Most supply chain organisations conduct strategic planning on an annual cadence, making them less responsive to market threats and opportunities outside of planning cycles.
Less than half of supply chain leaders believe their organisations performed better than their competitors during the past year. But, future-fit organisations maintain a competitive advantage during highly uncertain business contexts by actively preparing to respond to disruptions and anticipate changes.
The article argues that businesses should turn their 2022 supply chain strategic planning into a competitive advantage. Businesses should elevate and embed disruption shaping in strategic planning to reduce the impact of frequent, unfamiliar disruptions on the supply chain.
According to Gartner, organisations that actively embed disruption-shaping strategies are “less likely to experience less than one-third of the disruptions experienced by their response-focused peers.” Instead of conducting strategic planning on an annual cadence, businesses must move to an adaptive strategic planning process to be more responsive to potential market threats and opportunities beyond the planning cycle.
Conducting continual scanning of emerging risks and trends and reviewing strategic plans multiple times during the year can help companies be relevant to evolving market conditions. Companies should further embed flexibility in supply chain budget and resource allocation to better prepare for the uncertain year ahead.
[6 minute read]
