Sustainable Supply Chain Predictions for the New Year

Forbes recently released an article outlining the magazine’s 2012 Supply Chain Predictions. Leading off with the obvious that the supply chain will not go away, the post explores some of the potential sustainable supply chain risks and opportunities expected in the coming year. The ones our sustainability consulting is paying specific attention to include:

Entering the “era of big data” – With the availability of data (both structured and unstructured) at an all-time high from all areas of the supply chain (demand signal repositories, RFID tags, GPS tracking, Smart Meters, etc.) the focus will migrate to leveraging data as a competitive advantage.

Supply Chain “clock speed” – It’s no secret the pace of business is accelerating and 2012 will not see this changing. The reality is that today’s supply chains are expected to be more responsive to change.

Social supply chains – Are you ready for the social supply chain? According to most pundits, the answer is “YES”. With an estimated 1.2bn people (20 per cent of the world’s population) on social networks, we are at a point where social software capabilities need to be prevalent throughout enterprise systems.

Emphasis on environmental awareness, social responsibility, and business sustainability actions within the supply chain has incentivized more progressive companies to begin to evaluate more than just their inbound supply. Our sustainability consulting finds the once limited procurement function is now expanding its organizational reach to a variety of business sustainability stakeholders.

Focused on a new level of responsibility across all supply chain activities, our sustainability consulting believes efforts in 2012 will drive deeper into supply category value by expanding the lines of communication to further facilitate access to innovation. Following the above predictions, the next generation of sustainable supply chain management will continue to emerge in the New Year.