There was a certain sense of anticipation leading up to this year’s Gartner Symposium. It was Arkieva’s first large-scale event since 2019, and we were itching to get back out there and enjoy sunny Florida. From our perspective, it seemed like many of you were also itching to get back to the show and we saw many familiar faces. It was like a family reunion of sorts, new jobs, new responsibilities, new life events. It was great reconnecting and catching up.
Among the thrill of being “live and in-person,” many of the people we spoke with are excited about the future and looking for ways to accelerate competitive advantages. Everyone in attendance had some type of story to tell about suppliers, labor, and the economy and how it impacted their day-to-day business. This year, one of the Gartner keynotes introduced the idea of an offset strategy – how to counteract forces that you cannot control, often by leveraging unconventional approaches. In nature, we see this in starlings. They can sense, shift and steer to offset their disadvantage against predators by leveraging their strengths. It is time to move beyond the coping strategies of the last few years and deploy an offset strategy to thrive.
Another common topic was resiliency, and how being resilient in both the supply chain and personal sense has never been more important. If there is one thing we at Arkieva have seen over the last 30 years, it is that there is always going to be something. And we are always going to find a way to get through it. This year, we sponsored two customer presentations: one presented by Temper Sealy on how the pandemic drove long-term supply chain improvements and the other, shared by Hexion, asked the question “Is Your Supply Chain on Life Support?”. Together, these presentations offered real-world stories of identifying warning signs that your existing processes need to be evaluated, and once you make the decision to change, how to do it efficiently and correctly.
Did you attend the Gartner Supply Chain Symposium | Xpo? What are your key takeaways from the event? Share in the comments and download the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning.
