Digital supply chain transformation can make your planning better, simpler, faster, and more efficient, while also giving you more precision, greater insights, harnessing data more effectively, and providing better and more frequent planning.
-Karin Bursa, Host, TEKTOK
Episode Summary
This episode of TEKTOK will help you Frame Your Business Case for Digital Supply Chain Investments. The reality is that estimating potential ROI from deploying a new Digital Supply Chain Solution can be difficult. The number one reason why ROI is difficult to predict might surprise you. Listen in to understand the best Key Performance Indicators as well as proven ranges of improvements from hundreds of successful supply chain transformations.
Insights from this episode of TEKTOK will help you put together a business case that creates a connected, transparent, and highly automated supply chain independent of a solution provider that might introduce bias into your business case. Keep in mind supply chain transformation will likely require your team to embrace a plan to progress your “maturity” in process, technology and data. Enjoy the challenges. It is worth the work. The outcomes will be worth the effort.
Episode Transcript
Intro/Outro (00:01):
Welcome to TEKTOK digital supply chain podcast, where we will help you eliminate the noise, and focus on the information and inspiration that you need to transform your business, impact, supply chain success, and enable you to replace risky inventory with valuable insights. Join your TEKTOK host, Karin Bursa, the 2020 Supply Chain Pro to Know of the Year. With more than 25 years of supply chain and technology expertise, and the scars to prove it, Karin has the heart of a teacher and has helped nearly 1000 customers transform their businesses and tell their success stories. Join the conversation, share your insights, and learn how to harness technology innovations to drive tangible business results. Buckle up. It’s time for TEKTOK, powered by Supply Chain Now.
Karin Bursa (01:14):
Welcome back supply chain movers and shakers! Karin Bursa here. I’m your host for TEKTOK, the digital supply chain podcast. I want to thank you for joining today’s session as we dive into a really important topic – framing your business case for digital supply chain investments. Framing your business case for digital supply chain investments means, how do you justify making an investment in new technology in order to drive better decision making, better inventory investments, better service for your customers?
The reality is that estimating the potential return on investment from deploying a new digital supply solution can be really difficult, but why it’s difficult might surprise you. One of the biggest factors to consider is if you currently know and confidently track your supply chain key performance indicators. Let me say that again. Are you able to confidently track your current supply chain performance indicators?
Karin Bursa (02:34):
Be honest, give yourself a grade. Give yourself an A, you’re doing an excellent job. Give yourself a B if you get it right most of the time, or a C if your confident about your metrics about half the time, 50-50. You need to know where you are today in order to predict where you’re going to be tomorrow with a new solution. That’s one important step you can take today to help build your business case. Track those key performance indicators (KPIs) and then identify the indicators that show the greatest opportunity for improvement.
I’m going to help you focus in on a couple of areas today. If you are with me, say YES! Let’s dive into this topic of building your business case for digital supply chain investments, and this is going to help you to transform your business, literally change the way you make decisions each and every day.
Karin Bursa (03:39):
As you may know, I’ve got more than 25 years in this industry – in truth, I stopped counting at 25 years. So, let’s just say, more than 25 years of experience in this industry! During that time, I have helped over a thousand companies assess the impact of their supply chain transformations. It’s exciting! Probably the best part of my job, best part of my career! Now, in my current role as a supply chain technology industry advisor, in my current role, I am often asked to provide an overview of supply chain capabilities for executive leadership teams, new hires, and interested investors in supply chain technology companies, as well as in product companies. I also work with research and development teams to help prioritize investments for the new technology that’s being introduced. So, it’s a lot of fun and I’m glad I have the opportunity to share some of that with you.
Karin Bursa (04:49):
So, clearly, each of these audiences have very different points of view, but they all seek to understand supply chain performance and to move the needle to improve overall business performance, and there’s a variety of ways that that can happen. So, one of these important topics around leveraging supply chain technology is helping you, a practitioner, who is in the supply chain day in and day out, to frame your business case to make an investment so that you can improve overall performance of your company. Alright, let’s talk about that.
Framing a business case for a new supply chain technology investment requires a couple of things from your team. First, you’re going to look at your business and identify specific opportunity areas where supply chain and operational performance improvements are going to be most visible. That doesn’t mean that your results will be limited to those areas, but you want to understand where they’re going to be most visible across the business, because part of your job is getting the rest of the organization on board and excited about making these changes.
Karin Bursa (06:17):
Secondly, you’re going to determine how long it will take before the business starts to feel the results of those improvements or to realize the benefits of those investments. In the technology space, we often talk about this in terms of time to value. How much time and effort will it take before your business starts to realize the improvements? Now, your day-to-day might change pretty quickly, but it may take you months to burn off excess inventory. Are you with me? Because we’ve got to get those inventories in alignment with a better predictor of true market demand. So, that’s the second area. What’s the time to value? How long will it take? And then, the third is understanding the actual cost, the cost of the investment in people, how much of my team’s time needs to be dedicated to deploying a new solution, process improvements, right?
Karin Bursa (07:31):
I can make it better, simpler, faster, more efficient, and technology as a tool that’s going to help me get better precision, greater insights, harness data more effectively, and provide better and more frequent planning. Are you with me? We want to know where we’re going to have the most visible impact. And, we want to determine the time to value. Finally, we want to understand some of the cost factors, opportunity cost, personnel cost, process improvements, and actual technology investments. So, improvement of operational key performance indicators, I’m going to refer to those as KPIs (key performance indicators), that make possible these results in the business case that you’re going to put together, technology, people, process. There’ll be some other areas like confidence, time to decision-making, et cetera. We’ll get to those in just a few minutes. So, the focus of our discussion today is going to be on supply chain transformation. I’m talking about projects that are going to transform the way you do business.
Karin Bursa (08:47):
Not small incremental changes, big transformational changes. Big changes that are going to add percentage points to your overall profitability. Are you with me?
I’ve worked with more than a thousand companies over the last 25 years, and I have seen these results time and time again. I have also leveraged the research from a number of research groups, including AMR Research, Gartner, Supply Chain Insights, and numerous university programs. And these research programs have been conducted with companies of all sizes, small, mid-sized, large, global, multinationals. So, the typical key performance indicator improvement areas and ranges that I’m going to share with you have been consistent despite the size of the company. That’s right. The same ranges are available to a small and mid-sized company as they are to a large multinational company. So, supply chain leaders, I want you to use these insights as you put together your specific business case.
Karin Bursa (10:01):
I want you to take your situation in mind and think about high-impact areas and focus on key performance indicators and tangible benefits available to your business.
One of the most impactful pieces of research that I have seen in more than 20 years was originally done by a company called AMR Research. AMR was acquired by Gartner, and Gartner has continued to invest in this research called the Hierarchy of Supply Chain Metrics. AMR/Gartner did benchmarking efforts to look at all of the key performance indicator criteria, and to rank them and identify which supply chain metrics made the biggest impact on business performance. The research classified supply chain metrics into three broad categories. The broad categories were referred to as ASSESSING, DIAGNOSING, and CORRECTING.
Karin Bursa (11:13):
I think you can get a theme right there, assessing, understanding where you are, diagnosing, pulling some levers in your business, and then correcting performance, very tactical items. At the very top of the hierarchy in this assess metrics criteria were demand forecast accuracy, perfect orders, and supply chain costs. You’re probably sitting back right now listening to me, and thinking to yourself, “Karin, of course, that’s a no brainer, I could have told you that!” Could you? I want you to think for just a minute about demand forecast accuracy. I want you to think about how confident you are in your forecast accuracy numbers that you’re using today. I’m going to come back to that theme in just a minute. The very top of the hierarchy is demand forecast, perfect orders, and supply chain costs. So, future demand, demand forecast, perfect orders, service level to my customers, and overall costs – makes sense, right?
Karin Bursa (12:22):
The middle of the hierarchy or the middle of the pyramid, and it really is a pyramid, is the group that AMR/Gartner referred to as diagnosed metrics. This is really what you think of in terms of your cash-to-cash cycle. You would think about your days receivable outstanding or days payable outstanding, right? So, this is your accounts payable, your accounts receivable, and your inventory, your total financial investment in inventory. And then, finally, the base of the hierarchy is this level of looking at correct, and those correct metrics. That correct layer of the hierarchy includes things like supplier performance, production schedule adherence or variation, plant utilization, order cycle time. These are important measures, but they are more tactical levers. AMR/Gartner found that working at that base level didn’t give you the overall amplification across your supply chain.
Karin Bursa (13:32):
However, working at the top of the hierarchy at that forecast accuracy, perfect order metrics and overall supply chain cost metrics gave you the greatest leverage. If you focus at that top on those three categories, the benefits are going to ripple through the rest of your supply chain and overall business performance.
I encourage you to check out that research which is now delivered by Gartner. Again, it is called the Hierarchy of Supply Chain Metrics. Part of why I really appreciate this research is that it helps you to focus in on where you can have the greatest impact. It also does not require you to be perfect in any of these areas, but it shows progressive improvement, especially in those top three areas, forecast accuracy, perfect order, and overall supply chain costs are going to allow you to have a tremendous and very positive impact on your business.
Karin Bursa (14:36):
So, you’re really going to get an appreciation for how much I agree with this Hierarchy of Supply Chain Metrics, as I help you make your business case for investment in digital supply chain solutions. The very first area, or very first key performance metric I want you to look at is, in fact, forecast accuracy. Now, remember, forecast accuracy is a prediction of what your market will buy in the future. Now, this includes business opportunity. It should not be constrained. That constraint is going to come through in other areas, like your willingness to invest in inventory, your ability to produce or procure or store product. Those are the constraints that will begin tightening up what that number looks like, but your forecast should be unconstrained. The forecast is the potential to sell into the marketplace, what the market will buy around a category of product.
Karin Bursa (15:45):
Now, you may find it interesting to learn that many companies have no idea what their forecast accuracy is. None. Zippo. I’ll say that again, many companies have no idea what their forecast accuracy is today. Therefore, they cannot appreciate what an improvement in forecast accuracy will do for their business. Since they don’t know where they are today, they have no appreciation for getting incrementally better at that performance. So, if you don’t have a grasp on forecast accuracy, I want you to get focused in that area and get that effort underway today. I am seeing significant improvements (an important part of your business case) are anywhere from a 10 to a 25% increase in forecast accuracy. Ladies and gentlemen, that is huge! A 10 to 25% improvement in forecast accuracy means I’m that much more correct in what I predict my business will sell to the market and this is the foundation for the reset of your supply chain planning.
Karin Bursa (16:59):
If you’re building a business case, you need to mark where you are today, understand where you’re going to get to tomorrow, and you need to be able to look at forecast accuracy at a couple of different granularity levels. I’ll get to that in just a moment.
The most common measure of forecast accuracy is referred to as MAPE, M-A-P-E, mean absolute percent error. The bottom line is your forecast will always be wrong. Let me say that to you again, your forecast will always be wrong. However, with your investment in a digital supply chain planning solution, it’s going to be less wrong or more accurate. I’m an optimist. I’m going to phrase it as more accurate. The most common measure is MAPE, mean absolute percent error. The other thing I’m going to underscore for you is it’s just as bad to over forecast as it is to under forecast, thus the word “absolute” percent error.
Karin Bursa (18:12):
Okay. So, MAPE is the most common. There’s also a derivative of MAPE that is referred to as weighted MAPE. Weighted MAPE. And therefore, it’s weighted based on the importance of certain products or product families to your business.
You should measure your forecast accuracy at a couple of different granularity levels. So, the most granular level is the SKU level, the item level, then the family level, and then an aggregate level, which may be your category, or it may be an overall accuracy for your business. You’re also going to look at that accuracy measure, that MAPE measure, against different planning horizons. You will always be more accurate the closer you are to the point of demand. So, 30 days out, one month out, you should be more accurate in what you expect to sell than you are three months, six months, nine months out. Are you with me?
Karin Bursa (19:21):
Less mature companies or more immature companies focus on those very short-time horizons, one month, two months, maybe 90 days, and they’ll stick to a higher level of aggregation, family level aggregate of overall category.
More mature planning teams will look at their forecast accuracy at several levels and multiple time intervals. So, they will look at SKU level, the most granular. They’ll look at product family level, and then they’ll look at aggregate level. They will also measure those across time horizons, 30 days, one month, two months, and then quarter and annual. So, remember that this annual forecast is what I’m using to procure product or raw materials, to look at production capacity or distribution capacity, to negotiate my relationships with my transportation carriers. I need that longer range prediction for my business and I need it to be as accurate as possible. In a year horizon, I may not rely as closely on my item level, my SKU level forecast, as I do on my family or aggregate forecast, but I need those to roll up and aggregate down to various levels of granularity.
Karin Bursa (20:57):
A digital supply chain planning solution is going to do that for you, but I’m telling you that wherever you are today, you need to create a baseline so that you can create that business case for why you need to make the investment, why this needs to be a business priority in your digital transformation initiative. Are you with me? Gosh, I hope I haven’t lost you already. But when you think about forecast accuracy, you are going to see double-digit improvements, and in today’s technology, it is so exciting, because there are a number of different planning algorithms, artificial intelligence, machine learning that are all combined together to look across your portfolio and give you precision with less effort. So, this is a great area to focus in on. The next area of key performance indicator (KPI) that I want you to consider is perfect order or service level.
Karin Bursa (22:03):
Now, more commonly, this may be stated in your business as service level. What is my service level? But when you talk about service level, you need to talk about it in terms of your customer’s desired receipt date, not your projected shipping date. Did the customer receive the goods when they wanted them? That’s the best measure of “on time.” And perfect order actually gives you a few more criteria such as: Was the order complete, in full, when the customer wanted it? And was it in good condition? Was it perfect? Could it be used immediately? That’s an ultimate measure of service. So, we’ve talked about forecast accuracy as my prediction of future need. The KPI you are going to use that to align everything else your business does around procuring raw material, and producing product, and distributing product. Service, how well am I doing serving my customers today?
Karin Bursa (23:14):
By the way, service level is an easy one, for the organization to get behind, because everybody wants to provide great service for the customer. So, the third KPI at the top of Hierarchy of Supply Chain Metrics is supply chain costs. I’m going to focus you in on the biggest area of cost which is inventory investments. So, this is working capital in your business and is invested heavily for your business. Now, your business may talk about inventory turns. Higher turns are better – higher turns means you are turning the value of your inventory more quickly, or simply overall inventory investment.
When you have a higher forecast accuracy, it allows you to drive down your inventory investment. Because when you’re forecasting what you expect to sell, and doing that more accurately, you are not going to overproduce or overhold inventory. So you’ll be able to lower inventory investments numbers which also decreases your working capital investments and inventory carrying costs. You will reduce excess inventory, as well as obsolete inventory, and unsalable inventory.
Karin Bursa (24:25):
Now, I will caution you that every supply chain investment hangs its hat on inventory. The reason is because it’s so tangible. It’s so easy, I can walk through a warehouse or a manufacturing facility and I can see the inventory. I can see the work in process. I can see the raw materials. I can see the finished goods. But what I will tell you is that a transformation initiative is going to do some pretty exciting things to your inventory. Now, it may take you a month, two months, a quarter, maybe two quarters to realign the inventory that’s held throughout your network, but it will be tangible. In fact, what I see quite often around inventory is double-digit percentage reductions. That’s right. Inventory reductions in double-digits, anywhere from 10% to as much as 35 to 40% inventory reduction. I know that’s mind-blowing, 10 to 40% inventory reduction. That completely changes the profitability profile for your business.
Karin Bursa (25:48):
Talk about high impact! Focusing in this area of inventory is something that’s really exciting. So, I want you to work with your accounting team to understand not just total inventory and inventory carrying costs, but to understand what you’re holding in obsolete inventory. Inventory that can’t be sold at full value anymore or that may need to be written down. You will quickly identify lots of opportunity for your business case.
Let’s review those three areas that will have the biggest impact. But wait, there’s more! You will also see a tangible improvement in transportation spend. You’re going to see this in both inbound transportation as product raw material, sourced items are coming into your business, as well as outbound as your products are shipped out to customers. this is really exciting, because savings and alignment here in the area of transportation are going to go straight to the bottom line. The product is already produced, right? A big part of the cost basis is getting it in the hands of the customer when they want it in full, and the date and time they want it.
Karin Bursa (27:02):
Now, you may be thinking, “Karin, come on, our transportation cost have skyrocketed due to constraints and everything from drivers to containers.” I want you to know, I hear you, but I want you to think of ways that you can curtail some of those cost increase. As you look at your supply chain planning technology, it’s going to give you better visibility of the inbound needs and the outbound moves. And with that information, you’ll be in a position to negotiate better rates and higher service levels with your transportation partners, even in the current environment we’re in today, which feels a bit like the Wild Wild West of transportation costs. It’s time for you to take back control when and where you can. This needs to be part of your business case, transportation spend. Make sense? Alright. I hope I haven’t lost you. Come back to me if I have. Come on, guys, I need you with me. So, those are real, tangible metric areas there. These are very valuable to your business and places that you should consider as levers in building your business case or framing your business case for an investment in digital supply chain transformation.
Karin Bursa (28:34):
Now, one that’s harder to put a quantifiable number on is your ability to make high-quality decisions faster, and to do that with greater confidence. As a supply chain leader, you are making hundreds of decisions each and every day. I know that you will feel differently about making fact-based decisions that are founded on analyzing multiple scenarios that have been evaluated for your business. Not just one, not just two, not just three scenarios, but 50 scenarios! Imagine the confidence you’ll have knowing that you’ve got the insights from 50+ test cases that your supply chain planning technology platform has run for you to serve up the three most likely scenarios for your business. Man, that gives me tremendous confidence in making a decision. So, making a decision with better information, deeper analysis, and making it faster. There’s significant value in that. I had one executive tell me just a few days ago that he can “do in minutes, minutes, mind you, what it used to take days to understand.” Minutes and more confidence than what it used to take days with a lower level of confidence, tremendous value there! And as an executive leader for the business, that’s going to change how quickly you are ready to make a decision, how quickly your team can engage, be proactive, and start resolving conflicts in your network.
Karin Bursa (30:36):
So, I want you to look at capturing time to insights. How long does it take today to evaluate multiple scenarios, decision quality, and then the overall confidence around making decisions and the plans that are put in place.
One of the most remarkable and candid conversations I had with a global chief supply chain officer was one where he told me, “Look, Karin, we didn’t know what we didn’t know. We were working under false assumptions about our business. Today, we have a comprehensive and fact-based supply chain plan that now empowers us to do remarkable things in a very short period of time. And as a business leader, my confidence increased exponentially. And that gave us the ability to work more effectively with our suppliers and our customers. It has transformed our business.” Wow! That’s what we all want, to transform our business and make better decisions every day.
Another high value metric is the ability to increase sales. That’s right. Top line revenue. When we have the right inventory at the right place at the right time for a reasonable cost, we’re going to capture more sales. Now, you may see this initially through things like a reduction in back orders. You no longer have to push out customer orders. You can fulfill those orders sooner. So, if my back orders go way down, that means I’m capturing more top line revenue today.
Karin Bursa (32:46):
Remember, your team is going to make better decisions every day, which means that you will see a reduction in expediting costs. That’s right because we expedite when we have to do things in a hurry. If I have a better plan in place, and my plan is well aligned, my forecast is well-tuned to my market, I’m going to significantly reduce those expediting costs. And those expediting costs just gobble up your profit margin. So, if you can reduce those expediting costs, then your margin, your overall margin contribution is going to improve.
I mentioned transportation costs a few minutes ago. Once you have your arms around your overall transportation costs, you’re going to see these expediting costs come down as well. You’ll see better order timing and reduced receiving effort as well. What do I mean by that, order timing and receiving effort? That means that you shipping and receiving area is going to run much more efficiently. With your digital supply chain planning system, planning your orders in a more effective way, aligning them with actual market demand, you may actually reduce the number of orders that are coming into the dock.
Karin Bursa (34:09):
In fact, a 5-billion-dollar distributor shared with me last month a story that is the perfect way to visualize this impact. He shared that he got a call from the shipping and receiving manager. The shipping receiving manager started out the conversation with something like, “Hey, I’m just checking with you to make sure everything is okay, because we haven’t had an expedited order in over three weeks. And the number of orders that are coming in today are significantly fewer. They’re bigger orders, but there are less orders. So, our overall volume of product coming in and out the line items has improved or increased, but the number of orders had gone way down.” They were seeing the impact of improved efficiency through better order process, through better planning process. Pretty exciting!
Karin Bursa (35:13):
Can you imagine getting that call? “Hey, just calling to check to see if everything is okay, because we are running really efficiently right now, and it’s a little scary, I’d like to figure out what’s happening.” Well, what’s happening is they deployed a digital planning solution that has transformed their business, and that’s one area—by the way, one area that was not in their business case, but one area that was very, very favorably impacted in their deployment. Alright. So, let me give you some ranges again, as you think about framing your business case for an investment in digital supply chain technology. Of course, the attorneys want me to tell you that your individual results may vary and will depend on both your company performance, the digital planning solution you select and deploy. Understood? Alright. No guarantees here, but let me give you some broad ranges to consider as you put your business case framework together. Still interested?
Karin Bursa (36:22):
Let’s start at the top. In forecast accuracy, you’re going to see some pretty remarkable improvements. You’ll see improvements on the low end of about 10%, but you may go as high as a 25, 30% improvement. That’s huge! A 25 to 30% improvement in forecast accuracy, or again, think of that differently – you are reducing the error rate by 25 to 30%, but that bottom level, 10%, most of you could justify your investment on a 10% improvement of forecast accuracy alone. If you use that forecast to determine your inventory, your production, your sourcing, and your distribution needs. That’s a strong business case.
Second area, on time and full, perfect order service level. When you think of these areas, and talk about service level broadly, you may see a range with a bottom level of a 5% improvement in service level up to about a 20% improvement in service level.
Karin Bursa (37:40):
That’s right, 5 to 20% improvement in service level. That’s huge! That’s on time, in full, in good condition for my customers. And then, this will blow your mind! You are going to give them better service while investing less in inventory. It’s not intuitive. Many of you are holding excess inventory, specifically so you can provide great service for your customers, but here’s the thing, in the area of inventory reduction, with a digital supply chain planning solution, with a transformation initiative, and when I talk about transformation initiative, I mean, I’m not just looking at one part of my business, warehouse operations or manufacturing planning, I am talking about looking at planning end-to-end, from demand forecast through inventory policies, supply, production distribution, comprehensive transformation. If you are looking at an initiative that’s broad-based like this, you are going to see inventory positions or the opportunity to impact your inventory investments by anywhere from 15 to 35%. You heard me right, reducing inventory by 15% to as much as 35%.
Karin Bursa (39:15):
And I got to tell you, I’m really comfortable with that 35% number, because I have seen companies reduce their overall inventory investments by more than that, by as much as 40, 42%. So, inventory reductions from a low end of 10%, we’re talking double-digits up until these higher ranges, 30, 35%. That’s huge! That’s a game-changer for your business! That is a digital transformation! You are replacing risky inventory with valuable information. So, when you hear that on TEKTOK, this is what I’m talking about — the ability to replace risky inventory with valuable information, with better indicators of market need. Now, some other areas where you are going to see improvements in your business, I mentioned as well, how quickly can you make decisions? The speed of decision-making, the quality of the decision, how well did we do, and the confidence of the executive team making those decisions. Huge, huge difference!
Karin Bursa (40:29):
You are also going to see improvements in areas around planner productivity. I was working with a manufacturer that recently implemented a new cloud-based planning platform, and their planner productivity was improved by 60%. That’s right 6-0, 60%. What used to take them days to do now takes them minutes to do, and is more precise, more accurate, and more robust than what they had in the past. Huge productivity improvements! This is important to you as we look at talent constraints in the marketplace. We need our planners to be able to focus in on where they can have the greatest impact and allow those systems to automatically take care of the routine calculations and capabilities. Make sense? Come back to me if you are multi-tasking. We’re honing in for the big finish here, so I want to encourage you to put together your business case framework that creates a connected, transparent, and a highly automated supply chain planning environment.
Karin Bursa (41:49):
You’ll need to rely on technology that’s going to allow you to do this. This is going to require your team to embrace a plan that actually progresses your maturity. You become better planners for your business, and that means your process may change and improve, the technology you’re using will improve, and be more effective and quicker, more precise, and the data that’s being ingested to feed the system will improve, be more comprehensive for your business. I want you to enjoy these challenges. It is worth the work. You will see the benefits. So, a final thought around a business case, when you are thinking of your business case for digital supply chain transformation, be sure that it is supporting the CEO’s agenda, right? The CEO needs to be a part of this decision. Now, your CEO, like so many others, is probably focused on three big things.
Karin Bursa (43:01):
That’s right. Three big things on the CEO’s agenda, business growth, optimizing costs or optimizing investments, are we making wise investments in our company, in our inventory? And then, greater agility, how do we respond faster in the marketplace? Either mitigating risk or harnessing new opportunities. So, your CEO is probably looking at those three things. How do I grow the business? How do I optimize the current talent team investments? And how do I build a business that’s more agile?
Alright, supply chain movers and shakers, that’s where you come in. This is what you do. You help optimize costs. You help gain agility and resilience in the marketplace. And you can help grow the business. You can grow both the top line and revenue as well as the bottom line and overall profitability. It’s exciting!
It’s a great time to be in supply chain.
Karin Bursa (44:06):
I want you to be bold. I want you to embrace technology. I want you to validate the automation. I want you to leverage the artificial intelligence that is available to you. And I want you to stay focused on the business outcomes, on the big picture, and tying those in to the CEO’s agenda.
If you have built a business case for your company, I want to hear from you. I want to know what has worked for you, where you achieved the greatest alignment, where you overachieved, or where you failed to achieve your plan. I’m very curious to hear your results and your experience. And I hope that today’s episode on framing your business case for digital supply chain investments has just given you a few things to consider and perhaps a little fresh inspiration.
Thank you for joining me today on TEKTOK, where our goal is to help you eliminate the noise, and focus on the information and inspiration you need to transform your business, and replace risky inventory with valuable insights. We’ll see you next time on TEKTOK, powered by Supply Chain Now.
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