Interested in a hot new role within the supply chain management industry? Consider becoming a manager of robots. No joke; there will be so many of them in the next few years, about 5% of workforce managers will be managing robots like people. Only, of course, not like people, because robots don’t get sick or take vacations or cigarette breaks, pointed out Tom Enright, vice president analyst at Gartner, at his presentation at Gartner’s Supply Chain Symposium/XPO in Orlando, Florida, May 5, “Gartner’s Top Strategic Supply Chain Predictions for 2025 and Beyond.”

“There will be fleets of robots, going forward,” Enright said. “And they won’t just be in distribution centers. They will be in stores, call centers, factories… everywhere. They’ll be supporting, not replacing, humans and human decision-making.”

This rise of the robots is just one of the drastic, technology-driven changes coming to the supply chain world that together will shift the role of the chief supply chain officer to a far more central one in any given business, Enright said. “They will be moving away from ‘trucks and sheds’ to a much more customer-oriented role.” Further, CSCOs need to embrace AI and machine learning. “By 2028, 15% of day-to-day supply chain decisions will be made autonomously by AI agents, freeing up humans to focus on more critical decisions.”

The big changes will come from three main areas, said Enright: people, AI and customers. "Even if only 50% of our predictions are correct, the role of the CSCO will change beyond recognition."

All About the Customer

Customer satisfaction and “effort” — the catch-all term for what a customer experiences when interacting with a company — will become more important than ever over the next five years, and AI means we’ll know a great deal more about what that looks like and what they would like to see change. In the near future, companies will be creating digital twins of the consumer, not just supply chain operations, Enright predicts, in order to create a much deeper view of their needs and wants. Using AI and machine learning (ML) instead of old-fashioned consumer focus groups to glean real demand trends will shorten product lead-times from concept to market way below where it’s currently been stuck for decades, at around 18 months.

Enright sees an increasing role for CSCOs in taking responsibility for building online customer communities, fostering new product introductions, and keeping track of the customer effort score. “Overall, they’ll have increased customer-oriented responsibility,” he said. 

Enright said one survey that’s been conducted for decades asked CEOs if they thought supply chain operations were as important as any other part of the business, such as sales or manufacturing. Consistently, less than 50% have said yes. That figure spiked a little during the COVID pandemic, but then quietly sank down again. “That needs to change,” said Enright, and CSCOs need to be allowed to get closer to the end-customer. But it will be tough, because the connection between a business and its customers is generally owned by sales and marketing. “Customers are kept at arm’s length,” said Enright. “So CSCOs will have to work to break that arm.”

CSCOs Will Be Responsible for Identifying Forced Labor Risks

CSCOs will also be increasingly responsible for ferreting out forced labor in the supply chain, which Enright predicted will increase to 28 million humans by 2030, hidden deeper and deeper within the supply chain. Gone are the days when a corporation can claim there’s no forced labor in its direct sphere of influence, such as manufacturing, while ignoring its prevalence at the raw materials or component level. “Turning a blind eye is not the future role of the CSCO,” said Enright. With increased legislation and consumer awareness (to say nothing of the moral imperative), the risk to business is too high to ignore. In fact, Enright predicts that companies in the future will pay suppliers more to mitigate forced labor risks. 

The Rise of Returns

There’s no doubt that returns and reverse logistics fall under the remit of the CSCO, and that segment is set to keep rising at an alarming rate. Enright said that, currently, 17% of e-commerce items are subject to return. He predicts that, by 2030, e-commerce companies will be spending twice as much as they do now in that area. But only 40% of e-commerce companies have a head of returns. “They need to prioritize circular processes,” Enright said. “Most of the time, they don’t even know why it’s coming back.”

“It’s not the most attractive part of any organization,” Enright mused. “Nobody leaves college itching for a career in reverse logistics.” Nevertheless, there are opportunities to force companies to give greater weight to the importance of managing and reducing returns. “Surprise (management) by talking about the customer. Put your foot in the door by focusing on customer effort and returns.” Enright even suggested CSCOs at e-commerce companies should demand that sales deduct any return from sales data. “After all, it’s a failed sale,” he said. “That will get their attention.”