2024 - The Year of Change

Like most people this year, I had every intention of posting about the new year in January, but honestly, last year’s busyness never stopped; it carried over not just from last year but from 2022, through the holidays, and into this year. Now I feel like I blinked and ended up in February. It seems only fitting to post about this new year during the Lunar New Year, especially as this is the year of the Dragon.? Dragons are a revered symbol of power and thought. In the Chinese Zodiac, it is considered the luckiest sign. If you know me, then you know my pension for Dragons.? This year, the mythical creature sign is paired with the element of wood, which is said to bring in good fortune, action, and growth.? What better way to get started on my old 2020 goals that reemerged from lockdown and new goals than to blaze a new trail on the heels of a fierce dragon?

Beyond my own goals bursting at the seams to come to fruition, I see real change is imminent in the manufacturing realm.? In the world of supply chain, change has also been a long time coming.? Let’s face it: supply chain management needed an overhaul before the Global Pandemic of 2020. ?It is full of antiquated systems in place or none at all, with disjointed and manual processes, making doing business quite challenging.? When COVID-19 arrived on the scene, it brought all the supply chain issues and challenges to the forefront.?

After the screeching halt of the pandemic crisis, organizations had to power through it and install stop-gap measures just to get by. ?As we emerged from the pandemic in 2021, it was paralyzing, with an uncertain world around us, while we figured out the new normal. By 2022, organizations started sharing more about the challenges they faced and putting efforts into understanding new ideas and solutions that could transform their current state.? In 2023, I experienced organizations getting more serious with change, particularly surrounding digital transformation strategies and initiatives. Now, finally, 2024 marks the year when organizations are driven to make change.

Here are my mission-critical, key factors to make digital transformation for the supply chain successful in 2024 and beyond:

1.???? True Leadership – Digital transformation is more than just one-time orders from headquarters; it is a real commitment. It requires continual efforts from a C-level leader not only to educate and promote this change but also to bring their best street fighting-like abilities and rocket sciencey thinking cap to ultimately make change happen.?

2.???? Strong Team – Assembling the best teams who get it and share the vision, passion, and drive to work together to understand and document the current situation, research solutions, put together a business case, plan deployment, spearhead internal and external change management, launch, and work to continually enhance processes and the solution.

3.???? Partnership – Digital transformation is an investment in every sense of the word. The right tool for supply chain collaboration is a complex solution that connects data from multiple data points; this requires analysis, planning, design, mapping, configuration, testing, and training. To make this change successful, it’s critical to choose a solution provider who can guide, educate, support, and share the same vision and mission.? One who will be right by your side before, during, and after.

4.???? Be Open – For any type of change, it’s crucial to be open-minded to different ideas, processes, and solutions. The digital world is moving at lightning speed and has changed for the better.? It can be difficult not to get stuck on past experiences with old technology that perhaps didn’t work well and outdated concepts that are no longer relevant. Step back, explore, and look at the big picture to find a new way.

5.???? Understand ROI – ROI is both tangible and intangible. It will also differ from one organization to the next. There is no quick ROI answer for a solution; it’s going to take some work to build it, so it’s real and measurable.? For the tangible part, the starting point needs to come from existing data and be aligned with financial goals. For instance, simple goals might be a reduction of stock or emergency freight costs. That is easy enough to do the math with current costs and then figure out the reduction goals.? The intangible ROI can be much trickier to measure, but the benefits might be more impactful. For instance, the reduction of manual efforts could result in a happier team that can be proactive versus reactive, which could, in turn, translate to better planning, optimized build schedules, reduced overtime, better pricing, less downtime, more on-time deliveries, and some very surprising cost savings. For the intangible ROI, talk to your team and generate an estimate.? Then align that with some of their goals.

6.???? Budget – Digital transformation is an investment and needs money to make it happen. A realistic budget with a twenty percent buffer is optimal. ?It’s also critical to look beyond the solution's annual fee and know there are not just outside implementation costs but internal resources needed to implement new solutions, as much as a one-to-one ratio of days from your solution provider.? Furthermore, it’s important to know what is really included in the package beyond just the bottom-line price tag. ?Also, if you want a successful project, do not forget to add a budget for change management.

7.???? Change Management – Implementing a new solution without a change management strategy would be like buying a car without wheels and expecting it to move forward.? Change management requires a robust plan that includes clear goals and messaging, an internal and external portal with information, training, and progress.? It takes a strong kick-off presentation from leadership and continued, scalable dialog both internally and externally from stakeholders.?

8.???? The Right Solution. Finding the right solution and tools takes some time and research.? Make sure it aligns with your current needs but is also scalable for your future. Configurable is definitely better than customization because the latter can turn into something impossible to update later. Continually enhancing and updating is also something that’s a bonus to avoid painful and costly migrations in the future. Make sure it will work with every ERP and 3rd party solution. It should offer lots of support options. Most importantly, it should be easy to use because, ultimately, it serves no purpose if it’s not being utilized.?

9.???? Realistic Goals – While there is an urgency for digital transformation, the process takes time, and internal teams are working on this mission on top of their full-time jobs. Depending on the day-to-day business, just the research stage can experience many starts and stops.? Planning, budgets, internal approvals, legal, alignment, and prep can also get caught up in delays.? Faster is not better if the solution isn’t right, the implementation is not done correctly, and the whole project is lacking change management.?

10.? Solid Roadmap – It’s easy to get excited and geeked out about digital transformation. Don’t leapfrog over the planning stages. Create a solid roadmap for your journey, and also know it’s okay to correct mid-course if needed.?Be flexible, open, and mindful.

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In summary, for 2024, the year of change, know that digital transformation is a journey; it will not be completely smooth, and you will need funding.? Surround yourself with a strong leader, team, partners, and a sherpa, perhaps.? Build your ROI and business case from real data.? Carefully choose a solution and map it out with a realistic timeline and achievable goals. Plan and set your KPIs.? Then, launch into your better world.

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2024! Ready. Set. Go in like a Dragon.