Supply chain strategy
Design a supply chain strategy to drive resilience, lower cost-to-serve and sustainable growth.
How AI is changing supply chain strategy
Most supply chains were built for stability. Managing a supply chain today means navigating geopolitical shifts, new trade policies and rapid AI-driven change. Companies built around fixed networks, stable supplier bases and predictable demand are now running at a structural disadvantage. Fewer than 15% consistently achieve long-term profitable growth through disruption. The gap is a supply chain strategy built to adapt. Accenture helps companies design supply chain strategies that balance cost, resilience and sustainability, using AI to keep strategy aligned with reality.
STATS
$1.6T
in annual revenue missed globally due to supply chain disruptions.
60%
of top-quartile resilient companies reported profit gains after a severe disruption, compared to just 21% in the bottom quartile.
42%
of supply chain executives cite skill shortages as a major barrier to achieving their supply chain goals, making talent and workforce strategy a core part of any supply chain strategy engagement.
How Accenture can help in supply chain strategy
Risk management
Get ahead of supply chain risk before it becomes a revenue problem.
Client pain points
Most organizations find out about supply chain risk when it has already hit operations. Supplier concentration, single-source components and limited visibility beyond Tier 1 leave businesses exposed. Only 50% of companies have visibility into more than half of their Tier-1 suppliers. Below Tier 1, the picture is almost entirely dark. When a disruption hits, the response is reactive, costly and slow.
Why partner with Accenture
Supply chain risk assessment grounded in real data
Accenture builds supply chain risk frameworks using digital twin technology and n-tier supplier mapping. Rather than working from a static risk register, Accenture creates a live model of the client's supply network, stress-tests it against disruption scenarios and identifies where revenue is most at risk. This moves risk management from a compliance exercise to a business decision tool.
Proprietary scenario modeling and resilience scoring
Accenture's supply chain digital twin and resilience scoring tools quantify exposure across the network and generate a prioritized list of mitigating actions. The output is not a report. It is an operational capability the client's team can run independently after the engagement.
Industry depth across high-risk sectors
Building a global supply chain strategy looks different in life sciences, semiconductors, industrials and consumer goods. Accenture brings industry-specific knowledge of regulatory requirements, supplier markets and concentration risks across the sectors where resilience gaps are most costly.
Scale to act on what the assessment finds
Identifying risk is only half the job. Accenture has the strategy, technology and change capability to help clients act on what the risk assessment surfaces, from supplier diversification and network redesign through to digital visibility tooling and managed resilience services.
Your path to better risk management
Step 1: Map - Map your exposure across the supplier network
Run a structured maturity assessment to identify where your network is most concentrated, where Tier-2 and Tier-3 dependencies create hidden risk and where a single failure would have the largest revenue impact. Most organizations find the answer is very different from what the risk register shows.
Step 2: Simulate - Stress-test the network against realistic disruption scenarios
Build a supply chain digital twin that mirrors your actual network and subject it to scenarios including geopolitical disruptions, supplier failures, demand spikes and logistics breakdowns. This gives leadership a quantified view of resilience, not a qualitative one, and a prioritized list of where investment will reduce risk fastest.
Step 3: Watch - Build ongoing visibility, not a one-time report
To implement supply chain strategy effectively, risk management must be continuous. Build the monitoring, alerting and supplier intelligence tools that give your team early warning before a risk becomes a disruption. Then transfer the capability so the team can run it independently without ongoing consultancy cost.
What our risk management services include
- Supply chain risk assessment and n-tier supplier mapping
Map where concentration, dependency and hidden exposure sit across your full supplier network, from Tier 1 through to Tier 3 and beyond. - Supply chain digital twin design and build
Create a live model of your actual network so you can run disruption scenarios, quantify impact and test resilience strategies before committing to them. - Resilience scoring and scenario stress-testing
Subject your network to realistic disruption scenarios, geopolitical shocks, supplier failures, demand spikes, and get a quantified view of where investment will reduce risk fastest. - Supplier concentration analysis and diversification strategy
Identify where single-source or single-region dependencies create your biggest exposure and build a diversification roadmap that balances risk reduction with commercial reality. - Real-time risk monitoring and early-warning tooling
Build the monitoring and supplier intelligence capability that gives your team early warning before a risk becomes a disruption, with alerts routed to the right people at the right time. - Integration with existing ERP, procurement and planning systems
Connect risk intelligence directly into the systems your team already uses, so risk data informs decisions in procurement, planning and operations without adding a parallel workflow.
Proven, measurable results
3.6%
higher annual revenues achieved by the top 25% most resilient companies versus the most vulnerable 25% — the measurable financial case for investing in supply chain risk management strategy.
4x
times higher investment rate in next-generation capabilities for supply chain maturity leaders.
40%
organizations are expected to achieve deep visibility into Tier 3 supplier networks by 2029, driven by the combined impact of regulation and technological innovation.
Sustainable supply chains
Embed sustainability into your supply chain strategy so it delivers measurable results, not just compliance.
Client pain points
ESG commitments made at board level are not landing in operations. Sustainability targets sit in annual reports while procurement, logistics and manufacturing decisions continue on cost-only criteria. Only 16% of G2000 companies with emissions data are on track to reach net zero in operations by 2050. The problem is not intent. It is that most organizations have not built the data infrastructure, supplier engagement and operational processes needed to make sustainability part of daily decision-making.
Why partner with Accenture
Sustainability embedded into supply chain operations, not layered on top
Accenture's approach to sustainable supply chain strategy starts with embedding a supply chain value strategy into how decisions are made in procurement, planning, logistics and manufacturing, and builds sustainability criteria directly into those workflows. The result is a supply chain that meets ESG targets as a by-product of how it operates, not through separate reporting.
Scope 3 visibility and supplier engagement at scale
Scope 3 emissions represent 64% of total upstream emissions for most organizations. Accenture helps clients map supplier emissions, engage suppliers on reduction targets and build the data infrastructure to track progress. This is the part of the sustainability agenda most organizations have not yet solved.
Circular supply chain design
Accenture designs supply chains that reduce waste and extend product life, from reverse logistics and returns management through to circular sourcing and closed-loop manufacturing. These capabilities reduce material costs, cut emissions and help clients meet regulatory requirements on circularity that are tightening across Europe and North America.
Cross-industry experience in sustainability change programs
Sustainable supply chain strategy plays out differently in consumer goods, life sciences, industrials and retail. Accenture brings cross-sector experience in building sustainability programs that are operationally credible, not just strategically coherent, and that hold up under investor and regulator scrutiny.
Your path to better sustainable supply chains
Step 1: Assess - Understand where your emissions and sustainability risks actually sit
Run a supply chain sustainability assessment that maps your Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, identifies where circular economy opportunities exist and surfaces the regulatory exposure you are not yet tracking. For most organizations, the biggest risks and the biggest opportunities are both beyond Tier 1.
Step 2: Embed - Build sustainability into the operating model
Design the processes, data systems and supplier engagement programs that put sustainability criteria into day-to-day decisions across procurement category strategies, logistics network design, warehouse operations and product planning. This step is where strategy moves into practice.
Step 3: Measure - Measure, report and improve continuously
Build the data infrastructure and reporting capability that tracks progress against targets in near real time. Connect sustainability metrics to financial performance so leadership can see the business case for each improvement and prioritize investment accordingly.
What our sustainable supply chain services include
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Supply chain sustainability assessment and emissions mapping (Scope 1, 2 and 3)
Map your full emissions footprint across direct operations, purchased energy and the extended supplier network to identify where the biggest risks and reduction opportunities actually sit.
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Circular supply chain design and reverse logistics strategy
Redesign product flows, packaging and returns processes to keep materials in use longer, reduce waste and build the reverse logistics infrastructure that makes circularity operationally viable.
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Supplier sustainability engagement and data collection programs
Build the supplier engagement programs and data collection processes that give you accurate, auditable sustainability data beyond Tier 1, so your reporting reflects reality rather than estimates.
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Sustainability criteria embedded into procurement and planning processes
Put sustainability metrics into the day-to-day decisions that shape your supply chain, from category strategies and supplier selection to network design and product planning.
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ESG reporting and regulatory compliance support
Build the data infrastructure and reporting capability that meets current regulatory requirements and scales as disclosure obligations expand, without creating a separate reporting burden on the business.
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Sustainable supply chain strategy aligned with corporate financial goals
Connect sustainability targets to financial performance so leadership can see the business case for each investment and prioritize the changes that deliver both environmental and commercial return.
Proven, measurable results
39%
Companies say autonomous operations will significantly advance supply chain circularity, thanks to better reuse, recycling and resource efficiency.
16%
reductions in carbon emissions through autonomous operations, directly supporting corporate sustainability targets.
52%
reduction in emissions intensity since 2019 through a sustainable procurement program, alongside improved efficiency through supplier consolidation and reduced reporting burden for a global pharma company.
Our leaders
Tracey Countryman
Senior Managing Director, Supply Chain and Engineering
Peter Frandina
Senior Managing Director, Supply Chain and Engineering, Americas
Götz Erhardt
Senior Managing Director, Supply Chain and Engineering, EMEA
Mads Lauritzen
Senior Managing Director, Supply Chain and Engineering, APAC
Frequently asked questions
When developing a supply chain strategy, the goal is to translate business objectives into operational decisions about where to source, how to structure the network, which risks to prioritize and how much cost to carry for resilience. When supply chain strategy is aligned with corporate financial and growth goals, it becomes a lever for competitive advantage rather than a cost to manage. Supply chain strategy examples that demonstrate this linkage include network redesigns that improved service and cut cost simultaneously, and sourcing strategies that reduced concentration risk without increasing spend.
Managing a supply chain that delivers on financial goals requires effective supply chain strategies that map cost drivers, including inventory, logistics, procurement and manufacturing, against the financial metrics leadership cares about: gross margin, working capital, EBITDA and return on capital. Then design supply chain decisions around those metrics directly, rather than optimizing for supply chain KPIs in isolation. Accenture uses AI-driven scenario modeling to help leadership teams see the financial trade-offs in supply chain strategy choices before committing to them.
Strategic supply chain management integrates network design, risk management, sustainability, digital capability and talent into a single coherent plan. It covers where to source and manufacture, how to build resilience against disruption, how to meet ESG commitments operationally and what technology and data infrastructure is needed to run the strategy. The most effective strategies also include a financing mechanism, using cost savings from efficiency improvements to fund the investment in resilience and digital capability.