• by John Zealley , Columnist, July 12, 2018

More than ever, today’s consumers want convenient and personalized products and services — delivered in the instant. Increasingly, we are seeing that people are buying because of a brand’s relevance to their needs in the moment. And seamless omnichannel experiences with complete inventory transparency are now basic requirements.

None of this is news to consumer goods companies of course. They’ve been adapting to changing consumer needs and expectations for years now. But might they be overlooking one lever with the potential to make a significant difference to customer experience? 

Our latest research shows just how far today’s supply chains are evolving beyond their traditional support function. In fact, thanks to new IT, the supply chain can now be transformed into an engine of growth and customer experience differentiation. 

Here are three insights from our research to help you get your supply chain ready to deliver better experiences for your customers.

1. Elevate the supply chain to a strategic enabler

Leading consumer goods companies are making the supply chain a key part of their brand experience strategies, with support from the whole of the C-level. By clearly defining their objectives and then investing in technologies like automation, machine learning, AI, cloud, and blockchain, they’re finding they can transform their supply chains into highly responsive flexible networks of mutually beneficial capabilities.

The result is an intelligent supply chain that is agile, service-oriented, and able to detect changing demand with fine-tuned sensitivity. It means slow response times, inefficiencies in fulfillment, and restrictive functional siloes can be as good as eliminated. And consumer insights can be sensed, adapted to, and acted on with unprecedented speed.

2. Focus on the high-impact use cases

We found evidence some consumer goods companies are spreading their supply chain investments too thinly. For example, key technologies like robotics, virtual reality, advanced analytics, and cognitive computing are not being prioritized. That’s despite their obvious potential to transform business responsiveness and generate the audience segmentations and consumer insights necessary for crafting today’s must-have levels of personalized service. 

Some are really getting it. PepsiCo is one example of a company investing in its direct store delivery distribution model to build much deeper relationships with customers. Another is Danone and JD.com, which are partnering to bring new levels of precision and speed to inventory replenishment. By focusing their strategies wisely, these companies are strengthening the return on their supply chain investments.

3. Adopt the right mindset

A significant proportion of consumer goods companies we spoke to still sees the supply chain as a predominantly supporting function and a driver of cost-efficiency. But there are positive signs of change. Significant numbers said they also view their supply chain as a growth enabler with the potential to play a key role in improving customer service. In fact, nearly half said they thought their supply chain would be a competitive differentiator within two years.

That’s the right mindset to adopt. Ultimately, it’s now time for every consumer goods company to recognize the core role of the supply chain in delivering an enhanced experience. With a clear strategy focused on the high-impact use cases, modern consumer goods companies can transform their linear value chains into flexible ecosystems of mutually supporting capabilities. That’s the way to deliver truly differentiated brand experiences today.