Transform Your Business with Supply Chain Innovation
According to PwC's global study of over 1,000 supply chain leaders, supply chains are experiencing their most significant transformation in decades. Geopolitical crises, technological advancements, and climate change are among the key disruptors driving this change. To adapt, supply chain leaders are reinventing their operations to be more adaptable, sustainable and intelligent. Executives are increasing transparency, integrating technologies to enhance efficiency, and fostering stakeholder collaboration to identify and address issues promptly.
While many executives have ambitious plans, only a few are successfully achieving their goals. These industry leaders acknowledge that comprehensive transformation is complex. It demands advanced capabilities, cutting-edge technologies, and innovative ways of working. A clear vision, a detailed roadmap, adequate resources, and employee engagement are crucial for success. Insights from our report on best practices, along with our Supply Chain Compass that aligns disruptive trends with effective solutions, can guide you on your journey to transformation.
The study at a glance
Six Disruptive Trends
Supply chain executives face severe disruption on all fronts. Geopolitical crises, climate impacts, rising costs and inflation. Increasing government demands for ESG compliance. Consumers want companies to step up environmental and social efforts too, while also delivering high-quality, low-priced products to their doors. Disruptive trends like these are giving rise to new supply chain models and competitive ecosystems. A complicated picture is further destabilised by major worldwide talent shortages and fast technological advances. PwC has distilled major disruptions into six key trends:
Download the report here
Reinventing Supply Chains – Towards an adaptable, sustainable and cognitive ecosystem
What sets Champions apart?
Supply chain executives are making aggressive plans but only a small group of Champions are fully executing on them. These industry leaders are taking an integrated approach – working transparently, productively and collaboratively with stakeholders to address shared challenges and promote economic growth. Champions are three times more likely to be part of an ecosystem than other companies, and are more likely to be adapting business models to respond to changing customer and regulatory requirements. Champions with implemented priority capabilities and technologies anticipate supply chain cost reductions of 19% and revenue gains of 16%.
Top technologies used to transform supply chains
The rapid pace of technological change is significantly disrupting supply chains, while at the same time offering new opportunities. Organisations are embedding technologies to boost data visibility, automate processes and decision-making, improve communications and collaboration, and ultimately make value chains more sustainable and resilient. Four technologies top participants’ lists as the most transformative.
Supply Chain Compass: A guiding framework to respond to disruptive trends
- Increasing frequency of severe supply chain disruptions
- Rising competition of fully-integrated ecosystems
- Growing talent and workforce scarcity
- Evolving technological advances
- Increasing need to support new business models
- Expanding ESG compliance
Increasing frequency of severe supply chain disruptions
- Market turbulence and disruption will continue to impact supply chain performance, requiring serious interventions to avoid downtime, higher costs and loss of revenue.
- To better respond to challenges, companies should invest in visibility, integrated partner collaboration and planning, and flexible transport management, alongside exploring alternative sourcing strategies.
- To combat disruption while enabling sustainable growth, companies should establish a continuous resilience improvement cycle to monitor risks, with robust metrics and an assessment system to cope with short-term, medium-term and long-term turbulence.
Rising competition of fully-integrated ecosystems
- Value chain ecosystems are growing in number and complexity. There is fierce competition to join or establish them.
- Leading value chain ecosystems are characterised by end-to-end process thinking and visibility, open data, and seamless collaboration with partners through integrated planning and execution.
- Companies must understand the purpose and benefits of various ecosystems, as well as the effort involved in joining or establishing one.
Growing talent and workforce scarcity
- Driven by demographic shifts, changing worker expectations and new technological demands, talent shortages are creating supply chain bottlenecks, which undermine productivity and efficiency.
- Amid workforce shortages, productivity and efficiency can be maintained by automating physical tasks (e.g. using robotics) and decision-making, and then retraining workers to take on high-tech and problem-solving roles.
- As supply chains and technologies evolve, it is hard to predict which skills will be needed. Companies should therefore cultivate learning cultures, and train and empower employees to take on new roles.
Evolving technological advances
- Embracing rapidly changing technologies tops most agendas, as executives appreciate the benefits and the technologies’ disruptive potential.
- The most commonly mentioned disruptive technologies in supply chains are digital twins, AI, decision intelligence systems and advanced robotic systems.
- Instead of using technology to incrementally improve ways of working, companies should encourage cultures of experimentation to unleash the power of technology to innovate and master disruptive trends.
Increasing need to support new business models
- Companies need to transform to more service-oriented, sustainable and circular supply chain models to be competitive.
- New business models require investments in circular-enabled networks, segmented supply chain flows, technologies such as warehouse automation, and financial planning integration.
- Transforming business models requires courage. It is a significant step that may undermine earnings and sustainability targets in the short term, but yields long-term benefits such as increased market share and revenue.
Expanding ESG compliance
- Companies must comply with ESG regulations, which are growing in scope and complexity, or risk serious financial penalties, exclusion from public contracts and reputational damage.
- ESG improvements can be achieved by enhancing upstream transparency, introducing circular network design and incorporating ESG goals into demand and supply planning.
- Making a supply chain sustainable from product design to last-mile delivery improves sourcing decisions, conserves energy, cuts waste, boosts sales and creates a positive brand image.
About this survey
We did quantitative research consisting of interviews conducted between December 2023 and February 2024 with over 1,000 senior executives from companies in 28 countries across the world. The majority of survey participants are senior executives with top-level responsibility for operations and supply chain. Companies were surveyed across six key industry sectors including automotive, electronics, industrial manufacturing and equipment, pharma, medtech, process industries, retail and consumer goods.
