DOs and DON’Ts for chief supply chain officers

Organised by eyefortransport on November 24th – 25th, the forum was run alongside the 8th 3PL Summit, attended by 300 decision makers from manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, and transport industries. 

The CSCO Forum was chaired by Hugh Williams, managing director of Hughenden Consulting. The session entitled "The rise of the chief supply chain officer" featured a panel of experts, including Johan Jemdahl, vice president of operations EMEA, Cisco; Susanna Heikkinen, head of global supply chain, Elisa; Jan Roodenburg, former senior vice president of supply management, Philips; Guillermo Fumero, head of SCM & procurement, Clariant International; and Jaro Caban, vice president of global supply chain, Provimi.

Part I of the session  –  If  I was in your shoes  –  began by inviting the panellists to offer a view on what they would have done in a variety of scenarios offered by the audience.  In Part II, the audience played the biggest part in the session, contributing their experiences and advice, which resulted in the following key DOs and DON’Ts of a chief supply chain officer:

Key Performance Indicators

• Make them relevant to the lowest employee level you have
• Make sure they drive down the supply chain costs
• Make them reliable yet flexible
• Don’t pick too many
• Don’t create a separate operational excellence or KPI team

Roles and responsibilities

• Delegate, don’t control, but supervise and never abdicate
• Have a clear agreement of the roles at the very start of your sales & operations planning process
• Go deep into the definition of roles: what does each mean in practice?
• Trust
• Put people in the right roles
• Create high performing teams with clear responsibilities and then hold people accountable
• Set up a high level business model so that people work towards the same goals
• Don’t forget about the roles & responsibilities
• Don’t create a function without knowing what its purpose

Personal development

• Do some networking
• Set yourself a clear goal and be driven
• Pro-actively influence the change you want
• Take your time
• Prepare yourself to elevate the perspective of this executive role
• Don’t expect others to do it for you
• Don’t cut budgets in personnel management
• Don’t spend money on resources in the wrong place

Other departments

• Involve them as early as possible
• Involve finance into the supply chain through the forecasts and the process of managing gaps with the budget
• Don’t speak supply chain language with other departments

SKU management

• Make sure you carry out a timed rationalisation
• Categorise you SKU list: don’t look at it as one list
• Take a global look and then be brave: eliminate!

Dealing with the Board

• Talk to them about costs, but through the angle of profit, growth, investment
• Talk to them about the personal development of employees