Sometimes the supply chain work needed to make integration of business partners or systems successful is overlooked, says Philip Weir, chief commercial officer at Elemica.

The relationships between a company’s chief financial officer and its chief supply chain officer or chief information officer simply do not get the attention they deserve, Weir says, especially when financial disruptions threaten. For example, problems can take place in mergers and acquisitions or in enterprise resource planning implementations. “These disruptions put a lot more pressure on our supply chain professionals than we may be thinking about,” Weir says. “We’re not preparing them enough for understanding the implications.” 

Underestimating effects on the supply chain environment when divestitures or mergers occur is a prime example of a financial disruption, Weir says. “Finance people talk cash to cash; that's all it takes. The reality is quite different from a supply chain standpoint. If you think of the sourcing or the sales pipeline, those are added time elements to how you're going to unwind a supply chain relationship and stick it back together either in a new company or a new ERP.”

While a CFO may see a revenue number from an account, supply chain officers see a much more complicated picture: the physical supply chain, a data layer and how companies communicate with one another. Weir believes communication with the CFO about all of that needs improvement.

“We need to tell the right stories to the CFO to allow them to actually see how the synergies are going to come about, like how much work it's going to be and is it really worth it to make that switch.”

And it’s critical, Weir says, to understand how mergers and split-ups affect not just internal operations, but all partners throughout the supply chain. “What happens if you reshore? What happens if you split the company in two?”