What’s Inside

“The discipline of planning, and the role of the supply chain planner, have dramatically increased in importance within high-performance enterprises. These organizations recognize that planning is the heart of most critical system transformations. They also acknowledge that supply chain planners hold one of the few roles that create total value across the end-to-end business.”

In recent years, customer supply chain expectations have increased dramatically. Unprecedented disruptions have forced companies to make significant operational shifts and pivots in culture, data, and leadership. Supply chain organizations have ramped up the speed and importance of innovation while increasing system complexities, with an ever-increasing reliance on supply chain planners to manage trends, change management, and optimizations.

Yet talent and leadership development for supply chain planning have trailed far behind the demands being placed on this function. To be successful, a supply chain planning professional must successfully manage ambiguity, excel in change management, and demonstrate agility when identifying and adapting to new technologies and industry disruptions.

This white paper has identified eleven core competencies for tomorrow’s planning professionals and features five critical issues that directly impact a company’s ability to achieve and maintain leading-edge planning capabilities. The research was conducted during a year-long engagement with senior supply chain leaders using an interactive research design.

For organizations to gain a competitive advantage, they must recognize supply chain planning as the heart of most critical system transformations and prioritize developing the next generation of supply chain planners to become future leaders. In years to come, changes in operating environments and the importance of supply chain planning will only continue to increase.

Download this white paper to access:  

• Advanced supply chain planning context and information  
• Extensive modern-day supply chain planning research findings 
• Key Supply chain planner terminology 
• The five critical issues that impact companies’ ability to achieve leading-edge planning excellence 
• 11 core competencies for supply chain planning professional talent (and development) 
• A supply chain framework for planning talent and leadership development 
• Supply chain planner terminology 
• Additional findings, visualizations, and insights

For more in-depth, industry-focused white papers from the Global Supply Chain Institute (GSCI) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, visit this web page. Recent papers produced by the Advanced Supply Chain Collaborative, an initiative of GSCI, engage industry experts and UT faculty to explore and report on advanced concepts in supply chain management and innovation, including supply chain agility, last-mile and reverse logistics, and more. 

Who This White Paper is Primarily For: Supply Chain Managers, Supply Chain Planners, Corporate CEOs, Supply Chain Professionals, Chief Supply Chain Officers, Chief Procurement Officers, Supply Chain Leaders, and Supply Chain Students.