A standard supply chain consists of companies that buy and sell goods and services from each other. Knut Alicke is a partner in McKinsey’s Stuttgart office; Elena Dumitrescu is a senior knowledge expert in the Toronto office; Markus Leopoldseder, based in Vienna, is the director of knowledge for supply chain management; Max Schlichter is a partner in the London office. Supply chain management is an integral part of the business organizations and important for the success of the company. For this to occur, coordination with suppliers and delivery companies will be required to avoid any potential delays. In turn, this requires harmonized processes and structural consistency across business units. According to McKinsey Global Institute research, more than half of today’s tasks could be automated by 2055, resulting in process transformations and the implicit need to reskill and upskill workers. The company decided to introduce shared incentives—forecast accuracy, on-time-in-full deliveries, and sales growth—among the sales and supply-chain functions, so that both had a stake in the outcome of the business. In global firms with inter-regional business, such internal complexity hinders sorely needed cross-business execution. Benchmarking your organization against industry peers isn’t the whole answer, but many organizations find it useful to begin with rapid, fact-based assessment of their current processes, capabilities, and structures, comparing them to the approaches adopted by the highest performing organizations, and checking their alignment with the company’s overall strategic intent. Practical resources to help leaders navigate to the next normal: guides, tools, checklists, interviews and more. These systems help planners save time while providing greater agility in updating ever-changing priorities, production schedules, and inventory plans. Its performance, however, was lagging in both cost and service levels. To illustrate this with an example, consider the case of a North American industrial company. But design choices don’t work miracles in a vacuum. Ils doivent aussi être visionnaires, orientés vers les résultats et avoir un fort esprit de collaboration. Other elements of the organization were not well prepared for the change. Call 800-633-4410 to speak with a Korn Ferry Representative, Externalisation du Processus de recrutement (RPO), Rémunérations des Dirigeants & Gouvernance, Notre gamme d'accélérateurs de leadership, Programmes de développement de leadership sur mesure. Processes had not been fully streamlined and IT infrastructure was not uniform across business units. With co-location, team bonding increases performance. Obtenez le meilleur de vos talents, investissez dans ceux qui ont du potentiel. This approach helps companies spot the issues outlined in this article, from misaligned incentives to capability gaps, and take steps to address them as they scale up the supply-chain transformation. Being able to deliver on your promises means more business for you in the future and allows you to maintain a competitive advantage in the market. Supply-chain executives often think about organizational changes in one of three situations: when the structure of the business changes, for example due to mergers or acquisitions; when changes in operations require it, such as the digitization of processes, or the reconfiguration of the supply network; or when leaders notice signs of ineffectiveness, such as new-product launches that take too long to scale, or decisions made in cross-functional forums that fail to be executed effectively on the ground. Resource management ensures that the right resources are allocated to the right activities in an optimized manner. They also manage exceptions, generating and analyzing scenarios for optimal decision-making across the different processes that operate in that value stream. Learn about Our research revealed six EBITDA-correlated organizational factors high-performing companies use to break silos and improve cross-functional supply-chain performance (Exhibits 2 and 3). The supply-chain function’s organizational design interacts with its assets, technology, processes, and people to make strategy happen. This role underscores the importance of harmonization and standardization in process preparation, orchestration, and performance management, as it gets the conditions right for the supply chain to fulfill customer orders in the future.