This is a tendency that I see across the US culture to return to normal when there really is no normal and I would say the normal is actually the continuous cycles of change we have experienced through history..  Its not a new normal, there really is no normal!  

In fact, in looking back you can see that businesses and governments and cultures have struggled to recognize this reality as a requirement move forward and be successful.  In fact, the business world cannot afford to ignore the waves of disruption and address the disruption by attempting to return to a perceived normal.  Maybe that is the point - there is no normal and the sooner we accept this reality, the sooner we can actually move forward and create a process that imagines risk to prepare for the disruption.

We must focus not on implementation and execution of a process that enables the business  reaction and response to continuous waves of disruption.  This process must enable moving from a single stream focus to a multi-stream focus and most importantly the process must be practiced until it becomes second nature.  This is developing a new muscle that is critical to the success of business and the market.  It seems that the majority of people and businesses are so set on returning the pre-pandemic 'normal' that they are overlooking reality and the need to develop methods that can sense and respond.  The telling point, or proof, of this observation is the seemingly never-ending series of black swan events that buffet the global market in waves.  If black swan events occur on a regular basis it means they are not by very definition black swan events.  These are rather the 'new normal' that we must first accept and then embrace and incorporate into our world vision.  

This is difficult, human nature does not want to change and that is the continuous and compelling theme for a significant number of people and by extension businesses and the market as a whole.  This is a struggle for many and our challenge is to provide the road map to sense and respond to the waves of disruption.  I think that we are reaching the point of actually creating a new series of disruptions as a result of not accepting the change and attempting to return to the previous comfort level.

This new process requires a robust risk management process that defines a business continuity program.  The goal of the risk management process is to imagine disruption and the potential for description and then determine how to respond to the disruption.  This is where multi-stream definitions and planning comes into play because as we continuously see demonstrated in real life; disruption impact is a reaction to multiple pressures and events combined to force a reaction.  This requires a risk management and business continuity program that is robust enough to first identify the potential and second identify responses to the waves of disruption that are combined based on the waves of disruption.  

A key issue and single greatest factor to the COVID-19 disruption is not the actual physical and structural disruptions but the lack of imagination and forsight to first imagine the potential and second to imagine a response.  We see this over and over - the so-called black swan even that surprises everyone.  As an example, whether you subscribe to climate change you should be developing response to the weather based disruptions we are experiencing.  

Here is the key challenge; you cannot hope to define all possible risks and define reactions for all posible impacts.  This is where the risk management process comes into play, you must define the potential of the risks and then based on the risk define the potential reaction.  Imagination of the possible allows reaction and response to the reality.  

How can you implement a robust risk mitigation program?

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.

Counter Disruption In Supply Chain With Strategic Collaboration

The rate and also the impact of disruption is increasing in all ways.  It seems this year has been a watershed event from a disruption perspective and the current waves of disruption are continuing with new disruptions created as response to the previous disruptions.  This is an important factor in developing a response to disruption; you must continuously evaluate, develop and respond in order to survive.  This is not, and cannot be, viewed as a stand alone effort because the disruption is across the market.  This requires a collaborative approach from the market as well and this requires strong partnerships across the network.  You cannot hope to successfully react and respond to every disruption that comes along and you cannot hope to successfully sense every disruption in time to develop a successful response.

I suggest the solution is to incorporate your collaborative partners in a type of ‘disruption games’ strategic exercise that brings you together to review scenarios and market conditions in a collaborative manner to identify and deliver a strategic response that supports the partners and the market. This is a major factor in the review and update of your supply chain strategy.   It seems to me that a key challenge that hinders the success of the strategic response is that when you only view your internal impact and response you do not necessarily see the market level impact of the disruption and then the individual response to the disruption.  As we have seen highlighted to the ‘Nth’ degree this year a disruption can create new disruption based on the response, and most importantly, a potential disruption can be eliminated more effectively if the disruption is identified early and the response is collaborative across the market.

This highlights the importance of a strategic collaborative practice that brings your extended supply chain together to share risk and develop cohesive market strategic responses that most effectively respond to the disruption.  This builds on the current business continuity practice to discuss and plan for market continuity.  As a result of market globalization and the number and type of partners in the supply chain required to support this global market, it is no longer enough to develop a business continuity plan.  We must collaborate across our extended supply chain partners to develop a market continuity plan that takes into account the business risks identified by each partner.  The outcome of this market continuity plan is a cohesive response plan that improves the ability of the supply chain to sense disruption early and then respond in a cohesive and collaborative market based approach.

This collaborative market approach will reduce the risk of unintended disruption and further impact across the supply chain because the market continuity plan already takes into account the potential impact across the extended partners and then provides the strategy and plan to react to the disruption to limit the impact across the market.  I strongly believe there is no other way to succeed in this global market during the extreme disruptions we are experiencing.   

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.