Build resilience into all supply chain decisions

One of the biggest challenges of any Supply Chain Officer is convincing CEOs to invest in resilience. As supply chain practitioners face ongoing disruption while trying to solve for transformation and short-term financial benefits, it’s become clear that supply chains need to be more agile and responsive. In our latest video podcast, Mike Corbo, former Chief Supply Chain Officer at Colgate-Palmolive joins Angel Mendez, Board Member and Supply Chain Innovator, and Dr. Anne Robinson, Chief Strategy Officer at Kinaxis, to discuss lessons learned from leading during times of disruption, the value of investing in resilience, and how supply chain leaders can promote revenue growth. 

Mike saw a lot of changes during his 40 years at Colgate-Palmolive. One of his biggest challenges during his time as Chief Supply Chain Officer was the COVID-19 pandemic. Although COVID created drastic developments, Mike says the company survived this period of disruption thanks to the supply chain planning risk management playbook Colgate-Palmolive had developed a decade prior. Mike says the global supply chain organization had back-up supplies and multiple alternate suppliers they could pivot to while validating new sources in record time, to help them manage the immediate impacts of the pandemic. [8:27]

To expedite planning processes during the pandemic, Colgate-Palmolive also made the choice to cut their hierarchy of decisions for efficiency, avoiding bottlenecks and reducing reaction time from 60-90 days to only 7-8 days. [10:00]

During times of supply chain crisis, Angel says there are three key questions: what is the expected duration, how impactful is it, and how wide is it? Unfortunately, with COVID, these questions were unanswerable due to its global severity with no end date in sight. Because of this, approaching the boardroom about an investment in resilience raises the conversation to a very strategic level. Mike says the key is to balance cost efficiencies and resiliency, which can be done by building resilience into supply chain decisions. [16:14]

Kinaxis is a global leader in modern supply chain management. Our software is trusted by global brands in every industry to provide the agility and predictability needed to navigate today’s volatility and disruption. For more news and information, please visit kinaxis.com or follow us on LinkedIn.