Key Takeaways

Thakrar says: “We’re looking at technology to drive efficiencies in various departments – and automation is a key focus. By embracing technology and elements of automation, if there is a change in your teams or staff leave you don’t have to go through the whole learning curve again – it may need to be tweaked because some processes or activities have changed but actually it’s minor tweaks and you retain the knowledge.”

Working with companies like HSO, they can make better sense of the information at their fingertips to drive supply chain improvements, with HSO’s Microsoft partnership opening the door to implementing data visualisation tools such as Power BI

“Our most used data proposition is retail KPI control towers,” Rose explains. “These are specific retail dashboards, designed for specific roles within the organisation:

• Supply chain
• Warehouse
• Sales

It takes the retailer’s data and presents it in format that can be drilled down.”

Rose adds: “It enables retailers to make decisions on short and long-term contracts based on performance. They they can use it to make informed decisions on suppliers based on past data”

Example of the Supply Chain Intelligence Hub for the Supply Chain Manager

HSO can also support with more sophisticated data plays, such as digital twinning – a nascent technology that analyst firm Gartner describes as being able to “revolutionise demand forecasting accuracy, vastly improve customer experience, and serve as a critical input to enhance the use of AI/ML tools”.

Rose says: “This is tech used by companies to better plan and be more proactive than reactive in shorter time frames. “If you don’t have a data warehouse or know how to use data lakes then digital twinning is something for well into the future. For those who do, it enables them to use historic and real-time data to run scenarios on anything including how to optimise, such as optimising warehouses and modelling shop floors."

He added: “To combat change anxiety and overload, supply chain leaders must design opportunities for humans and machines to learn from one another in a safe environment." (13)

Several retailers freshened up their supply chain leadership structure in 2023, as new challenges call for different approaches to running the department. Online fitness brand Gymshark saw the need for its first dedicated supply chain leader in 2023, bringing in ex-Lacoste EVP of operations, Laurent Madelaine, while Matalan recruited Phil Hackney as chief supply chain operations officer with responsibility for delivering “executional excellence” across Matalan’s logistics and supply chain (14)

Primark estimated it missed out on circa £1 billion of sales in the pandemic because it only had stores an no e-commerce, which were forced to temporarily close. And recent supply chain disruption has led retailers such as Decathlon and B&Q to launch their own marketplaces, connecting brands directly with shoppers through online platforms (15)

“It’s best for retailers to focus on diversity in their supply chains – you can’t have all your eggs in one basket,” argues Rose

“One supplier on bulk discount is not best practice anymore. Why not have multiple, better, and more secure relationships – and slightly more expensive supply chain – so if any turbulence arises, you can ride it out."

ASOS is cutting lead times in own brand goods from around 20 to two weeks and “better leveraging relationships with our best suppliers to remove unnecessary administrative processes, which can increase speed and lower cost”. Calamonte added: “It may also mean consolidating some of our own-brand suppliers
or relocating some of our sourcing. On the partner brands side, we have already removed unprofitable, non-strategic brands from some or all territories.” (16)