Part One: Where Will We Go from Here?
Innovation on product, business models and new services tops goals for multiple industries in 2015.
Part Two: The Year of Innovation
ChainLink’s Business Priorities 2015 looks at the business as well as the technology priorities of today’s professionals in Supply Chain. Part Two focuses on the technology priorities and challenges.
Positively, a positive, forward-looking group of responders! Most organizations have gotten into a different groove since our last survey. We asked our respondents what their top business goals were for 2015 and innovation came out on top. This jibes with other research on increases in hiring, IT spending and investments in new products. The conversations we have been having with manufacturers and distributors also support this revitalization and entrepreneurial energy. There is a significant focus on
changing business models, new product introductions, and changing service models. There are a number of catalyzing forces for this, as shown through the survey data and respondents’ points of view.
So what were the top business goals for 2015? As we stated, innovation came out on top. Now it’s all about new products and services, growing sales, and making the brand stronger. In addition, both manufacturers and retailers want to determine how to sell higher-margin products. (We might add that you can’t do that unless you have the analytics to accomplish it.) Unlike the bargain-focused last decade of price slashing, the introduction of more modestly priced product lines, and cost cutting, the
current goal appears to have become making money and growing profits.
Though there is an optimistic slant to these goals we can see that year by year managing risk attains a higher position (which we had not seen as an important goal in the past). It appears that organizations are beginning to understand the impact that various low-level and dramatic incidents are having on the business.