It’s Madness (Not the band)

Has the world has gone mad? The country and UK parliament is in uproar about Brexit and we could be in for a round of global trade wars. We have certainly entered the unknown – a period of uncertain futures.

How can business use data to predict possible outcomes, manage project well or mitigate risk with so much uncertainty? Leaders (including World Leaders) who were once confident about knowing which path was sensible to follow are unsure…. We just don’t know what the future holds.

On my travels over the last few weeks, I’ve been to both CBI and IoD business events – engaging various business leaders in conversation about their thoughts on the future.

At a recent CBI mid-sized business (MSB) conference  – the CBI encouraged  MSBs to be more ‘Magpie’ in their nature to increase productivity…. I was confused until I read their report…..They define ‘Magpies’ as  ‘having the skill and the will to adopt tested ideas and technologies’.

The alternative?…..the ‘Ostrich’ …. ‘the Ostrich sticks to what it knows  – it doesn’t keep its head up or look for ways to improve’.

A week later – the Supply Chain Academy, the IoD, the EEF and the University of Essex held the ‘Leading in a digital world: A Supply Chain Summit’ where we heard from expert speakers on the use of digital analytics to monitor customer behaviours and trends – all of whom concluded that businesses large and small are not preparing staff for what lies ahead

Can you afford to be an Ostrich?

In order to deal with the massive changes ‘the madness’, most employees need to prepare for innovation and change and many need to develop their employees’ workplace skills, just in order to cope.

Regular training allows employees to strengthen the skills that they need to improve. An all-encompassing development program brings all employees to a  level at which they can adapt to whatever is coming in the future……..

The past few weeks have been busy for both the Supply Chain Academy and our sister company, CP Training Services, running in parallel: ‘Supplier Relationship Management’ & ‘Procurement Effectiveness’ courses, both held in our world-class training facilities in Upminster. We also ran an ‘in-house’ ‘Beer Game – Supply Chain Distribution’ for a large pharmaceutical business as well as ‘Supplier Performance Management’ for a large construction firm……  some companies clearly want to equip themselves for what’s coming …….

We are also holding business leaders events…..our Supply Chain Directors Dinner , ‘Creating Competitive Advantage’ and ‘‘Accelerate Innovation with Supply Chain Technology’ programmes, all of which are available now to book.

The team have created a ‘Supply Chain Career pathway’ framework that can enable your team and your business to reduce operating costs, by managing your supply chain more effectively through, procurement negotiation, effective sales & operations coordination and better forecasting. Not to mention – an appreciation for big data (and small data) and the use of technology.

The Supply Chain Academy is the only worldwide learning centre that focuses solely on the supply chain, offering high-level insight and tuition for executives through our exceptional facilities.

For further information on how the Supply Chain Academy can add leverage to your supply chain, please email info@supplychainacademy.org.uk, or call 01708 259450