Sustain Competitive Value

 

In many companies, transformation initiatives follow a set path:

1. Figure out what needs to be done first
2. Hold everything else until results are received, hopefully, and resources are freed up
3. Start the next transformation initiative

While that used to work when time was more plentiful, now it causes chaos, rework, and burnout.

There just isn’t time to finish one transformation, start another, realize the previous transformation(s) did not account for critical aspects of the next transformation, decide to either ignore the requirements for past work, patch them into the existing transformation work, or go back and start again.

Lots of wasted time, money, resource expertise and patience, and stakeholder understanding.

Integration is today’s key

Business always has been and always will be a highly integrated endeavor.

Supply chain always have and always will be integrated into every part of the business. Cybersecurity transformation cannot proceed without considering supply chains.

Data architecture and management transformations, diversity, inclusion, optimization, design for prolonged product lifecycles, embed ecological aspects into the business to achieve carbon or other goals, advance skill sets, and on and on all include supply chains.

Its why all need to be considered upfront, in one major strategic initiative. All things together.

Phased in projects will make sure tech, capabilities, sustainability, resilience, and all other pieces of business changing transformation occur once the foundation is built and each step of maturity is achieved prior to going to the next step (although research and lab testing may be going on to be ready on time).

Real Sustainment

Sustainment means so much more than just purpose. It includes realistic building of environmental elements, economic value, and ethical aspects.

While it seems like a lot, and it is, compare it to constant starts, stops, rework, and frustration of not achieving integrated success.

Plus, you are no longer blamed for chasing shiny objects. You have an integrated transformation journey that includes many shiny objects to be  in place as required with capabilities built in.

How to start?

First, this will take a cross-functional team – including people from R&D, supply chain, operations, sales, marketing, leadership, finance, planning, customer service.  True supply chain/digital transformation will transform your business.

The resulting innovation provides you with options, markets, revenue streams, and expansion possibilities you never had before.

It means you grow revenue lines while mitigating/eliminating strategic risks.

Where to start?

Well over 60% of CEOs believe their workforce does not have the capabilities to successfully transform.

However, that’s easily fixed.

You need critical mass in specific aspects of supply chain and transformation. This provides common language of transformation and standard knowledge of supply chain. Communication is advanced, miscommunication/misalignment risks are eliminated, and you get to real deliverables sooner using phased in training with earlier trainees becoming transformation mentors for newer trainees.

Here’s the plan:

1. Engage with Process & Strategy for free assessment work as well as development of current gaps and needs as understood by experts, leaders, those in the trenches.
2. Train the first group on SCOR Framework
3. Move this group into Implementation Essentials to assess and map the As-Is, find gaps, set priorities
4. Finally, have them trained on Building Sustainable Supply Chains to understand the business-wide integration, data needs, regulatory landscape and changes coming to it, how to successfully embed sustainability and resilience aspects into daily work so that it is part of business, not a separate initiative.
5. Engage & Define setup the initial requirements, explain big picture reality, determine trends to be met, obtain goals in
6. Create To-Be elements, finalize image/performance, and create the phased in transformation journey plan
7. Obtain approval, funding, stakeholder acceptance, and other critical items
8. Work the transformation to create sustainable competitive value

Continuity

All following groups fine-tune the above or are creating tactical initiatives subordinate to the approved transformation journey. They get you to the critical mass required for success.

New training groups may be trained and begin analysis and project definitions sequentially or in overlapped phases. You decide what is best for your company. IT, IS, finance, supply chain, operations, R&D, and strategy are now tied at the hip since decisions in one area affect development of capabilities in another. True cross-functional work.

You don’t have wait until the end of the transformation to obtain results – you get them project-by-project. Each project building on the next.

Until you become the bellweather. The company no one can match. The company always ahead of the change needed.

If you want to build sustainable, competitive value through transforming your supply chains, contact Process & Strategy Solutions