Organizations recognize the value of going digital with their supply chain but, in many cases, have introduced the idea as point solutions to automate specific processes or functions. This fragmented and opportunistic approach undermines full potential. How can organizations define and adopt digital in ONE holistic approach to operating supply chains across the globe?

Contributor

• • Jamie Bragg, Executive Vice President & Chief Supply Chain Officer, Tailored Brands, Inc.

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Transcript 

Sanjog Aul [00:00:00]:
Welcome listeners. This is Sanjog Aul, your host, and the topic for conversation is Evolving to One Digital Supply Chain, and joining me is Jamie Bragg. Jamie is the Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer with Tailored Brands. Hello Jamie. Thank you for joining us.

Jamie Bragg [00:00:16]:
Thanks for having me.

Sanjog Aul [00:00:18]:
And so the reason we have come together today is because most organizations as we see, is recognizing the value of going digital when it comes to supply chain, but then introduce it only as a point solution to automate, say, specific processes or functions, and this is a rather fragmented and opportunistic approach that may be undermining what supply chain can become. So the discussion here is to explore how organizations can define and adopt digital in one holistic approach to operating supply chain across the globe. So that said, Jamie, what do you see as the business challenges and triggers that have increased the need to improve supply chain and the global trade management?

Jamie Bragg [00:01:03]:
Well, I’d say that when you look at the changing preferences and shopping patterns coming from tailored brands or retail organization, there’s been a significant shift in both that have really precipitated us to have to change our business, transform our business really. You need a much more precise control over inventory and visibility of where your future inventory is, and there’s a lot of there’s increased demand for transparency on where your products are coming from. Particularly with Millennial from a tailored brands perspective, our MO is to put our customer first and our shift in our, the big shift in our business in recent years has been towards mass customization. So customers being able to create their own products in our stores, a custom suit or dress shirt, and then have that manufactured to their specifications and what they’ve chosen and brought to them and personalizing it. That’s very different from business just not that long ago where you had purchase orders for thousands of units coming in and you put them in your stores and you’ve sold them versus thousands of purchase orders for one unit for a specific customer. So we’ve really spent a lot of our time and effort around evolving our digital supply chain to manage through these changes and preference and the mass customization of products.

Sanjog Aul [00:02:33]:
So when we see supply chains, most supply chains are hybrid and still using a mix of unoptimized paper based systems and it enabled components. So what’s preventing organizations from going digital all the way? Because that will help you minimize waste and bring higher profits.

Jamie Bragg [00:02:52]:
I think the first big hurdle companies have to clear is to create a master data management structure that houses all the information not only from their host disparate systems, but also from outside vendors, service providers anywhere that they have data that affects their supply chain. It sounds like a daunting task just on its own, but when you look across the organization and understand who owns specific pieces of data or systems where information might be kept manually, and how you can provide a path to get that data into a host system or into that master data management structure, that’s really where the hard work begins. Because you have to work cross functionally to be able to come up with a structure that everybody can agree on and contribute to. In order to be able to have the visibility and the access to the data, you’re going to really need to take that full digital journey.

Sanjog Aul [00:03:51]:
So would you call data like what you just mentioned as master data management? Is that the core of the problem or are there other issues related to processes and anything else that you can point to?

Jamie Bragg [00:04:03]:
I think that once you’ve overcome, I think once you overcome what that master data management structure looks like, you architect it and you start populating it, then you’re going to naturally understand where the challenges in process are and that’s going to be the next logical step, but obviously you can’t move forward in a digital strategy without first having that structure in place, and along the way, when you work through that cross functional journey with your business peers in your organization, you’re going to understand where there might be some disconnects in process and have to work through trying to figure out how those would be, how you can compromise on them.

Sanjog Aul [00:04:42]:
So let’s talk about what I would like to envision as a robust digital enabled supply chain. I’d like to see that to be automated, predictive, adaptive and which offers real time visibility. How far do you think we have come in that journey?

Jamie Bragg [00:05:00]:
I think the type of supply chain that you describe is within a five to seven years reach for the early adopters. For people who are really investing in technology now. I think the technologies that are going to enable that reality are all in various stages of acceptance, or even practical use for that matter. Whether it’s artificial intelligence or machine learning or blockchain enabled platforms, those are probably some of the most prominent, but as they as computing speed continues to increase and supply chain driven companies move through the proof of concept stage to daily use and trust of those systems to analyze these massive amounts of data I was talking about then, that’s how that typical supply chain is going to evolve to a digital one. Meaning that you have these processes that are all kind of working through, kind of a crawl, walk, run, staging proof of concept to being able to move beyond that to regular use, to really understanding what the power of that particular piece of technology is for the business and how you can apply it elsewhere. That’s going to be a process that’s going to take some time, but I think that there are enough people out there, enough companies out there admirably that are able to invest in that technology now and they’ll be at the forefront, they’ll be there first.

Sanjog Aul [00:06:19]:
External parties, which would include suppliers, logistics and service providers. They all come from different business and financial conditions and even different risk profiles. So if you’re trying to go ahead and build as an organization a holistic and an inclusive digital supply chain strategy which is sustainable and it’ll have a long term approach for execution, how would you go about doing it?

Jamie Bragg [00:06:50]:
I think it all starts with knowing that you need highly collaborative relationships with your outsourced providers and business partners. It becomes part of the evaluation process for whom you choose to do business with. It’s no longer kind of an us against them kind of strategy. I’m responsible for sourcing at tailored brands, and it used to be that we were constantly working with our factory bases to really maximize our costs, but what we found over the last couple years anyway is that really taking this collaborative approach and understanding where we have wants and needs to intersect and being able to work towards that has been really helpful. So you need to share the vision that you have for your entire supply chain network with your vendor base, and you got to gain commitment from them that are willing to help to do whatever it takes to partner with you and your company on that same journey because they’re going to have their own journey that you should be listening to just as equally to understand where you might be able to help,

Jamie Bragg [00:07:51]:
and so long gone are those days when you’re managing just your company assets in the supply chain. You need to start viewing doing it as one ecosystem and having two way communication with all those external partners, and you create more win win solutions along the way, and everybody really benefits from that.

Sanjog Aul [00:08:08]:
So let’s take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back, and we should talk about the processes, the people and the culture changes that may be needed to get the organization ready for the holistic digitalization of its supply chain. Please stay tuned. Will be right.

Speaker C [00:08:22]:
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Sanjog Aul [00:09:01]:
Welcome back. So Jamie, let’s talk about the processes, the people and the culture changes that we need to get the organization ready for this holistic digitization of its supply chain.

Jamie Bragg [00:09:14]:
Sure. The nature of the work really requires the technology and a connectedness of a supply chain for that to occur, and you’ll see with many supply chain orgs are going to start looking for data management experience and expertise and machines are not going to replace all the work over time, but the skill set that people need to have to continue to be successful in a supply chain environment are, that is fully digitized. That’ll change. So understanding your roadmap, what the new skills will look like based on what you’re planning on implementing and in what order will give you an outlook on what skills your employees and your high potential personnel will need to be successful and to enable those future supply chain leaders to have a plan in place to make sure that your teams have the training and skills in place as your organization continues to evolve.

Sanjog Aul [00:10:09]:
Now, how deep and broad does global trade management technology need to be in order to hit all the marks, which is ensure compliance with global trade regulations, keep the supply chain flexible and configurable to support complex global needs and lower the cost of delivering product to market?

Jamie Bragg [00:10:31]:
I think to hit all marks that you mentioned and actually save save money in the process, they need to be very broad and very deep because all suppliers down to the individual item or shipment level. So it’s an all encompassing effort that could take a very long time to accomplish. I think that my recommendation is that when, if you’re looking at heading down that path, is to look for a couple of surefire use cases that you will increase efficiency, will increase visibility and potentially save you some money, and to start with your proof of concepts in that area to learn and sometimes fail forward what the different technologies that are available out there will gain for you, and that will give you an outlook on where you should go next with that technology. It’ll allow you to be able to understand what the next big implementation could be within your global trade management network.

Sanjog Aul [00:11:24]:
And what you just suggested, would that take care of all these different three, four areas that I just mentioned?

Jamie Bragg [00:11:30]:
Well, that’s good, good question. I think it’s a good start I think that I’d be lying to you if I said we were already down that road and already solved all these problems, because we’re not, but I think that the approach we’re taking is that we want to be able to provide a better experience for our customers and we want to be able to take the technologies that are out there and be able to not only make sure that we’re ensuring our compliance and understanding that we’re, that we’re inspect with global trade regulations, but we want to be able to make sure that we have the best visibility we can from our perspective so we can pass that information not only just back to us for our use, but also to our customer. So I think over time that the more experience we get with that, the better outlook I would have on what that might look like to hit all the marks to your point.

Sanjog Aul [00:12:25]:
So how should organizations rank and then roll out digital pilots to ensure greatest returns from the start? And for that matter, what would it take to keep up the till? There are no weak links left, and you can call that particular implementation or the rollout to lead to that one digital supply chain?

Jamie Bragg [00:12:49]:
Well, I think initially folks that are really supply chain focused have a definite opinion on what they need to do first. What are the digital pilots that are going to be that give them the quickest results? But I think initially it’s a cross functional effort and you need to make sure that all aspects of your organization are in alignment with what the end game is here. Taylor Brands we use a tool called the Sustain Disrupt model where we essentially understand as a team what’s the current paradigm and how are we accomplishing results today. What are the systems, processes and so forth that really pay the bills today, and then on the disrupt side of the model you have all the different possibilities, all the different technologies and proof of concepts that you for a fact will help you move towards that digital supply chain view. So you intentionally identify these practices and you also have this portfolio of opportunities that you have that can disrupt or change or transform your business. So these are the ideas that you want to gain insight from your cross functional peers as to what’s the most achievable, and sometimes you may have to take something that from a supply chain perspective could have high value and maybe put it on lower priority because of resources somewhere else in the company, maybe it maybe somewhere else in order to continue to move,

Jamie Bragg [00:14:13]:
and so every organization is different but you want to take, once you’ve kind of aligned on what the opportunities are, you want to focus on the highest potential impact projects that would work for the entire cross functional organization, and then once you have that kind of compact list, you want to focus on two or three of those initiatives only because any more than that and nothing’s really going to get accomplished, but if you have a cross functional alignment on a transformative effort and you’re working on these two to three items then or projects and you’re able to get those done as they complete, you can revisit that list and you already have cross functional awareness of what that list is. You may have to reprioritize it and understand what’s known 1, 2 and 3 now, but you want to understand what is going to slide in in place when that next availability is there to put out another pilot, to start another effort to kind of continue to be able to roll through that. Now what will happen is the things that were in proof of concept become regular business practice and become that sustainable part of your portfolio. They’re the things that are your new paradigm, and you still are working with these prospects on the transformative side, but the process just kind of keeps rolling from there. You know what those next opportunities are and you continue to work through your teams, whether that’s a transformation office or whatever you might call it, to continue the process,

Jamie Bragg [00:15:34]:
and you never really, you always have two or three of these projects in play. As one becomes the new reality, another one slides in based off of how important it is.

Sanjog Aul [00:15:47]:
Once again, thank you Jamie for sharing your thoughts and insights about how organizations can evolve to one digital supply chain. Thank you and listeners. I invite you to find related conversations on our website@ciotalknetwork.com.

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