What is your moon?
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That was the question Michael Uskert, managing vice president, Gartner, asked at the end of the day 1 keynote at Gartner’s 2012 Supply Chain Executive Conference. The opening keynote, which included presentations from Jane Barrett, group vice president, Gartner, and Dana Stiffler, managing vice president, Gartner, connected the United States’ goal of going to the moon with today’s supply chain challenges.
The presentations harkened the words of John F. Kennedy and his speech to Congress in 1961 in which he laid out the country’s goal of sending a man to the moon.
“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
According to Jane Barrett, “the supply chain is hard and it is getting harder.” How are you going to manage the increasing complexity in today’s supply chains? How do you distinguish between the good and bad types of complexity?
In Dana Stiffler’s words, it’s the tools, the technology companies have in place that can make the difference. Specifically she points out demand sensing and shaping, end-to-end supply chain planning, inventory optimization, segmentation, network design, and appropriate functional and cross-functional KPIs and metrics.
The supply chain is hard and you need the right, enabling technology in place. As Kennedy outlined and today’s keynote focused on, you also need a strong goal in place. A long-term view of where you and your organization should be in 18 months, 3, 5, 10 years. That is your moon. It is up there, ready for you to arrive but do you know what it is and how to get there? Are you empowered to get there and do you have the right people around you to make it happen?
So, what is your moon?