Gilmore Says.... |
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Traditional (and most current) supply chains are like classical music: highly structured, with talented musicians each playing their roles to make beautiful music.
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After Gartner acquired AMR in 2009, it infused additional organizational and marketing muscle into the conference, largely to the good. It is a sophisticated event.
That success led to the conference moving up in the Gartner event hierarchy, where in 2022 for the first time it was designated as a Symposium, and with that moved to Orlando from its longtime home in Scottsdale, AZ.
The event felt packed. It is well organized, with support staff everywhere and high-quality meals, the best I have had attending many conferences. I get hungry at these things, what can I say.
With that backdrop, I attended many keynote and breakout sessions. There were quite a few of both, with presentations from Gartner analysts and vendors (on a paid basis) offering lots of choices. As a note, during any given time slot, say 1:00 to 2:00 PM, it was either all Gartner or all vendor presentations, to keep it “clean” if you will.
This week, I am simply going to review the day 1 keynote. More on the conference overall and summaries of key breakout sessions next week.
I have frankly been disappointed with the opening Gartner keynotes in recent years, so I was hoping for better from Gartner analyst Ken Chadwick, back as the opening session keynoter for the second time after first receiving the honor a few years ago.
The title: “Turning Divergence into Opportunity.” What does that mean? Let’s take a look.
We are in a era of supply chain divergence, Chadwick said, meaning, it appears, complexity and uncertainty. We are at the peak of both, Chadwick argued. Is that really true? I am not as sure - it seems me we’ve been saying this for 20 years. But maybe it’s accurate and things have just continuously become worse over the past two decades.
Companies and their supply chains must react by “cutting through divergence to create the competitive advantage CEOs need.”
In other words, rather than just complain about uncertainty and complexity, companies must find a way to channel them in a way that’s beats their rivals.
This is not a new idea. I remember my friend Jim Tompkins, then of Tompkins International, now of Tompkins Ventures, taking about the need to “harness the power of white-water change,” and legendary GE CEO Jack Welsch saying close to this: “When the world outside a company is moving faster than the change inside the company then the end is near.”
So how to achieve that? Rather surprisingly, Chadwick says the key is two well-known tools: advanced visibility and scenario planning.
 On visibility, the problem is not a lack of data, which most companies are swimming in. There are also often many different software applications, each with their own version of the truth. Add in all the data potentially available from social media.
Most companies understand the role of real-time visibility in better decision-making and dealing with disruptions. But for most, their “visibility ambitions exceed their investments,” and thus progress is slow.
Ok, that’s fine, but where should such investments flow? To specialty, mostly logistics-related visibility solutions? Tying together all these different apps a company runs? Something else? I didn’t hear the answer to that question. Maybe I will view the handy replay of the presentation to see if I missed it.
Chadwick did cite the example of pharma company Amgen, which tied together more than 20 data points from inside and outside the firm to create a real-time dashboard for decision-making.
On scenario planning, Chadwick says that no matter how thorough a job a company does in planning, it won’t fully survive contact with enemy, meaning supply chain divergence, to use this well-known military aphorism.
When supply chain divergence hits the fan, what CEOs want is options – and use of scenario planning in advance can pave the way with development of playbooks for what to do.
Such scenario planning needs to move from a largely annual event to something that is embedded in a company’s on-going planning processes, Chadwick said, and be pursued under multiple time horizons.
Together, advanced visibility and scenarios are needed to support a new approach to supply chain, moving away from process models developed 20-30 years ago in a different era.
I liked Chadwick’s music analogy on all this. Traditional (and most current) supply chains are like classical music: highly structured, with talented musicians each playing their roles to make beautiful music.
What is needed today though is more like jazz, Chadwick argues, with a steady backbeat but with lots of independent riffs, with musicians playing off each other.
There’s more to Chadwick’s presentation but think I will end it there.
Chadwick is a good speaker, and I agreed with most of his observations and recommendations. That said, as noted above, visibility and scenario planning are hardly new ideas. Even with some updated twists, I would expect a little more innovative material from a Gartner opening keynote.
Or so it seems to me.
I will have more from the Gartner Symposium here next week.
What is your reaction to this review of Gartner 2025? What would you add? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback section below.
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