• What does the burgeoning number of Universities offering Supply Chain Management degrees indicate for the future of younger generations entering the profession?​
• “55% of companies report they are retraining employees in the supply chain function for digital technologies, but a lack of skilled employees is cited as the #2 obstacle to a successful supply chain.” – EY​
• With the rise of AI, IoT and Blockchain, never before has the profession had an obscurer picture of what key skills are needed to bridge the generational disconnect in supply chain. Learning to attract and retain top talent in this space may require an end to silo-thinking.

Details To Follow.

• Amazon are known for having the fastest and most nimble go-to-market, optimizing all elements of the chain from warehousing to inventory management to delivery.​
• Logistics Viewpoints write that “Amazon was already moving away from reliance on the parcel giants by giving an increasing share of its parcel business to lower cost regional providers.  And many e-commerce shoppers have seen their orders delivered by the company’s fleet of private trucks”​
• Even the largest globally distributed companies remain an order of magnitude below the market extent of the Amazonian supply chain, so what transferable lessons are there for failing fast in this disruptive business environment?

• Cecere writes that “Most companies are not measuring and adapting with volatility. Analyzing forecastability of the item portfolio is a good starting place…Embracing demand and supply volatility is critical. Learn to dance with uncertainty”​
• Inventory is the most vital buffer of supply and demand volatility – but forecasting capability can feel disconnected from inventory strategy. ​
• Do we need to rethink inventory completely to cater to the customer’s needs?

• MH&L found that “businesses estimate they spend on average per week around 55 hours doing manual, paper-based processes and checks; 39 hours chasing invoice exceptions, discrepancies and errors and 23 hours responding to supplier inquiries”.​
• With the market saturated with pilot-stage 4.0 solutions, is there a way to develop a maturity index for businesses to better understand the landscape of innovation on the horizon?​
• More over, which solutions can actually enhance the productivity and profits of a real organization looking for the best tools to smooth A-B logistics across modes?

• Learn to ‘Think like a Carrier’ relative to the cost and needs of your business.
• When it comes to Carrier cost – can you differentiate what is true and what is fluff? Your Carrier rates may be more flexible than you think – and you may have more influence over them than you think.
• Review the common pitfalls and opportunities of a Carrier Agreement by deconstructing its most basic elements – and then isolate solutions where everyone wins.

• The maximum density of automated last-mile solutions, such as drones and driverless trucks, are often limited by governmental and environmental constraints. ​
• Executives might not yet have a clear picture on the social proclivities of leveraging this new technology in downtown, metropolitan areas. ​
• But does the end goal of reducing last mile costs necessarily mean innovating to the nth degree, or can more scalable solutions be achieved through resource sharing?

Details To Follow.

Summit to break down into roundtables to discuss overarching themes of summit, drawing on salient case studies, facts, figures and experiences:

• Shifting leadership mindsets from reactivity to proactivity​
• Powering operational excellence through integrated planning & execution​
• Continuously improving business process re-engineering​
• Digitizing the kinetic world: upscaling your technology stack​
• Making industry 4.0 meaningful through balancing agility, adeptness and alignment

Details To Follow.

• Forbes write that IoT is set to enhance asset tracking, vendor relations, forecasting, inventory management, connected fleets and scheduled maintenance: “beyond the use of data for improved efficiencies noted above… businesses can get creative with supply chain transparency”​
• What’s missing from this picture is the actionable insight to source and apply IoT solutions in the chain, from quality control to waste elimination to people development. ​
• Hear from a delegate who has done just that. 

• T-Systems write that “the companies that will benefit are those who transform their supply chain management systems now. If production and logistics processes are comprehensively digitized, the value chain can quickly transform into a genuine value network and boost the business potential of all processes, right through to after-sales service.”​
• Often with leadership the ambition and business case for implementing new technology, such as AI, IoT and Blockchain, is there. What’s missing is the readiness of service providers to suit the idiosyncratic needs of your business projects. As a result, the space now has a mix of non-traditional players.​
• The panel discusses the foundation of this challenge: harmonizing the maturity of data with the maturity of the business – and the need to look outside the box to drive further integration

• Investing in and actioning intelligent solutions is impossible without data mastery within an organization. Building and developing the interconnectedness of your chain should be always take priority over deploying flashy technology in silos.​
• In response, the control tower promises integrated end-to-end visibility, demand tracking and supplier tracing capabilities through leveraging predictive analytics in a single execution layer.​
• The panel discusses the best practices in control tower to automate manual tasks and free up time to add value to your end user at every stage of the chain. Furthermore, the panel discusses whether the control tower can not only predict faults in the chain, but prescribe and propose solutions in real-time. 

• T-Systems write that “the companies that will benefit are those who transform their supply chain management systems now. If production and logistics processes are comprehensively digitized, the value chain can quickly transform into a genuine value network and boost the business potential of all processes, right through to after-sales service.”​
• Often with leadership the ambition and business case for implementing new technology, such as AI, IoT and Blockchain, is there. What’s missing is the readiness of service providers to suit the idiosyncratic needs of your business projects. As a result, the space now has a mix of non-traditional players.​
• The panel discusses the foundation of this challenge: harmonizing the maturity of data with the maturity of the business – and the need to look outside the box to drive further integration. 

• Whilst the scale and intensity of geopolitical events varies wildly, risk is not impossible to predict. ​
• IBM asks “How are you addressing the negative consequences of increased global sourcing? With volatility rising, do you have the analytical capabilities to determine the optimal global configuration for your supply chain?”​
• Learn from a delegate who has not only mastered the monitoring of their vulnerabilities within their supply chain, but understood the impacts of geopolitical risk on their organization down to the molecular level.

Summit to break down into roundtables to discuss overarching themes of summit, drawing on salient case studies, facts, figures and experiences:

• Shifting leadership mindsets from reactivity to proactivity​
• Powering operational excellence through integrated planning & execution​
• Continuously improving business process re-engineering​
• Digitizing the kinetic world: upscaling your technology stack​
• Making industry 4.0 meaningful through balancing agility, adeptness and alignment

• Whilst cybersecurity used to be centered around regulatory compliance and data confidentiality, since the watershed moment of 2017,  the challenges of cyber threats are forcing companies into survival mode. It is now worth more than the illegal drug trade.​
• With the move to digitization now unstoppable, the threat of catastrophic availability events, such as ransomware attacks, becomes ever more acute. Can blockchain alone neutralize all these threats?​
• Harmonizing first, second and third-tier players is a critical challenge in of itself. How can we develop people, processes and technology to wake up to the pressing urgency of cyber security as a business problem?

Details to follow.

• “In an ideal supply chain relationship, both customers and suppliers get connected in ways that allow them to easily exchange information, demand data, and the visibility of status”. How can executives gauge accurately where they are strategically with partners, with each of varying size and technological maturity?​
• The closing panel discusses the mission-critical statement that ties together the overarching challenges for the summit: aligning operational excellence, innovation and customer-centricity to embrace political-economic uncertainty as opportunity.​