Industry: Life Sciences

Don’t ask, “Can we take the order?” Ask, “Should we?” 
(Is that order profitable to promise?)

Available to Promise software (ATP) and Capable to Promise software (CTP) aren’t enough in today’s tumultuous business environment beset by chronic supply shortages; you need to consider profitability in your order processing to make the best business decisions. 

Consider an order-taking process that enforces ATP alone.  

Source: Logility, 2022

Even with real-time ATP at order entry, all orders flood into the supply planning organization with the expectation that those orders that surpassed ATP quantities need to be analyzed. Following that, customers must be informed of decisions made regarding how much product they’ll receive and by when. 

The logic applied, assuming there is some beyond “squeaky wheel gets the grease”, is often stored in a non-integrated system, and is at risk of being overridden. Many of the rules applied are inconsistent and changed frequently. This is a time-consuming process that never improves with repetition, and it delays providing customers with updated information which ultimately hurts customer satisfaction. 

Accelerate Decision-Making 

The Logility® Digital Supply Chain Platform offers a solution that improves upon this: guesswork is removed, accelerating the decision-making process and ensuring you maximize financial outcomes. Using a methodology that combines ATP and CTP,  your own production capacity and your supply chain production capacity can be checked immediately, at the time an order is placed. This leads to less firefighting and increased productivity. 

We call this powerful combination automated order promising (AOP). AOP serves as a gatekeeper to the supply planning team. The solution checks against available stock plus capacity, material availability, alternate sourcing scenarios, and other constraints as needed. With AOP, your salespeople and e-commerce platform have accurate, real-time estimates of how much product is available to promise or capable to promise so orders will never go unfulfilled due to lack of available inventory. 

Source: Logility, 2022

Here are some key advantages of an automated order promising solution: 

  •  Improved customer satisfaction. By automating order promising, you can provide real-time insights into which products are, and can be, available. 
  •  Better decision-making. With automated order promising, you can better understand supply and demand across your product line. Armed with these insights, you can make fast, informed decisions to continuously improve operations. 
  • Time and cost savings. AOP helps identify ways to speed up your supply chain processes. Plus, you can use the solution to explore ways to lower supply chain expenses, at the same time accepting more inbound orders with significant time saved. 
  • Effective risk management. The solution ensures your teams can always access real-time product inventory information and perform what-if analyses to prepare strategies for sudden shifts in product demand.

Elevate Decisions and Protect Margins with PTP 

But what about simultaneously protecting margins? ATP and CTP are insufficient functions in a world of constant disruption and tight supply. Profitable to Promise (PTP) is a natural extension of the order promising and sales and operations planning processes.  

Profitable to Promise elevates the decision from, “Can I take the order?” to “Should I take the order?”, where the decision criterion is not restricted to the profitability of the order under scrutiny, but the relative profitability of forecasted orders and other demand alternatives. In other words, it allows planners to ask, “Should I take this order now or preserve my scarce resources and capacity for a future order with much higher margin potential?” Service level agreement compliance and profit maximization can be balanced and trade-offs analyzed. 

How does it work? At the point of committing to an order, Profitable to Promise allows companies to compare the realizable profit from an actual customer order to the opportunity cost (profit) associated with a forecasted customer order that may consume the same resources. This capability moves beyond current ATP and CTP capabilities and requires an integrated digital supply chain platform.

The Logility platform accelerates the sustainable digital supply chain by leveraging analytics and artificial intelligence to empower your business with greater visibility for faster decision-making. That means more accurate planning, accelerated cycle times, improved precision, and increased operating performance.  Reach out to our specialists today to discuss our supply chain solutions. 

The pandemic continues to affect supply chains today as digital supply chain management and real-time visibility become ever-more essential to the disruption-ready enterprise. 

Key Takeaways: 

  • At a time when supply chains are facing unprecedented disruption, only 48% of companies say they have visibility into their tier 1 suppliers while 11% have no visibility at all 
  • Only 21% have tier 2 visibility and 2% can see tier 3 
  • CEOs have long neglected the supply chain but are now seeing COVID-19 and other disruptions as a real threat to the economics of their companies as well as the countries where they operate 
  • Some experts say the current disruptions will last another two years 
  • It’s not just you – many large companies are now making just-in-time investments in robust supply chain management platforms 

Two years after the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 variants continue to spread throughout the world, and supply chains continue to be plagued with uncertainty. It now seems that planning for a post-pandemic world was premature. China’s zero-tolerance policy and lockdowns are bringing bottlenecks to ports while creating supply shortages at the same time.  

Businesses can’t afford to let their guards down but knowing what to do now and how to prepare for a far-from-certain future can be tough. When will the crisis be over? No one knows. A more dangerous variant could emerge and bring supply chains to their knees once again. Governments around the world are also dealing with the virus in their own ways. Some are taking the approach of living alongside the virus, but a lack of worldwide consensus and vaccinations mean there are certain to be more lockdowns. 

As we complete the first quarter of 2022, just what are the enduring impacts of COVID-19 on the global supply chain? How can you adapt the management of your supply chain to meet the challenges? And what can you do to prepare for something you can’t predict? It’s a stressful situation. Let’s look at what’s happening, some strategies to help you protect yourself now, and how best to equip yourself for what might come. 

Supply Chain Resilience Comes to the Fore 

Supply chains are invisible until they aren’t. They work behind the scenes as the hidden mechanisms that drive the global economy. Everything from semiconductors to lumber is in short supply, and even if there is no shortage, there are delays and disruptions.  

The disruption isn’t just in the supply chain – it’s also shaking up company leadership. Supply chain turmoil and other issues mean 72% of CEOs are worried about losing their job because they simply have not been paying attention, seeing the supply chain as simply transactional and something that could be handled by their COO. These same CEOs have finally woken up to the fact that supply chain issues pose a threat not only to their own company’s growth but to the economic growth of their country. 

There’s been a lack of strategic thinking. The supply chain is inextricably linked to overall company goals. The pandemic served as a wake-up call that company leaders should be thinking of their supply chain as something that can drive both value and performance. With some experts saying that the supply chain crises could last another two years, it’s imperative that companies take steps to create resilience now that will last far into the future. 

Creating Resilience 

Visibility: It is possibly the most important tool in supply chain management. It’s a growing realization, but many companies are operating blind. A recent survey showed that: 

  • 11% of those polled said they have no visibility into their supply chain 
  • 48% say they have visibility into their tier 1 suppliers
  • 21% say they have visibility into tier 2 
  • 2% have visibility into tier 3

Without real-time visibility, you do not have the information you need to make real-time supply chain decisions. You can’t quickly flex to handle unexpected changes, you can’t see bottlenecks, and you can’t see the challenges your suppliers are facing that affect final product quality. Lack of visibility means you don’t have the information you need to take swift, corrective action. Internally, siloed systems hamper access to important data. 
 
It’s imperative to know your supply chain. You may know your suppliers, but your suppliers have suppliers who have suppliers. Do you know where your chokepoints are? Do you have single-source suppliers? Do you know where your risks lie?  
 
Risks can come from anywhere – raw material sourcing, production, and finished products, to name just a few. What about vulnerabilities in your supplier’s supply chain? As lockdowns and wide-spread COVID-19 variant outbreaks occur, you need real-time visibility to assess risks and gain true resilience. 

Real-Time Visibility and Resilience Take a Digital Platform 

A sad fact is that some, if not many, of the companies in that survey will find themselves in supply chain snarls that cause them to lose some, if not all, of their business. This is unfortunate since the technology exists that can turn their opaque supply chains into a bright light that powers their truly resilient enterprise.  

It’s about taking your supply chain to the next level with a digital platform that offers: 

  • Integrated business planning (IBP) across products, channels, resources, and investments, so your supply chain is working to support your business goals 
  • Real-time visibility to see what’s really going on in your supply chain 
  • Data management that connects multiple systems to drive visibility for better decisions 
  • More accurate supply-and-demand forecasting. 

With total supply chain visibility, you can better manage your vendors. Collaboration in real time is essential; resilience requires buyers, suppliers, and other stakeholders to share data. This provides a transparent look into every supplier tier. 
 
At a time when companies are taking a hard look at the supply chain models they have been using, just-in-time systems are being examined because they break when there are component shortages. Some companies are stockpiling key parts just in case they can’t get deliveries in the future. 
 
What will your supply chain resilience strategy be?

Conquer Supply Chain Challenges in 2022 and Beyond

It’s possible to see everything going on in your supply chain so you can gain the real-time visibility you need to manage supply, demand, vendors, data, and the overall profitability of your enterprise.  
 
The Logility® Digital Supply Chain Platform accelerates the sustainable and resilient digital supply chain by leveraging data-driven tools such as advanced analytics, ML, and AI to empower your business with greater visibility. This means better sourcing decisions, more accurate planning, accelerated cycle times, improved precision, and increased operating performance. 
 
We help organizations sense and respond to changing market dynamics and more profitably manage their global businesses to become resilient, sustainable enterprises. It’s time for a digital, sustainable supply chain. Reach out to our specialists today to discuss our supply chain solutions.

If resilience is the panacea to today’s supply chain challenges, it seems that everyone has a different prescription. Every industry article, news segment, analyst research paper, and boardroom conversation offers varying perspectives on the real issues impacting supply chain performance and the best way to fix them. 

Feeling overwhelmed? You’re not alone. Since 2019, nearly 70% of supply chain leaders have been constantly responding to disruption. And they’ve had little to no time to recover from raw material and labor shortages, supplier and factory failures, transportation delays, and rising costs while encountering unpredictable demand. 

But considering how supply chains have responded and overcome high-impact global and regional events over the past couple of years, Mark Balte, Logility’s executive vice president of supply chain innovation, believes that resilience ultimately comes down to planning.  

“Supply chains must be designed to avoid or absorb the impact of these disruptions and continuously maintain corporate financial objectives and service level goals,” Balte advises. “And that resilience must encompass all planning horizons from a strategic and operational perspective.” 

Driving a Much-Needed Supply Chain Reorganization 

According to Gartner1, 25% of organizations will gain a critical competitive advantage in their supply chains by 2025. How? By increasing visibility across multiple tiers of their supplier network to proactively manage supplier risk. 

Considering 67% of disruptions are unforeseen, such transparency across all tiers can yield tremendous resilience, no matter how your business defines it. With access to digital data across your enterprise ecosystem and your multi-enterprise partners’ system, you can measure variability in demand, lead time, production capacity, throughput performance, resource availability, and transportation schedules with planning algorithms. 

“This approach to supply chain planning may be a significant paradigm shift. But it moves business decision-making toward a more probabilistic mindset,” shares Matt Gorman, senior business consultant at Logility. “A supply chain design that applies realistic parameters to establish buffers across the nodes in the supply chain can demonstrate a competitive level of resilience.” 

Many disruptions facing supply chain organizations today are best handled through probabilistic planning. Companies can better gauge emerging risks and opportunities to corporate financial and service level goals when shifting from a least-cost supply chain design to a resilient supply chain design. And for that reason, they can absorb and avoid disruption, measure variability proactively, and establish the right strategies and inventory buffers to address it across the supply network and short- and long-term planning horizons. 

Developing Diverse, Resilient Sourcing Strategies

Vetting all the tiers of the supply network has never been more important, especially when addressing growing expectations for social accountability, environmental responsibility, and financial reliability to establish a responsible sourcing network.  

“Once a responsible sourcing network is established, you can then include product and supply chain strategies to design the supply chain network,” suggests Balte. “Resilient sourcing strategies may include dual sourcing around key raw materials, product raw materials, pricing, sustainability suppliers, diverse suppliers such as minority or female-owned businesses, component inventory buffers, production buffers, etc. 

“Companies need to model beyond their tier-one supplier network,” Balte continues. “And the technology exists to make that happen, allowing companies to proactively manage supplier risk and increase organizations’ resilience while understanding changes in customer demand and responding effectively.” 

Over 40% of supply disruptions occur at and beyond the second tier, making end-to-end collaboration and transparency highly sought-after capabilities when choosing supply chain technology to support this. Using a digital supply chain platform, supply chain organizations can identify where risk may be within the supply network’s structure. They can remove much of the unknown risks, along with those already known, in real time with continuous planning. 

“There’s a lot of power in knowing what’s occurring in real time, instead of waiting weeks or months before finding out about an event, small or large, that already happened somewhere in the supply network,” Gorman acknowledges. “Organizations have the time to recover and do it more quickly. Otherwise, without a resilient design, they end up building large amounts of stock to get through a potential disruption, which only eats into their margins and profits.” 

Turning a Multi-Tier Supplier Network into a Competitive Edge 

Historically, businesses were able to model good forecasts and promise order delivery based on them. But that only works well when material availability, manufacturing and logistics capacity, lead time constraints, and customer demand were predictable.  

“Nowadays, a promise of, say, 20 days to deliver an order is most likely no longer viable, it’s variable,” Balte says. “Companies using a spreadsheet to do this kind of order promise analysis and planning determination will fall short. And as a result, they are more likely to deliver customer orders two or three days late ‒ and no one can afford to do that.” 

A resilient supply chain requires organizations to understand risk and respond to it well throughout internal operations as well as the extended supplier network and customer base. With greater visibility into the supply side of the business, companies can react faster, track emerging and potential events with greater precision, and determine next steps more strategically. Meanwhile, they can better understand how their actions and best practices impact environmental and social responsibilities and customer satisfaction. 

“The supply chain function is not just about accepting orders upfront and fulfilling them. It’s the last leg of an order experience that dictates whether the customer is a one-time visitor or a repeat buyer,” states Gorman. “When organizations can assess the multi-tier supply network transparently and collaboratively, they can entertain different scenarios of alternative vendors and delivery times to pinpoint a realistic delivery promise and tell customers immediately what they can expect.” 

For more insights on creating resilient sourcing strategies from Mark Balte and Matt Gorman, watch our on-demand webcast, “Create Resilient Sourcing Structures in the Face of Disruptions, One Brick at a Time.” 

1  Manage Supplier Risk by Improving Supplier Visibility With Technology 
Published 7 March 2022 
Gartner 
By Cian Curtin, William McNeill, Koray Kose 

There are obvious risks involved in sourcing goods from other countries. Managing global vendors well is an investment in the future of your business.

In today’s socially connected world, there’s no room for error. A small mistake or error in judgement could turn into a full-blown crisis once customers and other stakeholders take to social media. And if the blunder is serious enough, it could be the end of your business – even if you’re not directly responsible. However, if you manage your vendors well, issues can often be avoided, or at the very least mitigated, before they do harm. 

Many businesses today source goods or services from a third party overseas, and there is obvious risk involved. This includes: 

  • Unintentional harm to your company such as late or incomplete delivery of goods or use of dangerous materials or product features 
  • Intentional harm to your company such as design or material theft, counterfeiting, trans-shipments or substitution of materials or components 
  • Corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues including unfair labor practices, child or forced labor, worker safety, harm to the environment and more. 

Potential risks can be reduced and even eliminated by properly onboarding vendors, establishing Standard Terms of Engagement, conducting authorizations and assessments, providing training, tracking vendor performance with scorecards and issuing and managing corrective action plans (CAPs) when issues arise. 

Given the physical distance and differing views on socially acceptable ideals, managing global vendors is one of the most difficult tasks companies can face. Yet, vendor management is integral because your reputation and success – or failure – hinges on it. But without the proper tools in place, this can be a daunting task. 

The right technology can help enforce control and accountability for all suppliers, vendors and third parties involved in the design, manufacturing and delivery of your product to ensure compliance, avoid costly litigation, reduce downstream risks and costs, and win market share by building and maintaining a positive public image. 

3 Core Tenets of Vendor Management 

When it comes to managing global vendors today, there are three fundamentals for success. Proper management of these will safeguard your business:

These are: 

  1. Proper vendor onboarding 
  1. Good manufacturing practices (GMP) 
  1. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) 

1. Proper Vendor Onboarding 

Every vendor should be closely managed from the start of your relationship; this begins with vendor onboarding. If expectations and procedures are established before work commences, many issues can be avoided. 

First and foremost, vet and evaluate vendors. This includes educating them on your company’s Standard Terms of Engagement. Once the vendor understands what’s expected of them, schedule an on-site assessment to examine facilities and assess working conditions to confirm that they comply with your Standards of Vendor Engagement. At this point, all necessary documentation and certifications should also be obtained. These, as well as all other pertinent vendor details such as capabilities, machinery, capacity, etc., should be stored together to create a comprehensive vendor profile. 

During the initial evaluation process, if an issue arises and the vendor doesn’t meet the Standard Terms of Engagement, a corrective action plan (CAP) should be issued immediately. Once the issue or issues have been resolved, the vendor can be cleared to work on production orders. Likewise, throughout your relationship, report cards should be kept to calculate a score card index based on established performance metrics. These findings can be used in the future when assessing and comparing vendors. 

All this information should be stored and managed in a central repository for quick reference and assistance in vendor profiling when making sourcing decisions. This data should be searchable and standardized across vendors. 

Investing in the proper onboarding of your long-term vendors is an investment in your future, as well as the stability and future of your vendor. This means: 

  • Taking the time to put Standard Terms of Engagement in place 
  • Putting solid training programs in place so everyone is on the same page 
  • Investing in technology to properly and efficiently manage the overall onboarding process. 

2. Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) 

Good manufacturing practices (GMP) are typically associated with quality assurance – ensuring products are consistently produced and controlled to the quality standards appropriate for their intended use. However, GMP audits also help ensure the long-term health of your vendors. 

When vetting your vendors, make sure they have enough financing, structured training programs, quality control mechanisms, continuous investment in new technology, and all the other intangibles that ensure they will be in business long term. Consider evaluating the following key areas: 

  • Management commitment and continual improvement – is the management team stable or is there a high rate of turnover? Is management committed to their own continual improvement and the improvement of employees and facilities? 
  • Risk management – what systems and processes does the vendor have in place to evaluate the potential risks associated with various tasks, jobs, etc.? 
  • Quality management – does the vendor have systems and processes in place for quality control? Do these systems meet your standards? 
  • Site and facilities management – are the facilities properly managed? Are the sites and working conditions safe and healthy for workers? 
  • Product control – does the vendor hold raw materials and finished products to the same standards as you do? What is the process for performing product control audits? 
  • Personnel training and competency – are personnel properly trained? Do they receive ongoing training and are there plans in place to address improvement needs? 

When onboarding new vendors, you invest a lot of time, money and effort. After this challenging process, if the vendor goes out of business, that investment is worthless. Even worse, if they go bankrupt while your work is in production, you could lose substantial amounts of revenue and profit. 

3. Corporate Social Responsibility 

In order to protect your brand and reputation, and to operate ethically, you must create corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and initiatives. Beyond child labor, there is an array of vendor compliance issues related to fair labor, anti-corruption, safety and responsible sourcing that you must manage when contracting with global factories and suppliers. 

Your vendors’ behavior indirectly represents you, and it can make or break your reputation and viability by instituting a strict CSR program and setting expectations that comply with those initiatives. Impose codes of conduct and audit your vendors’ progress. Data should reveal variants between audits and self-assessments, and you can work with your vendors to set corrective action in motion.
 

Managing Global Vendors and The Role of Technology 
Vendor evaluation, onboarding and compliance are nearly impossible to manage with a manual system of email, spreadsheets and attachments. This is where a technology solution, in particular a digital supply chain platform for integrated vendor management, comes into play – to help onboard, organize, vet and manage your vendors in a systematic, efficient and integrated way to assist you with better sourcing decisions, ensure overall compliance, and mitigate risk before it becomes the next trending topic on social media. 

The best solutions for managing global vendors should offer fast implementation, with global accessibility and multi-lingual capability, as well as local training support to assist with the rollout of your global solution. You should be able to streamline your processes, as well as improving the onboarding and ongoing management of your global vendors to ensure immediate, and future, compliance, thereby safeguarding your company. 

Read more about vendor compliance and corporate social responsibility here, or watch this short video showing how a connected vendor ecosystem facilitates collaboration and transparency.

What you don’t know about your suppliers can harm your business and its profitability. Here’s how a digital supply chain platform can help. 

Key Takeaways

  • Reactive decisions about sourcing can lead to selecting non-compliant vendors just to keep product and revenue flowing 
  • In today’s business environment, that’s a dangerous way to operate 
  • 85% of global consumers have become more conscious of sustainability and will go out of their way to avoid products that don’t meet their standards 
  • It’s a data-driven world, and you need the right data to assess, audit, and monitor your vendors through the entire supply chain 
  • A digital supply chain platform will enable you to meet your ESG goals, and companies that do it right see 10% to 20% faster growth and valuations than their competitors 
  • Benefits of digital supply chain planning go beyond ESG goals to offer operational efficiencies and expense-cutting measures that boost the bottom line. 

Sustainability doesn’t happen by accident. It takes planning, dedication, and a data-driven approach to decision-making to not only reach but perpetuate your environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals. Proactive decisions are required to mitigate risk. Reactive decisions can lead to the selection of non-compliant production vendors and questionable raw material suppliers in the chase to keep the revenue flowing. 

Today’s world and your customers demand transparency and accountability. Smart company leaders know the risks of poor decisions, that a strategic investment in a digital supply chain platform keeps them on the sustainability track, and that ESG is essential to business value today.  

Digital supply chain planning and management enables organizations to integrate disparate systems, easily manage supplier compliance and assessments, optimize production schedules, reduce all sorts of risks, and make the sourcing decisions that lead to a stronger supply chain and improved margins as well as profits.  

But first, let’s discuss some compelling business reasons 

You should know that failing to meet ESG goals can create a major PR headache (remember Nike and Apple?) that can damage your business significantly, perhaps irreparably. In today’s business ecosystem, you can run, but you can’t hide. 

Digital supply chain solutions allow you to capture the real benefits of your ESG efforts. Those companies that get it right see 10% to 20% faster growth and valuations than competitors in their sector. 

This is due to operational efficiencies and waste reduction, as well as mitigated risks. In a nutshell, ESG is a vital part of measuring a company’s health, performance, and long-term competitive success. It’s about today, but it’s also about tomorrow. And it all begins with sourcing. 

A sustainable business requires new technology 

It is a new world for businesses that really want to thrive: 85% of global consumers have become more conscious of sustainability when making purchasing decisions, 55% of US customers say they’ve made at least some changes in that direction, and these numbers are only going to rise. 

The necessity is for an end-to-end solution – one that enables more confident and actionable decision-making. Your organization needs the ability to:  

  • Plan, schedule, and perform multiple supplier assessments 
  • Capture and evaluate results 
  • Generate post-assessment improvement plans 
  • Assist supplier users with training 
  • Create an exit plan for non-compliant suppliers. 

It’s difficult to manually stay on top of suppliers and manage compliance for social and environmental sustainability while boosting both your and the supplier’s economic sustainability. This is what makes a digital supply chain platform necessary for today. With solutions to support your corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, you are well supported to: 

  • Manage social assessments and audits related to working conditions, such as the Social and Labour Convergence Program (SLCP), Better Work, and ABVTEX.  
  • Manage environmental assessments and audits for environmental impact per standards set by bodies such as The Higg Index. 
  • Manage supplier compliance with a self-management environment where they can upload corrective action plans as well as post implemented improvements. 

A digital solution also means reduced time-to-market and supply risk, because the time to identify and qualify the best suppliers based on your ESG criteria is just days instead of weeks.  
 
You can’t manage your sourcing without data, and that requires a single source of truth – a repository for all types of audits and scores. The holistic, balanced, and in-depth view you get of each and every supplier means you can make truly informed sourcing decisions. This leads to stronger partnerships within your supply chain as vendors benefit from a system that is both fair and efficient. It also motivates them to adopt best practices as they see that compliance generates more business for them. It’s a truly symbiotic relationship. 

Sourcing management for strategic outcomes 

Today’s supply chain networks are demand-driven and connected. You need the right technology to monitor current selling trends and make sure popular products are quickly (and sustainably) sourced and delivered.  

We spoke about margins earlier, and margin improvement requires the scope to optimize sourcing decisions, view offshore production, monitor the movement of goods, and improve information flow with your trading partners. Improved information flow means better collaboration with your global network, so you can work together to optimize complex sourcing and production scheduling. 

Supplier compliance is a crucial factor in meeting your ESG goals and overall business strategy, but digital supply chain solutions also enable your company to meet good manufacturing practice standards, such as: 

  • Compressing purchasing lead times by positioning raw materials for planned production cycles or series 
  • Cutting unanticipated airfreight expenses by ensuring on-time deliveries from production facilities, no matter where they are in the world 
  • Balancing production capacity and product demand to improve fulfillment rates 
  • Maintaining quality standards and reducing product defects 
  • Managing on-site quality audits and taking action to correct non-compliance issues that include on-time deliveries, completion rates, sample approvals, performance testing, and other challenges. 

A digital supply chain platform is all about optimizing sourcing decisions, tracking vendor performance, reducing cycle times, increasing visibility, and automating collaboration to make sure you meet not only your ESG goals but also your bottom-line financial objectives. It’s simply good business.

Make Better Sourcing Decisions and Boost Your Bottom Line with Logility 
 
The Logility® Digital Supply Chain Platform accelerates the sustainable digital supply chain by leveraging data-driven tools such as advanced analytics and AI to empower your business with greater visibility.  
 
We help organizations sense and respond to changing market dynamics and more profitably manage their global businesses to become resilient, sustainable enterprises. It’s time for a digital, sustainable supply chain. Reach out to our specialists today to discuss our supply chain solutions. 

Register here for our webcast on March 29, 2022: Create Resilient Sourcing Strategies in the Face of Supply Chain Disruptions, One Brick at a Time 

It takes cooperation, collaboration, and visibility that enables effective monitoring across the entire supply chain to meet corporate social responsibility goals, and a digital supply chain platform is the key to achieving them. 

Key Takeaways: 

  • Your company doesn’t have responsibility for the end product alone; it’s also responsible for any outsourced work or supplies 
  • Companies who don’t manage their vendors properly risk damaging reputation and profit 
  • 85% of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainability, and companies who can’t transparently prove their sustainability will suffer 
  • For the average company, two-thirds of their environmental, social, and governance outcomes rest with suppliers 
  • Embracing the right technology is paramount to supplier visibility and corrective action, as well as to weed out suppliers who don’t meet your sustainability criteria.

Your supply chain is only as sustainable as your suppliers. Whether it’s about environmental, social, or economic sustainability, your company carries the ultimate responsibility for any outsourced business operations as well as the final product. This requires managing the entire product life cycle, including vendors that could be scattered around the globe.  

Your company’s reputation is at stake. While collaboration is required to build a strong, sustainable supply network, true sustainability can’t be achieved on a trust basis alone. You need data to drive ethical sourcing decisions, provide transparent reporting, and better manage and mitigate risk. It’s a daunting task without the right digital platform that offers solutions to support your business. 

Smart leaders know the right strategic approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is required: one that boosts financial performance, enhances company reputation, strengthens the supply network, and leads to continuous improvement. It’s just good business. Consumers today demand sustainability; more than a third are willing to pay more for it while 85% have become “greener” purchasers. With so much at stake and to meet corporate social responsibility goals, you need a corporate responsibility solution that streamlines and enables vendor compliance with a data-driven approach. 

Why Corporate Responsibility Matters 

First, let’s define what corporate responsibility really means. It means, in essence, accountability. This includes your company, your stakeholders, and the public. It requires being conscious of the impact your company is having on every aspect of society – the planet and its people.  

It’s about positive instead of negative contributions and requires operating your business in ways that help society and the environment while enhancing your brand reputation at the same time. This takes real effort – greenwashing won’t do. A truly sustainable business does everything it can to reduce its impact and embraces technology that provides useful data, minimizes inefficiencies, improves supplier relationships, and offers the ability to quickly respond to change. 

Authenticity and transparency are paramount for the sustainable business, so you need a single, integrated system that finds red flags, audits self-reporting, analyzes results, and adjusts sourcing plans in real time. Only then can you confidently report and publicize your progress toward your sustainability goals. It’s reported that, for the average company, two-thirds of their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes rest with suppliers. 

Manage Suppliers and Vendors Before They Harm Your Brand 

Some parts of the supply chain are not totally within your control, such as political circumstances, driver shortages, or port congestion. But supplier sustainability is well within your locus of control, and it is up to you to ferret out those who are damaging both your sustainability initiatives and your brand. Impose codes of conduct and audit vendors for progress. Then, use an integrated system like Logility to find variants between your audit findings and your vendors’ self-reported scores. You can then analyze the results and issue corrective action plans. 

Then you can adjust your sourcing plans in real time based on a supplier’s progress – or lack thereof – on the road to meeting your shared sustainability objectives. It’s your opportunity to educate, evangelize and speak to any gaps. You’ll also be able to weed out suppliers who do not have a sustainability program, underperform, or have particularly egregious violations. 

Meet Corporate Social Responsibility Goals with the Right Technology 

Tracking vendor compliance to your sustainability policies is nearly impossible without a digital solution that integrates data and analytics to give you the concise, actionable information you need for confident decision-making. While you probably have an ERP system well entrenched, it’s not a platform for vendor management. What you want is technology that: 

  • Improves sourcing decisions through data by offering a single repository for all your audits and scores 
  • Fosters communication and collaboration with suppliers by setting clear expectations and offering a fair and open approach to both their scorecards and your sourcing decisions 
  • Provides the means for suppliers to self-manage their corrective action plans as well as post implemented improvements and any certification codes 
  • Offers the ability to manage working condition assessments and audits, such as the Social and Labor Convergence Program (SLCP), Better Work, and ABVTEX, as well integrating with the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) for measuring environmental impact. 

By fully automating assessment information, it can be collected and shared with all stakeholders. You also mitigate any risk of brand damage – you’ll be able to bust false claims with transparent, credible reporting.  

In short, true corporate responsibility means higher profits through efficiencies, increased sales by meeting customer sustainability demands, and new opportunities and funding that are only available to sustainable businesses. 

Logility Makes Corporate Social Responsibility Achievable 

Logility’s digital supply chain platform accelerates the sustainable digital supply chain by leveraging data-driven tools such as advanced analytics and AI that empower your business with greater visibility. That means more accurate planning, accelerated cycle times, improved precision, and increased operating performance.  

We help organizations sense and respond to changing market dynamics, more profitably manage their global businesses, and become resilient, sustainable enterprises. It’s time for a digital, sustainable supply chain. Reach out to our specialists today to discuss our supply chain solutions. 

These best practices will help make supply chain sustainability part of your operations and culture. 

Key Takeaways 

  • Sustainable supply chains are a must for businesses that want to attract and retain customers 
  • Start by mapping out your supply chain 
  • Set sustainability criteria for all tiers of your supply chain 
  • Create an environment that allows suppliers to consistently follow sustainability criteria 
  • Optimize your supply chain network with sustainability in mind 
  • Invest in supply chain solutions that increase visibility and transparency 

Sustainable supply chain best practices help the environment and the people of the world, but they also make your supply chain more agile, efficient, and resilient. Sustainability initiatives reduce operating costs and strengthen your brand image. They also improve long-term access to resources for the entire enterprise by helping you to avoid unplanned supply chain disruptions caused by legislation or climate change.  

sustainable supply chain best practices

But where do you start? Ultimately, any steps you take towards sustainability will help your company, but there are so many different paths to sustainability that identifying a starting point can be overwhelming. As you prepare to launch your sustainability journey, use these ideas to get started. 

1. Map out your supply chain 

Even today, many businesses don’t have a clear sense of the source of their inputs, particularly in relation to second- or third-tier suppliers. To understand the sustainability impact of your business, you need to map out your supply chain.  

Work with your suppliers to get a sense of their environmental and social challenges, then help them identify sustainable supply chain best practices that they can implement.  

Consider only having relationships with suppliers who meet sustainability criteria. But don’t just think about environmental and social concerns. When evaluating suppliers, also consider their significance to your business continuity and how their location impacts their risk. 

2. Monitor lower-tier suppliers as well as top-tier suppliers 

Traditionally, businesses set and monitor criteria for their top-tier suppliers, and they expect these suppliers to enforce standards for their suppliers. Unfortunately, this setup doesn’t work. You need the ability to trace all of your inputs and ensure all of the players in your supply chain meet your sustainability standards.  

When you understand what your suppliers’ suppliers are doing, you’re in a stronger position to avoid disruptions due to legislation. For example, in December 2021, imports from China’s Xinjiang region were banned as part of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. Businesses that weren’t tracing their suppliers’ actions or didn’t have a sense of what was happening in that area were more likely to be affected by this legislation. 

3. Set realistic expectations with suppliers 

Unfortunately, multinational companies often inadvertently create the very issues they’re trying to avoid by setting unrealistic deadlines or placing orders that exceed their suppliers’ capacity. Your sustainability policies should not just pay lip service to these ideals. You need to ensure that your operations also support your commitment to sustainability.  

When researchers from the Harvard Business Review interviewed top- and lower-tier suppliers of multi-national companies, they discovered many suppliers who had dangerous working conditions and poor environmental practices. These suppliers claimed that their clients were setting production standards they couldn’t meet without violating sustainability criteria such as a 60-hour workweek limit. Afraid of losing business to the competitors, the suppliers violated sustainability best practices rather than telling their clients they couldn’t meet their needs.  

For the most part, lower-tier suppliers aren’t concerned about their brand image or reputation. Public scandals don’t convince these companies to change their policies in the same way they do with consumer-facing organizations. Instead, these suppliers are only likely to change when their clients put pressure on them.  

To put it simply, you need to know your suppliers and impose sustainability guidelines on them. But at the same time, you also have to create an environment that allows your suppliers to act sustainably. 

4. Start from the top 

To instill a sense of corporate social responsibility throughout your organization, your commitment to sustainable supply chain best practices needs to start at the C-level. If leaders are on board, team members will be more likely to follow suit.  

Draft a sustainability policy for your enterprise. Outline what is important to your organization and find actionable ways to carry out your convictions.  

In some cases, you may want to make broad changes, such as redesigning products or re-engineering your entire supply chain. In other cases, you may need to embrace incremental changes or test sustainability initiatives on a small section of your supply chain before rolling them out permanently across the board.  

When looking at the cost of implementing sustainable practices, don’t just consider the expense. Think about how it affects your bottom line in terms of your brand image and long-term value. Now is the time for sustainability — even if the upfront cost outweighs the immediate financial advantages. 

5. Invest in supply chain solutions that increase true end-to-end visibility 

Improving supply chain sustainability can be a complex process. To truly optimize your supply chain, you need the right technology. You need solutions fueled by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) that can improve the visibility and data management of your supply chain, from sourcing and procurement through to planning and execution.  

You need the ability to sense demand, analyze prices, plan out the life cycle of your products, and oversee other aspects of your supply chain. This allows you to ensure that your sustainability efforts are translating to profits while also enhancing your image and protecting the environment.  

If you want your enterprise to be more sustainable, start by identifying the basic stakes. What should you be doing to stay competitive in your industry and to meet the demands of your consumer base? Then, set goals and outline the actions you need to take to reach them. Don’t be afraid to embrace big changes, and when that’s not possible, make changes slowly. To optimize your efforts, work with supply chain experts who can help with the process. 

Value and Profit in Responsibility

Implementing sustainable practices in the supply chain offers numerous financial benefits. Learn more in this blog.

Read the Blog
Contact Logility to Improve the Sustainability of Your Supply Chain 

To implement sustainable best practices, you need to understand what’s happening in your supply chain. You need visibility into all tiers of your supplier base, and we can provide that to you.  

At Logility, we create supply chain solutions that help our clients become more sustainable and more competitive. We believe in being stewards of the land, but we also believe in supporting the long-term growth and value of our clients’ organizations. Our solutions make both possible.  

Want help getting started on your sustainability journey? Then, let’s talk. To learn more, contact us today and let us help your organization take the right steps toward sustainability.

Many business leaders say they can’t afford sustainability initiatives, but looming risks indicate that this is an investment you can’t afford to ignore. 

Key takeaways 

  • Businesses need to prioritize supply chain sustainability 
  • On average, businesses have over 10 times more greenhouse gas emissions in their supply chains than the rest of their operations 
  • Businesses should identify areas where they can make small or incremental changes 
  • In addition to thinking about the cost of implementing initiatives, they should consider the costs associated with the risks they’re avoiding 
  • Work with an expert to get a sense of the costs of making your supply chain greener and leaner 

The business case for sustainability initiatives is strong. Businesses committed to corporate social responsibility (CSR) have a better reputation in the marketplace, but they are also stronger, more flexible, and more resilient on an operational level. When you insist on sustainability in your supply chain, you minimize supply chain disruptions, reduce environmental risks and negative impact, ensure supplier transparency and compliance, and even help strengthen the industries that support your supply chain. 

Unfortunately, making your supply chain sustainable isn’t free, and many companies aren’t yet prepared to make the necessary investment. One study indicates that 38% of companies hesitate to adopt sustainability initiatives because of the cost. But at the same time, 34% of respondents said they believed a more sustainable supply chain would help them cut costs.  

When budgeting for supply chain sustainability initiatives, think about the cost of solutions, but  also the overall impact of these changes on your bottom line. 

Prioritize Supply Chain Sustainability  

In general, a business’s supply chain is much less sustainable than its operations. On average, supply chain emissions are 11.4 times higher than operational emissions. This is because businesses have historically focused on sustainability in operations while largely ignoring their supply chains.  

Contemporary companies are actively looking for ways to cut emissions in regular operations, and failure to keep up with basic expectations can hurt a company’s reputation. But at the same time, they don’t even know what their second- or third-tier suppliers are doing; only 37% of companies say they work with their suppliers to cut emissions.  

If sustainability is important to you, you must look beyond your operations and extend your focus to the supply chain. Prioritize this area and ensure that you budget for supply chain sustainability. 

Focus on Potential Funds  

When deciding on how much to invest in supply chain sustainability initiatives, start with some sample numbers. For example, you may want to devote a percentage of your cost of goods sold (COGS) to sustainability initiatives, or you may want to base your budget on sales volume.  

If you’ve been investing money into operational sustainability initiatives, you may be able to transfer some of those budgets to your supply chain. Depending on the business’s financial situation, you may want to retain earnings or reduce dividend payouts to cover the cost of these initiatives. 

Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference 

Making your supply chain greener and leaner can be expensive and complex. You may want to shake up the whole process and invest in a digital supply chain platform that enables visibility into all tiers of your supply chain.  

Keep in mind, however, that you don’t have to do everything at once. Look for smaller, incremental changes like improving efficiency by adjusting the layout of your warehouses. Some sustainability initiatives have a net-zero impact. For example, if you can redesign your packaging in a way that uses fewer materials, you cut the cost of packaging while also becoming more sustainable. Similarly, if you invest money into redesigning the layout of your warehouse, you may discover that you can handle the same job in a smaller facility. 

By its very nature, optimizing your inventory will reduce power consumption and total emissions, maximize operations, rationalize warehouse space and improve transportation efficiencies, all in measurable ways. And optimized manufacturing operations will also serve to support new initiatives, but focus initial greening efforts on one or two manufacturing processes like minimizing inventory buffers and movement, or exploring constraint-based planning to use available capacity more efficiently, to eliminate unnecessary set-ups and minimize waste. 

Make Changes Incrementally  

Find areas where you can make sustainable changes incrementally. For example, if you have your own fleet of delivery trucks, you may want to commit to upgrading the fleet with more efficient models when it’s time to replace your current vehicles. You’re going to have an expense anyway, so plan to make it green.  

In that same vein, consider changing the onboarding process when you select a new vendor. You don’t necessarily have to disrupt your current partners, but when you bring on a new supplier, hold them accountable to a new set of green standards. Technology that provides a centralized system to evaluate, manage and report on details of compliance reduces risk, ensures corporate social responsibility and protects your brand. Your supply chain will become more sustainable, and resilient, over time. 

Assess the Cost of Unsustainable Risks in Your Supply Chain 

When deciding whether or not to implement sustainability initiatives, you cannot just think about the cost of implementation. You also need to consider the costs of not becoming sustainable. In particular, consider the risks of an unsustainable supply chain.  

A recent report from CDP indicates that corporate buyers are likely to face $120 billion in costs related to environmental supply chain risks over the next five years. Businesses that embrace supply chain sustainability initiatives minimize these risks and avoid many of the associated costs.  

Equally important is protecting your brand and business reputation. If you lack the necessary visibility into your supply chain to fully understand and vet supplier operations, and those suppliers engage in unfair labor practices or environmental injustices, by association your business will be held accountable by your customers. Supply chain traceability allows you critical visibility of your n-tier suppliers. 

Contact Logility to talk about making your supply chain more sustainable 

One of the reasons businesses struggle to budget for sustainability initiatives is because they don’t know enough about them. They can budget for other projects or initiatives because they understand their costs and impact. To effectively budget for a more sustainable supply chain, reach out to a company that offers supply chain sustainability solutions. 

At Logility, we offer the technology and solutions you need to make your supply chain more sustainable. We can review your current set-up and advise you of the best solutions in your situation, and how these solutions will impact your other expenses. Contact us today to modernize your supply chain planning and successfully budget for sustainability. 

Today’s marketplace demands businesses invest in supply chain sustainability — your customers and investors are watching. 

Key Takeaways 

  • Customers want to buy from brands that embrace sustainability and transparency 
  • Companies with sustainable supply chains are more attractive to investors 
  • Investment in supply chain sustainability creates business benefits, including higher ROI, supply chain continuity, and brand safety 
  • A digital supply chain platform helps build sustainability across the enterprise 

Businesses that prioritize supply chain sustainability realize many different benefits, irrespective of their industry. That’s why a recent study found that 81% of supply chain executives say their company has placed additional focus on sustainability in the past three years. 

Investor priorities, growing consumer demand for sustainability and transparency, and increased ROI are just some of the reasons enterprises see investing in supply chain sustainability as a necessity today. Achieving a sustainable supply chain takes a holistic approach that addresses environmental, social, legal, and economic matters throughout the entire supply chain with business practices that are good for the planet and its people while supporting business growth.  

The stakes have never been higher, but while creating a robust and workable sustainability model takes planning, a sustainable supply chain is imperative for business success today. Let’s look at why more and more businesses are making the commitment to invest in supply chain sustainability and the benefits it brings to the entire enterprise.

Consumers Demand Sustainability and Transparency 

As online shopping increased due to COVID-19, 45% of shoppers began focusing on sustainability when making purchasing decisions, and that is likely to continue and expand. Consumers also demand transparency as mistrust of brands has become a cultural touchpoint among younger generations.  

  • Transparency is of prime importance to 86% of consumers. Transparency also engenders loyalty, and companies who offer it will see buyers who are more forgiving of less-than-satisfactory experiences and not so quick to leave if there’s a company crisis. 
  • Social media has put a spotlight on business accountability for 81%. For 86%, if a company’s social media account doesn’t offer transparency, they will shop with a competitor
  • Most (73%) will pay more for products when total transparency is guaranteed.  

What is transparency, according to the consumer? It is openness, clarity, honesty, authenticity, integrity, and communication. The expectation that they will get these from the companies they patronize continues to grow, and companies that ignore the necessity of transparency risk losing business and slowing growth.

Companies with Sustainable Supply Chains Are More Attractive to Investors 

Customers are important to business, but so is capital investment. More than 85% of investment managers think businesses that do not invest in supply chain sustainability will see their share prices fall. Worse, 84% believe that companies with supply chain sustainability problems and low environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards pose an investment risk.  

Today’s investors (97%) take supply chain sustainability standards into consideration when they make investment decisions. ESG standards are an important part of 89% of investment conversations and will be a key factor in investment decisions in the next decade.

Investment in Supply Chain Sustainability Creates Business Benefits 

Aside from meeting essential consumer and investor demands, there’s a solid business case for investing in a sustainable supply chain. There’s no doubt it takes commitment, time, money, and resources, but your initiatives can pay off significantly in terms of a reduced environmental impact, which is an area your supply chain greatly impacts. Other benefits include: 

  • Boosted ROI: The return on investment for a sustainability initiative includes more than just money. While 67% of business leaders say they saved money thanks to making their supply chains more efficient and sustainable, 59% also realized reputational gains as well as higher opinions of their leadership. Simply helping suppliers reduce their emissions meant a total savings of $12.4 billion in 2016 alone.  
     
    It’s not just about saving money. Companies that integrate social impact, according to research, see as much as a 20% increase in sales, up to a 6% increase in share price, and a 13% increase in productivity. 
     
  • Supply continuity: Sustainability investment means scrutiny and vetting of suppliers. In turn, this helps build a more diverse and robust supply chain that can better weather disruptions. 
     
  • Reputational protection: A key case in point that highlights the importance of supply chain sustainability is Apple. Scrutiny of their supply chain in relation to the use of labor working under abusive conditions caused them to lose 27 places on the Reputational Quotient Poll between 2016 and 2017. This led, in 2019, to the company’s worst-performing quarter since 2016 and a loss of market share in both China and Japan.  

Investing in supply chain sustainability takes more than just planning. Building a supply chain that makes a competitive difference requires data intelligence that supports economic, environmental, and social responsibility. You need the right digital platform to achieve this. 

A Digital Supply Chain Platform Builds and Supports Sustainability Across the Enterprise 

Collecting and analyzing data effectively via manual processes is almost impossible, and data is what you need for sustainable supply chain planning and management. A digital platform and technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) can identify the most cost-effective ways to implement your initiatives, empower decision-making, and improve customer satisfaction by providing transparency. 

Through a digital platform, you can ensure that your vendors and suppliers are adhering to proper standards for labor, safety, and security; reducing energy consumption; and promoting efficient use of raw materials. Your platform should include digital solutions for traceability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) as well as providing the insight you need to achieve your sustainability goals while improving business performance. 

Reach Your Sustainability Objectives with Logility 

The Logility® Digital Supply Chain Platform accelerates the sustainable digital supply chain by leveraging data-driven technology such as advanced analytics and AI. These technologies empower your business with greater visibility that allows accurate planning, accelerated cycle times, improved precision, and increased operating performance, all while meeting your transparency goals. 

We help global enterprises sense and respond to changing market dynamics and more profitably manage their businesses to become more resilient and sustainable. It’s time for a digital, sustainable supply chain. Reach out to our specialists today to discuss our supply chain solutions. 

Take a look at these great blogs that continue the sustainability conversation:
https://www.logility.com/blog/sustainable-business-practices/
https://www.logility.com/blog/supply-chain-governance-vs-management/
https://www.logility.com/blog/supply-chain-sustainability-next-steps/

Value-building sustainable business practices must start at the top — here’s what enterprise business leaders should be doing to make sustainability part of their culture and operations. 

Pursuing profit and growth at the exclusion of other considerations is no longer an option for enterprise business leaders who want to be successful. Ignoring corporate social responsibility (CSR) risks exposing your company to fines, supply chain disruptions, and brand-eroding public scorn.  
 
To be effective, sustainable business practices must originate at the top, and they must extend through all tiers of the supply chain. If executives want their organizations to stay relevant, they must re-orient and embrace supply chain sustainability as part of their core strategy and operations.  
 
Leaders need to ensure their organizations meet today’s sustainability standards to safeguard their market share. But ideally, they should rise to tomorrow’s standards. They should differentiate their organization with actions that transform the sustainability of their entire supply chain and the organization itself. Growth-focused leaders should commit to the following actions to kick-start supply chain sustainability initiatives in their enterprises:

1. Focus on strategies that create long-term value 
 
Sustainable business practices aren’t just about protecting the environment or the people of the world. They’re about protecting your organization as well. Businesses that fail to commit to sustainability on a global level risk harming themselves on an organizational level.  
 
Industry-specific issues may vary, but all business leaders should develop a purpose-led growth strategy centered on long-term sustainability. They should consider consumer trust, trade challenges, and technology in ways that create sustainable value for all their organization’s stakeholders.  
 
For example, when Tiffany’s decided to stop using coral, the company looked past the effect of coral sales on its bottom line. Instead, it realized that it needed to take a more critical look at the impact of using a living animal, imperative to a healthy ecosystem, as if they were merely rocks.  
 
When making this decision, the company looked at the effect of this decision on its overall image. Although it may have sacrificed sales in the short term, it created long-term value by taking a stand and encouraging the entire industry to protect this vital lifeform in the marine ecosystem. 

2. Conceptualize sustainability as a competitive advantage rather than a cost 
 
Sustainable business practices can be expensive, but effective leaders look beyond the cost of these initiatives and recognize them as investments into their organizations’ competitive stance.  
 
A company that wants to make spectacular wine, for example, needs spectacular grapes. But simply planting the best grapes isn’t enough. You need to ensure that you’re taking measures to keep the soil fertile so you can continue to achieve excellence for years to come.  
 
Of course, this creates additional costs, but it also creates a long-term competitive advantage. You must expand your view of sustainability if you want to be successful. To position sustainability as an imperative in your organization, you may even want to link sustainability initiatives to executive compensation packages.

 
3. Be aware of consumer preferences 
 
Purpose-led organizations are better positioned to attract and retain customers than businesses exclusively focused on their bottom line. Although it’s a simple concept, it cannot be overemphasized that consumers are people. They want relationships with the businesses they patronize.  
 
Consumers want to feel as if the businesses they patronize care about them and their world. They research the products they buy, where they come from, and how they’re made. If they sense their money is the only thing an organization wants, they will take their business elsewhere.  
 
Your customers want to be confident that they are making a positive impact on the world when they buy from your brand. You need to instill them with that confidence when they buy your products.   
 
Know what your consumers want today and make sure you’re providing that, including their CSR expectations. Even more importantly, anticipate what they will want tomorrow and actively seek partners, suppliers, and supply chain management processes that can provide a sustainable base to provide these things in the future.   

4. Reconsider your approach to corporate reporting  
 
Your balance sheet alone cannot communicate your organization’s commitment to sustainability. Your ability to create long-term value is not just reflected in your assets and liabilities, it’s also created by non-tangible elements, such as your culture, intellectual assets, and ability to use technology. 
 
Traditional financial reporting excludes these elements and hampers your ability to highlight strategic priorities. This increases the trust gap between your financial reports and stakeholders’ expectations.  
 
To increase the trust of your stakeholders, communicate cohesively about your sustainability initiatives and other long-term, value-building strategies. Consider bringing in robust metrics that show your organization’s sustainability initiatives and year-over-year improvements. Tie them back into your bottom line and make data-driven projections about how these initiatives will pay off in the future. 

5. Take a collaborative approach when creating sustainability initiatives 
 
A sustainable supply chain involves many moving parts both inside and outside your organization. When creating sustainability initiatives, work with research and development, design, and manufacturing teams as well as representatives from multiple tiers of your supply chain. Leverage each other’s unique knowledge and experience to become more innovative and sustainable. Work together to identify challenges in trade flows and patterns. Find ways to build resilience into your organization and into your relationships with suppliers and vendors.  
 
Identify risks from a holistic perspective and find sustainable ways to mitigate them. Then, revisit your decisions dynamically on a regular basis. Yearly reviews aren’t enough; you need to do this routinely.  
 
To bring your sustainability efforts together, you need to harness the right technology. Homegrown supply chain solutions cannot provide the support you need. You need a technology partner who can help accelerate your journey to sustainability by improving transparency and giving you oversight into every tier of your supply chain.  
 
Contact Logility to talk about improving the sustainability of your supply chain 
 
At Logility, we offer solutions that help businesses improve operations through enhanced supply chain management and sustainability. We can help you improve sustainability at every tier of your supply chain. Ready to learn more about how your leadership team can improve its commitment to sustainability? Then let’s talk.