Will the dream of an "end-to-end" supply chain finally come true — and if so, what will make it happen? Sumit Dutta, partner and leader of the Americas supply chain market with EY, has the answer.

Over the past 30 years, global supply chains have evolved organically in response to need, and often without any proactive approach to design. That has led to many supply chains being optimized for cost efficiency. But that single criterion is no longer sufficient to support the movement of goods to market — it must be accompanied by factors that guarantee a high level of customer service, including the ready availability of product even in times of disruption.

To craft a supply chain design and architecture from the start, businesses must begin by evaluating their overall product portfolio, including where they source goods from, and where they’re shipping them to. A promise of service must be built into that model, and to fulfill it, companies need to create supply chains with true end-to-end flow and connectivity, Dutta says.

The tricky part lies in the need to address all of the important variables — cost, efficiency, agility and sustainability — at the same time. And that’s only possible, Dutta says, if business models move beyond the traditional functional silos that have made collaboration and rapid exchange of data difficult to achieve.

Up to now, many companies have sought to perfect standalone functions, without giving thought to how they communicate outside their individual disciplines. Interfacing between those functions offers “the next level of value” for global supply chains, Dutta says.

Digitization — the automation of key functions and data flow — is helping to make this silo-busting possible. Companies are now able to link manufacturing with planning, as they move from a reactive to a predictive mode. And that allows them to “raise the level of decision-making.”