Supply chain professionals must consider the customer experience, not just cost reduction and operational efficiency, says Mike Dominy, vice president of supply chain research at Gartner.

If a specific customer experience is to drive a successful supply chain, the right inputs around customers are required. Listening to the voice of the customer is one way to ensure that.

“The voice of the customer is about serving your customers, understanding their pain points,” Dominy says. “It’s very important to have the conversation, supply chain leader to supply chain leader, about the things that are going on in your supply chain downstream, and how we can do things better. So the voice of the customer is a key input.”

This is true for any vertical, because there's always some way to differentiate the supply chain output for a particular customer experience. “Now, the degree to which you can change the supply chain output or differentiate what you're doing in your supply chain can vary significantly by industry,” Dominy says. “For example, in heavy industrial process manufacturing, the product pretty much is the product. You are differentiating around logistics and some value-added services that happen in fulfillment. In other industries, like complex industrial discrete manufacturing or high tech, we can differentiate all the way back to the product and even the design of the product. So the differentiation of the customer experience and the elements that we connect together can be different by industry.”

A cross-functional group is required for a successful customer-driven supply chain strategy, Dominy says. A Gartner survey found that a successful customer experience program is four times more likely if someone from the C-suite has responsibility for it. And while a supply chain officer doesn’t have to lead the initiative, Dominy says, they must be a part of the team.