Game-Changing Trends in Supply Chain

Every month a new article or conference lecture seems to present a fresh idea about the game-changing trends faced by supply chain professionals.

Consulting companies, academics, and even individual companies have their own opinions about and definitions of supply chain megatrends. Often these megatrend lists do not match; instead they reflect the backgrounds and experiences of the people who compile them.

For this white paper, we define game-changing trends as those trends that meet the two basic criteria of being extremely impactful on a firm’s economic profit and shareholder value, as well as very di!cult to implement successfully.

The 10 game-changing trends discussed in this white paper have their foundations in a 2000 landmark study co-authored by Ted Stank on our faculty. That study and the updated version incorporated responses from approximately 150 supply chain professionals across a wide range of industries (retailers, manufacturers, and service providers, large and small in size).

But that doesn’t mean the material in this white paper is dated—far from it. Based on our interaction with literally hundreds of companies annually (the largest industry network in the academic world), we believe that those trends still serve as a foundation. But the supply chain world has drastically changed over the past 13 years.

In this white paper, we’ll discuss the game-changing supply chain trends that you need to squarely face today, and we’ll suggest how to make progress toward the desired end state.

We’ll also use plenty of examples along the way.

When a student asked Albert Einstein if this year’s physics exam questions were the same as the previous year’s, he responded, “Yes, but unfortunately for you the answers are very di!erent.” Our game-changing trends are like those questions. We still see some of the same supply chain trends, but the real world responses to them are dramatically more sophisticated.