Converging Disruptors- Tsunami of Opportunity

Supply Chain Management Unusual in the 21^st Century

The Supply Chain Management industry has become unrecognisable from just a few years ago, opening many opportunities. At the same time we acquire new and exciting tools to equip our people for these seismic disruptions.  

This article explores these opportunities.

Firstly, a couple of considerations and quotes in context:

“According to research done by Stanford University, the amount of knowledge generated in the last 30 years is equivalent to the amount of knowledge generated in the rest of human history.

“Textbooks are becoming outdated by the time they are printed. Curricula are no longer reliable records of what we know. Predictable career paths and stable worldviews are things of the past.

“In this constantly shifting knowledge landscape, learning how to think is becoming far more important than learning what  to think. 

This is a shift away from subject content towards a focus on thinking skills.”

André Croucamp- Totem Media.

Growing e-commerce, EDI communication, emergence of drone technology, cloud storage and big data, omnichannel operations and robotics, dark warehouses – the list goes on.

“Experts now believe that almost 50 per cent of occupations existing today will be completely redundant by 2025 as the skills and knowledge needed by employers changes more quickly than ever.Employees and organisations need to adapt or die.”

Carl Dawson, Managing Director, Proversity

What these quotes and considerations illustrate is that we have two converging disruptors- one in which our current competencies are becoming redundant due to technological innovation and the other in which our methods of equipping people to deal with these changes are becoming outdated. At the convergence of these disruptors is a tsunami of opportunity for those who have the courage to ride it.

How do we ride this tsunami?

“If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done.”

Thomas Jefferson

Further thoughts to guide the tsunami ride:

1. Start by challenging our own organisation's “story” and disrupting long-standing (and sometimes implicit) beliefs about how to make money in our given field through the adoption of methods of working and company structures which are infinitely flexible.
Conventional, top down management practices do not bring about these changes- what do, are:

• Devolvement of the highest levels of responsibility to the lowest organisational levels possible. Put another way, empowering people to make and take responsibility for their mistakes- that’s the only way they really learn. This will also include the inclusion of youth and youthful ideas in the highest levels of strategy formation.
• Listening, seriously listening, to the lessons learnt by those on the ground and using that information to implement changes which will bring about a more flexible and agile organisation
• Making the workplace environment a fun place to be
• Creating facilities to see the organisation as others see it on an ongoing basis and to harness what is learnt to enhance customer centricity 

2.  Exploit the changes in education and training technology. Those involved in training have tools available to them which were unimaginable a short while ago. Virtual reality is seen to be playing an increasing role in training- gamification is proving to be a powerful tool in enhanced learner engagement especially in practical fields like Supply Chain Management.

Interconnectivity and the Internet of Things are key factors in changing education delivery whereby formal and informal training via classrooms, tablets, iPhones, company intranets and all those other media are integrated through a single learner management system to create a powerful tool for achieving world class competence.

Sound impossible? Watch this space.