We'll show you how to address five leadership imperatives: Formulating a strategy to deliver customer value; justifying investments; cascading goals and metrics; building the right organization and governance framework; and designing for innovation. Then, a panel of supply chain executives will tell us how they overcome the challenges to profitable execution of the strategy.

The increased pace of business leaves many leaders so focused on operations that they have little bandwidth left for innovation and thinking about the future. At the same time, there is a greater need to drive systemic change. How do supply chain leaders balance operations and innovation? We'll establish the critical role that centers of excellence (CoEs) play in driving change and building SC innovation capabilities.

As we complete the first quarter of the century, what will supply chain planning look like? How will organizations, processes and technology evolve between now and then? We'll expose attendees to the vision of 2025, including a look at planning organization structures, new developments in demand and supply processes, and the technology features on the horizon that will change the game in supporting planning agility.

Dynamic forces are compelling organizations to rethink competitive relationships, and seek value from less-traditional partners. Successful logistics collaboration is a balancing act that requires a specific blend of art and science. We'll cover the evolving concept of logistics collaboration, focusing on the market drivers, enablers, inhibitors, critical stakeholders, and areas of joint value. We'll also outline case studies and strategies to win.

Dramatic changes in market dynamics and technology innovation are ratifying the factory of the future and manufacturing initiatives like smart manufacturing or Industry 4.0, while also creating challenges for global manufacturers to adapt and evolve. We'll provide manufacturing strategists and innovation leaders guidance and real-world examples of how to develop capabilities to meet these new challenges.

We'll focus on how supply chain metrics are – and can be – used by heads of supply chain to align supply chain activities with corporate goals and objectives. What metrics do CSCOs rely on to assess the performance of their supply chains? How are corporate goals cascaded down, and how do they translate corporate goals into targets for their supply chain organizations and ensure the goals are achieved? We'll provide examples from new research.

Many supply chain planning leaders implement an S&OP process without considering how to link S&OP decisions with the execution process. As a result, S&OP focuses on short-term issues and the process becomes locked into a low stage of maturity. We'll describe how planning leaders can use the sales and operations execution (S&OE) process to monitor how demand and supply are coming in compared to the plan, and make choices on when and how to respond to deviations.

Digital business is radically changing entire industries, and will continue to do so. To date, however, companies have taken an incremental and bottoms-up approach to this revolution. Things like 3D printing, automation and entire businesses based on digitalization are radically affecting supply chain operations. We'll explore the impact of this revolution, and steps companies should take to survive and thrive in this new world.

As executives and supply chain leaders develop new strategies for the digital business era, chief procurement officers (CPOs) must adapt, update and align their supply management vision, strategy, initiatives and metrics. We'll highlight the people, process and technology implications CPOs and their supply management teams must consider as business goes digital.

Being demand-driven often means leading organizations away from cherished business models into uncertainty. What can we learn from a company that has taken the ultimate journey from manufacturer to solution orchestrator?

We'll show how to use Gartner’s Hierarchy of Supply Chain Metrics to focus on the metrics that matter, and to use metrics more effectively to manage end-to-end tradeoffs. We'll feature best practices from companies that have implemented the Hierarchy of Metrics.

Inventory is a complex supply chain topic that is impacted by lead times, constraints, volatility and product complexity. We'll provide supply chain planning and inventory management leaders with a comprehensive framework to develop a comprehensive approach to both increased inventory performance and supply chain maturity.

Logistics and transportation organizations are under enormous pressure to control transportation costs. Shippers face unprecedented capacity constraints while carriers and private fleets face driver shortages, increased equipment costs, and continued volatility in fuel costs that threaten to drive costs higher. We'll explore how transportation modeling and transportation forecasting are becoming critical competencies for organizations looking to manage these forces.

Exploding product and process complexity profoundly impacts the supply chain. Emerging product innovation platforms provide new opportunities to manage this complexity more effectively. We'll address how these platforms will enable supply chain professionals who play key roles in managing the product value chain.