The Digital Supply Chain Challenge

The Digital Supply Chain Challenge: Breaking Through

Leading a digital supply chain transformation This book closes with some real-life cases of companies that faced the challenge of an SCD transformation, each with lessons and insights for managers. We also explore the human resources impacts of production concentration, impacts that could be undone by the growing trend for personalization, with clues about the next evolution in supply chain career opportunities. HOW TO USE THIS BOOK This book is a distillation of our 50+ years of combined supply chain experience, both at the coal face and in the classroom. During this time, supply chains and their design and management have been rapidly evolving – and continue to do so – not least spurred on by digital developments. We have regularly shared our insights and observations in short articles and best-practice case studies, mostly published by IMD business school. This book brings this work together in one place and in an easily accessible format to help address the concerns and possible questions of supply chain executives as and when they arise. Each stand-alone piece is short, to the point and jargon free. We have updated some of the articles to reflect the current state of play, but as we have already mentioned, changes are happening so rapidly in some areas, e.g. e-commerce, that we are only able to provide a snapshot of a particular moment in time. Nevertheless, even if the precise facts change, the principles remain the same and provide food for thought. By its very nature, this book is not designed to be read from cover to cover. We encourage readers to consult it at different times during their SCD voyage, to find benchmarks, relevant insights or even just to help formulate the right questions along the way. It is a sort of handbook to the essentials of digital supply chain transformation.

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