Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo™ 2023 Highlights: A Human-Centric Approach to Unlocking Productivity

The Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo™ has once again, exceeded our expectations, leaving us inspired and engaged We had some thought-provoking conversations with stakeholders on the latest industry dynamics, pain points, customer expectations, and innovative supply chain strategies.

Throughout the three-day event, industry analysts and speakers shared their perspectives on crucial subjects such as logistics automation, workforce efficiency, AI, last-mile optimization, and customer experience. These sessions shed light on emerging trends that deepened our understanding of the ever-evolving supply chain landscape.

A new paradigm for achieving our supply chain’s potential

But anchoring all these topics was a unique concept of the opening keynote speech titled “Unlocking the Collective Potential of Supply Chain,” delivered by Caroline Chumakov, Director Analyst, Gartner.

In it, she discussed the importance of harnessing the collective potential of supply chains. We believe the keynote placed a bold emphasis on empowering the people that are a part of all supply chains to do their best: whether it is individuals given the flexibility to pursue opportunities in line with their skills that bring growth, or removing hierarchies that foster innovation and empowered decision-making for communities, or by enhancing productivity with the help of technology solutions.

“Supply chain leaders must reevaluate how they look at the individual, community and technological potential available to them in order to achieve a new peak of productivity, to enable their objectives, and break out of a pattern of low and stalling labor productivity.”

Read The Efficient Shipping Solution to Automate Your Carrier Selection

The speech set the tone for the symposium and influenced the way we reflected on other ideas and concepts.

The need for dedicated reverse logistics ownership and governance

One of the most interesting sessions that stayed with us was “You Spin Me Right Round: How to Master Returns Management” by Tom Enright, VP Analyst, Gartner. This was an area that benefited from both a process and a people-centric approach. While we have long worked on the process side of things, and continue to deepen our expertise there, Tom’s focus on making returns seamless, convenient through diverse options, and easy to understand through a clear returns policy struck a chord.

“Charging customers to return items is likely to drive them into the arms of competitors who will use more attractive returns policies as a marketing tool. Beyond overly restrictive policies, we also far too often see brands with unintentionally confusing policies,” said Tom in a Q&A session titled “How an Innovative Customer Returns Policy Can Drive Competitive Advantage” where he covered similar ground.

Thinking differently for resilient and sustainable supply chains

Enterprises are yet to find satisfactory levels of resiliency and sustainability to operations. At least this is the picture painted by a statistic: “By 2026, 80% of global enterprises with net-zero goals will restate interim milestones under stakeholder scrutiny of lack of progress and underinvestment,” presented by Laura Rainier, Senior Research Director, Gartner in a session “Fantasy or Reality: Logistics’ Ability to Contribute to Net Zero.”

Read Why You Should Choose Carbon Neutral Shipping Today

Often, changing how we think about these issues can make a difference, as highlighted by some intellectually stimulating sessions. According to our understanding of Laura’s talk, achieving sustainability goals is a fine balance between immediate wins, and impactful change brought about by long-term thinking. “Focus on a few big bets that have potential for major impact, but require investment and partnership. Balance the big bets with tactical choices that can produce short-term wins.”

When it comes to building supply chain resilience, scenario planning is key. According to Cristina Carvallo, Senior Director Analyst with Gartner, failures in this aspect of planning could lead to 68% of corporate value lost on average. Cristina went to provide powerful mental models, often used by Chess Masters, that had the potential to redefine efficiency in scenario planning. Some of these nuggets included:

“Scenario planning requires a cultural shift; we need to refocus planning from eliminating uncertainty to managing uncertainty. Shifting the mindset from one number to one plan.”

“Improving scenario planning involves breaking down complexity, evaluating decisions more flexibly, and learning from the outcomes of the decisions made.”

“Scenario planning based strictly on a rational decision-making model won’t work for all types of decisions. This fails to account for all of the variables involved, including the importance, clarity, complexity and timeframe of when a decision needs to be made.”

To sum up

According to a Gartner survey of supply chain leaders, 73% of the average Supply Chain IT Budget Will Be Allocated to Growth and Performance. Such trends empower us to push the envelope in delivering value for supply chains and logistics companies with industry-leading solutions. The infectious energy and insights from the many conversations that we were privileged to have (such as adopting a more nuanced people-centric approach) will help us to stay focused on delivering excellence and real-world growth with our solutions.

Gartner Press release, Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo™ Americas: Day 1 Summary, May 8, 2023

Gartner Press release, Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo™ Americas: Day 2 Summary, May 9, 2023

Gartner Press release, Gartner Reveals the Top Supply Chain Technology Trends for 2023, May 10, 2023

Gartner Q&A, How an Innovative Customer Returns Policy Can Drive Competitive Advantage, April 12, 2023

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