Rather than continually reassessing and optimizing supplier arrangements in an effort to ensure ongoing best value, many companies slip into a pattern of relying habitually on the same limited group of supply chain partners. 

So you’ve locked in your supply chain plan and network design? Good luck with that. In today’s global supply chains, unpredictability has become — well, predictable.

We’re in the third decade of the 21^st century. What competencies are emerging for purchasing leaders?

Is sales and operations planning obsolete? Not at all, says Evan Quasney, vice president of solutions marketing with Anaplan. But there's a need for organizations to take a deeper approach to connected planning, to achieve competitive advantage.

Mergers and acquisitions and a digital-savvy younger generation are changing the landscape in supply chain planning, says Alex Pradhan, product strategy leader at John Galt Solutions.

Supply chain resiliency is the ability of an organization to avoid, absorb and recover from the business impact of disruptions through a risk-balanced approach to product, supply chain strategy and network design.

Quite a few companies have embarked on their digital collaboration journey, but many haven't developed it to its full potential, says Ville Parkkinen, director of product marketing at OpenText.

Supply chain planners will continue to face turbulence and disruptions, but S&OP is evolving to meet the challenges, says Micheal Youssef, vice president team manager at Gartner.

While the task and responsibility for managing the data supply chain is primarily the responsibility of information technology professionals, the concepts and tools we use every day directly apply to the data supply chain as well as the physical supply chain.  

To improve collaboration and responsiveness, enterprises need what one might call “end-to-endless” visibility — advanced analytics that’s greater than the sum of its parts.