Seven Imperatives for Achieving Dynamic Supply Chains

Increasing economic volatility has severely disrupted the supply chains of companies across industries. Rapid swings in the availability and price of key commodities, major currency fluctuations, upheaval in financial markets, disruptive geopolitical events and continued development of customer channels globally have conspired to place unprecedented pressure on the way these companies source, manufacture and distribute products.

Accenture research has found that those with very dynamic and well synchronized supply chains can use such volatility to their advantage. Companies that want to do so face seven imperatives.

Four of the imperatives focus on strategic fit—the linkage between the corporate vision and strategy with the supply chain vision and strategy. These imperatives are to:

• Articulate a clear value creation algorithm.
  
  
• Approach the supply chain as a value delivery system.
  
  
• Segment the supply chain and consistently adapt it to the characteristics of each segment.
  
  
• Optimize the global operation architecture for scale, access, flexibility and risk mitigation.

The remaining three imperatives focus on execution—the ability to turn the strategy into business practices that are performed flawlessly on a daily basis. These imperatives are to:

• Selectively invest for mastery in differentiating capability areas.
  
  
• Deploy information systems that deliver insightful analytics, alignment and responsiveness.
  
  
• Drive process execution discipline with the right talent powered by a culture that enables high performance.

Companies that excel in these seven areas will be better positioned to develop, source, manufacture and distribute superior products at lower relative costs; increase revenue, profit and shareholder value faster than competitors; and more effectively anticipate customer needs and meet them profitably.