Supply chain disruption during the global pandemic offers chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) a prime opportunity to get leadership backing for supply chain digital transformation. Gartner research shows that the pandemic has only increased the urgency for digitalization. Many CEOs expect to accelerate digital initiatives, and the vast majority of CSCOs intend to dramatically speed up their supply chain digital maturity progress over the next five years. CSCOs must build a sound business case to support their digital vision's business value "Supply chain leaders should take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime chance to raise the profile of the supply chain function and develop supply chain capabilities to support business priorities," says Pierfrancesco Manenti, VP Analyst, Gartner. "But CSCOs must build a sound business case to support their digital vision's business value and priority alignment."

For some companies, it means replacing manual, paper and pencil processes with digital data and process support. For some companies it means using autonomous mobile robots and other forms of robotics in their supply chain. For some, it means applying machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to supply chain Big Data. And for some, it means getting better digital data to support an end to end supply chain involving multiple tiers of a company's supply chain. For example, putting a warehouse management system in to replace paper and pencil data in the warehouse would be a limited form of digitization.

One of the major hurdles companies face in transforming to a Digital Supply Chain is their inability to get data from customers and suppliers--or even from other departments in their own company. What is new is the idea of "trading data" to overcome that hurdle and use as a catalyst for Digital Supply Chain transformation. Companies are aggressively turning to artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to gain a competitive advantage. But for that strategy to succeed, companies must develop algorithms that rely on AI/ML technology to run their business. And what is the life force behind algorithms?