Customer-centric Supply Chain

The way businesses approach supply chain management has changed. Once it was all about cost efficiency, speed and scale. Now it’s also about supporting future business growth. And that means reorienting supply chain network strategies, capabilities and priorities around a highly attuned understanding of what individual customers want, need, expect, and value. It’s why leading companies are reconfiguring their supply chain networks to support innovative and personalized products, services and experiences—for much more tightly defined segments of their customer base.

Today’s consumers have different—and greater—needs and expectations. Now, it’s not just about the product, it’s also about the holistic package of services and experiences companies build around that product—or provide as entirely standalone offerings. These value-driven customer offerings are the basis of future competitive advantage—and supply chain networks play a crucial role in delivering them.

Reorienting supply chain management around customers needs a holistic approach. That’s because it means going back to first principles and rethinking how the supply chain network is designed from the ground up. It means collecting and understanding data from the whole value chain, plus external sources, to understand customers better. It means reconfiguring the supply chain network as an asset-light network able to adapt to the unique needs of each customer segment. It means radically enhancing connectivity to improve real-time visibility for supply chain network planning and execution. A service-oriented insight-driven operating model is also a key component, helping companies deliver innovative customer-centricity in the most efficient and optimized way possible.

Accenture’s graduated approach helps you chart your own path to greater customer-centricity in supply chain management. We start with a two-hour C-level conversation where we set out the vision and describe the supply chain network technology that can deliver it. We follow this up with a three-day workshop leading to a four-month program to define the capabilities needed and the detailed roadmap.