Last May 14th, the CSCMP Spanish Roundtable held a Supply Chain Networking Event called “Digital Supply Chain” where, Guillermina Rodríguez, actual Roundtable President, opened the event presenting CSCMP “Council of Supply Chain Management” with the exclusive participation of two members from CSCMP Chicago Roundtable, T.J. Shaefer and Susie Bodnar.
First presentation was “Enabling Global End To End Advance Visibility” with T.J Shaefer PhD – VP of Global Carrier Network Partnerships at project44 and CSCMP Chicago Sister RT Liaison. In his presentation, T.J. stated that all enterprises are demanding better supply chain visibility and that this has become a core part of logistics and is not longer a “nice to have” but a “must”. To describe what End to End visibility means he quoted Gartner defining end-to-end supply chain visibility as “A capability that provides controlled access and transparency to accurate, timely and complete plans, events and data within and across organization and services.” In addition, he suggested that the need of visibility is driven by the speed of Supply Chain evolution and that the most critical element to enable exchange of data across different systems and partners is the architectural setup, but it poses a challenge for many enterprises. In order to strengthen his argument T.J highlighted different metrics regarding the impact of supply chain visibility:
- Improved SLAs to consistent 98% levels
- Reduction in workforce by 10%
- Freight charge reductions up to 5% of volume
- Decrease of inventory on stock from just over 10 days to fewer than 7 days
- Increased forecast accuracy of about 25%
- Inventory savings of 20% of value
After mentioning the positive impacts of supply chain visibility, T.J explained why we still not see improvements in enterprise visibility and pointed out that currently 80% of the data needed to effectively run our Supply Chains resides outside our company (customers and partners for example). The fact that our communication with outsiders is normally done by costly legacy solutions such as EDI, phone, FTP and fax offer incomplete connectivity across supply chain partners, blocking true visibility through the entire shipment workflow. Furthermore, T.J highlighted the principal problems of this fragmentation:
- A lot of data but rarely standardized. Data sources with different format and structure.
- Data not well synced
- Data inaccuracy
- Transport status feeds not in real time
- Disconnected Systems
- Integration and implementation of systems implicate high costs and time
To concluded, T.J. Shaefer highlighted the importance of connecting the Supply Chain, bringing visibility and control to multimodal shipment workflows and, answering the questions of one of the attendants, he pointed out that small-medium companies have to be strategic in how they spend their budget and understand the real impact of this kind of investments in their business.
Then was the turn for Susie Bodnar SCPro™ certified – Director of Operations and Client Strategy at FourKites and CSCMP Chicago Roundtable VP Programs. Susie presented “Change Management: the people side of change while implementing enterprise supply chain software”. Firstly, she pointed out that companies must be aware that “No problem is a problem” because “no problem” means there is no room for improvement or change and that, in order to be able to solve a problem, we necessarily need to go where the work is done. Secondly, Susie highlighted that the concepts of Change Management and Meeting Objective are directly related and based this argument on a study that states that companies that achieve “Excellent Change Management”, effectiveness met or exceeded objectives up to 6 times more than those to perform poorly.
In order to achieve high effectiveness regarding Change Management, Susie explained the Prosci Flight Risk Model that measure the change, as implies a decline in productivity and an increase in resistance to the change, and she advised to focus on two main points as key factor in change initiatives. On one hand, she highlighted the importance of having an active, strong and visible sponsor. Projects with this kind of sponsors are highly more successful than those whose sponsorships are poor. On the other hand, she explained the ADKAR model which consists on five building blocks for successful change and the change management tools especially useful to identify the “barrier points” and determine appropriate tactics to move people through the change:
To conclude, Susie reinforced the idea that companies, specially the sponsors, must believe in the change and recommends the companies to have a change management expert in their teams in order to enhance the change.
The event, which were held at the Hotel HCC Montblanc, in Barcelona, Spain, was closed with a Networking Pica-Pica Catering, in which the attendees were able to talk with the speakers and meet other Supply Chain Professionals.
The event count with sponsors such as EAE Business School, the Port of Barcelona and Miebach Consulting Spain, as well as collaborators: IoTSWC2019, SIL Barcelona and the Media Partners Supply Chain Brain.
CSCMP Spain Roundtable agenda for upcoming events:
- June 13th, Barcelona, Spain
7th SCLForum 2019 “Transforming Future Supply Chains”
Keynote Speaker: Dr. John Gattorna
Case Studies from companies like: HP, SEAT, Miebach, Tranportation Exchange Group among others.
About CSCMP
The CSCMP (Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals) is the leading global association for supply chain professionals. It is based in the United States with presence in all the continents (71 countries) and RoundTables distributed among the world (7 in Europe). It is dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of research and knowledge about Supply Chain Management. It has more than 8,000 members and is the 1st World Association of Supply Chain Professionals.
CSCMP Spain RoundTable was established in May 2010 and dedicates its activities and programs to provide the best possible experience to supply chain management professionals and offers, throughout the year, educational programs and structured networking opportunities to facilitate the interconnection between the sectors representing the supply chain. This fosters collaboration and, ultimately, forms an unbreakable connection between the participants, the organization and the industry.
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CSCMP Spain RT
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CSCMP Spain RT