Building the business case for change is crucial to compel transformation at a leadership and organizational level. Lack of a clear strategy and vision was cited by 35 percent of executives as a key barrier to achieving full transformation potential. Part of transformation, by its name, is envisioning an end state that is difficult to imagine when you have never been there. Companies struggle enough with assessing the current state of their supply chains, so asking them to envision a new one that is required to support the future state, from technologies and processes to human resources and governance, is even more difficult.
Read More: What is a Supply Chain Digital Transformation?
They end up focusing on the buzzwords and shiny new technologies or the multitude of things that need fixed and fail to build a cohesive vision. They may layout a horde of projects as individual pieces to implement, but do not have a value proposition that integrates all of them into a supply chain strategy. They struggle to decide when and where to begin and how to translate the vision into goals, goals into strategies and strategies into process changes and projects.
Before you start any transformation project it is important to understand the why, what, and how and articulate a clear vision and path of the future state.
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Three Steps for Developing a Supply Chain Digital Transformation Business Case
Three steps should be followed in developing the business case for your supply chain digital transformation project:
- Show Need for Change: Articulate a convincing need for change based on the company’s current situation and market opportunities.
- Demonstrate ROI: Quantify the expected benefits and highlight how to achieve one or more corporate goals like growth or customer service levels and calculate the return on investment (ROI).
- Identify Success Metrics: Explain how to show progress and measure success, which metrics will be improved to achieve the expected benefits, what will be the new performance targets and deadlines, and who will accountable.
