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People power beats pure speed
One of the largest racing teams entered 2023 on the back foot, with their car lacking pace. Race after race, rivals pulled ahead. But instead of chasing speed alone, the team focused on refining driver performance, sharpening race strategy, and perfecting team execution. By midseason, it not only kept up but also reached the podium.
The lesson? Cutting-edge technology alone isn't enough. The right talent, structure, and execution make all the difference.
The same is true for supply chain success. Companies pour billions into AI-driven planning tools, real-time analytics, and automation. Yet the results are sobering. In our experience, 70% of companies struggle to deliver on the promised value of their tech and AI transformation programs. And then there's change management – a critical factor for successful AI adoption. While resistance among the workforce may not be widespread (24% across all respondents per our study), its prevalence is enough to slow progress if left unchecked.
Why? Because, like the racing team's turnaround, success depends on building the right organization with robust change management strategies.
Your organization: The missing link in AI success
For decades, companies have approached digital supply chain transformations incrementally, with IT driving the process and neglecting the organizational changes necessary for true business impact. Three powerful forces make organizational readiness real.
1. Break down silos
IT and business must collaborate closely for real impact. Successful supply chain projects today are co-led by business and IT leaders for alignment, adoption, and operational results.
2. Stay ahead of rapid innovation
Technological breakthroughs arrive every few years, not decades. Your organization must continuously adapt and quickly build new capabilities to remain competitive.
3. Prove your investments pay off
With unprecedented scrutiny on spending, you need clear business outcomes. Yet most efforts fail due to inadequate organizational engagement and insufficient capability-building.
The bottom line: Your technology investments deliver real, lasting value only when your organization – its people, roles, skills, and structures – is future-fit.
Redesigning supply chain roles for the autonomous era
Traditional planning roles emerged in a world that no longer exists. Planners spent days manually gathering data and fighting fires instead of preventing them. AI changes the game, enabling the shift from crisis management to strategic decision-making.
Teams need to move:
From data gatherers to decision-makers: Use AI-generated insights for faster, more informed strategic decisions
From a factory-centric to a network-centric approach: Manage entire supply networks, reducing costs and boosting efficiency
From a narrow scope to an end-to-end responsibility: Integrate supply, distribution, and deployment planning into cohesive roles
Real impact: A leading fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company introduced supply network planners supported by advanced tools, driving three powerful changes:
Network-focused planning across multiple factories created flexible, responsive supply chains
Exception-based, forward-looking planning freed planners from firefighting (previously 95% of their time) to focus on 18-month strategic horizons
Integrated end-to-end scope reduced silos and accelerated decision-making
Result: Planners spent 60% less time on ad hoc requests, dramatically improving customer satisfaction and enabling strategic focus.
Right-sizing your team for maximum value
Decentralized planning teams undermine technology potential. Fragmented structures slow decisions and prevent new tools from delivering maximum value. Centralization and right-sizing are critical for rapid adoption and continuous improvement.
Key structural shifts:
From decentralized operations to dedicated planning hubs: Centralized teams foster collaboration, accelerate decisions, and enhance consistent adoption
From fragmented reporting to unified end-to-end leadership: End-to-end planning leaders can help bring clear accountability and strategic alignment
From overstaffed teams to right-sized organizations: The automate-consolidate-eliminate (ACE) framework typically reduces staffing by up to 25% while creating capacity for strategic work
Real impact: A European dairy cooperative centralized its planning function under a unified leadership, colocating planners in a dedicated hub. The cooperative used the ACE framework to strategically repurpose 15% of roles while maintaining its people-centric culture. The centralized structure allowed the team to rapidly adopt a new generation of planning platforms in just three months, from training to full go live.
Don't forget: Governance, culture, and talent
Many projects stall despite technology investments due to inadequate governance, weak change management, and insufficient talent development. Success requires robust structures and strategic capability-building.
Start here:
Set clear cross-functional governance: Align IT, supply chain, operations, and finance teams around shared objectives
Embed a culture of continuous change: Shift from viewing change as disruption to embracing adaptability through active leadership and structured capability-building
Think strategic talent development: Build competency frameworks, structured training, and critical skills like problem-solving and digital adaptability
Real impact: A global consumer goods leader implemented unified global governance and established a centralized supply chain academy. This standardized approach enabled planners to quickly adopt new planning technologies consistently across regions. Despite reorganizing over 1,000 planners globally, talent losses remained below 5% while employee satisfaction reached new highs.
The role of a supply chain capability center
Many projects lose momentum after implementation. Planners often revert to familiar processes, underusing new capabilities. A dedicated supply chain planning capability center can help drive sustained success through continuous adoption and improvement.
Key functions:
Continuous adaptation: Ensure your organization integrates emerging technologies as digital capabilities evolve every two to three years
Structured expertise: Replace informal knowledge with standardized global training programs and capability frameworks
Proactive improvement: Identify opportunities to enhance planning processes through technology, introducing planners to the latest innovations
Real impact: A global multicategory FMCG leader established a dedicated capability center with experts in process standardization, solution integration, analytics, and capability-building. One senior planner reflected, "Initially, we worried about losing control. But the capability center enabled us to rapidly adopt new technologies and freed us from firefighting to tackle strategic challenges."
The center accelerated adoption, improved user satisfaction, and generated continuous value, reducing inventory by an additional $17.7 million in its first year.
Your next move: Building a future-fit organization
Technology alone never delivers lasting competitive advantage. Like our racing team example, success comes through execution, strategy, and people excellence – your supply chain wins depend on having the right organization in place.
Ask yourself these critical questions:
Are your planners empowered to drive proactive, strategic decisions, or are they still stuck firefighting?
Is your planning structure designed to unlock advanced technology value, or is fragmentation slowing you down?
How mature are your governance, change culture, and talent strategies for enabling sustained improvement?
Do you have a dedicated capability center ensuring continuous adoption and long-term ROI?
If you're uncertain about any answer, it's time to act. The best teams recognize that cutting-edge technology alone is never enough. Your people, structure, and execution drive success. And partners. Choose partners who can get you closer to your supply chain vision, so you're ready to step into the autonomous era with confidence.
