One leading global pharmaceutical company has headed down this path already. In a multiyear supply chain automation effort, sensors coupled with machine learning programs will be deployed from end to end to gather data about inventory distribution practices and availability for every SKU, thereby providing visibility and improving agility in its inventory and distribution processes.
With new tools and greater responsibility, your human talent needs an evolving set of skills. Adopting these four steps for automation and technology transformations can help organizations navigate and prepare their workforce:
- Alignment and engagement: Define a purpose for emerging technologies, articulate their use, and then build an engagement strategy that instills understanding and dispels digital myths. User-centric messages that outline the roadmap and the potential impact and benefits of automation are a vital step in adoption.
- Impact assessment: A change roadmap needs to be tailored and scaled up or down depending on the impact on various roles. Continuously iterating an action plan based on evolving workflows and defining specific measures to track benefits will be important.
- Change agent network: Change agents are the “face and voice” of transformation by delivering and reinforcing key messages and embedding changed processes. Mobilize team leaders and process owners to create a change agent network and drive the adoption of improvements and technologies.
- Digital incubator: A rapid and scalable incubator environment to embed new workflows can help employees cope with the transition. Processes must be integrated with business teams to save time before going live. Based on testing, performance metrics should be agreed upon by program owners and business units.
3. A new approach to your talent and learning plans is required
New roles and required skills are often treated as an afterthought after technologies and structures are already put in place. Roles and skills should be debated and reexamined as plans are developed and as the organization’s needs shift. We recommend approaching your talent and learning plan through a lens of now, next and beyond.
Now: Define and dimension the roles you need to succeed and identify and address any skill/capability gaps
Supply chain leaders should collaborate with local HR teams to update roles and responsibilities and clearly highlight the shift in time spent on repetitive tasks to more value-add activities. Determine how today’s talent can be developed for tomorrow’s roles and augment them with new talent wherever necessary.
Upskilling, redeploying and hiring people will enable the organization to become future-ready while simultaneously empowering employees. Reframe conversations with professionals around not just what’s good for the business but what’s good for them as well. This is an opportunity for employees to grow and gain marketable skills. Set a clear development path for combining strategic thinking with technical understanding, and make sure to set performance incentives along the way.
Next: Create a self-service mechanism to upskill in a remote environment
Coaching is obviously one way to spread knowledge, but having online resources on tap 24/7, where professionals can seek out learning on their schedule, is worth the effort. Data-driven decision-making, cloud technologies, blockchain, AI and algorithms are just some of the topics that will be useful to learn more about as supply chains evolve. Interactive training modules can be enriched with gamification in the form of badges, challenges and leaderboards to make learning more enjoyable.
Citizen developers offer another way forward, in which companies incentivize their people to upskill and innovate. Citizen developers within the organization should be empowered to take their knowledge of the business and join it with learning about analytics, data science and emerging technologies. These professionals already know what aspects of their jobs add value versus those that do not. They can be compelled to innovate their way to a role that’s better for them and the business.
Beyond: Link your purpose and your culture to your supply chain
In a JUST Capital survey, 89% of Americans agreed that the COVID-19 crisis “is an opportunity for large companies to hit ‘reset’ and focus on doing right by their workers, customers, communities and the environment.” These feelings existed before the pandemic but have only intensified since. And while “supply chain” may have been an abstract concept to the general public in 2019, today, there is a broader acknowledgment that supply chains are the lifeblood of the economy, connecting vital goods such as food and vaccines to communities.
In a 2020 article, EY professionals discussed that once a company has developed its purpose, it must be communicated clearly, candidly and consistently to customers and embedded as a central part of the overall customer experience. That could be a commitment to speed and efficiency or to reach traditionally underserved regions. A motivating purpose is also crucial for driving employee engagement. These next steps pave the way for a better future for your company and other stakeholders, including broader society.
