Insights from the 2024 Supply Chain Barometer
Global market dynamics continue to shift, with geopolitical tensions and the redesign of supply chains as prominent contributors. The following 12 months, like the past, will pose significant challenges for CEOs to navigate. Proxima’s 2024 Supply Chain Barometer surveyed 3,000 CEOs from the UK, US, DACH, and Benelux, providing rich insight into their decisions and priorities for the year ahead. The insights also span multiple sectors – from Aviation to Retail to Communications and many others.
An overarching theme is that CEOs continue to spend more time on supply chain-related topics, in some cases by as much as an extra day a week, reflecting the magnitude and complexity of the challenges being faced. Furthermore, those challenges are amplified in larger organizations. Where there’s complexity, they have more; where there’s confidence, they have less.
The report explores supply chain transparency and visibility and the progress made in this space after being on the agenda for over a decade. Automotive leads the way in having sufficient transparency to inform decision-making, which might reflect the sector’s maturity. Additionally, concerns about human rights issues in the supply chain have increased, with a cross-sector average of 70% of CEOs expressing concern. Although the figure varies across sectors, the ‘concern’ element reinstates that transparency doesn’t equate to change. It’s the action CEOs take in response to the landscape ahead.
In a time when disruption seems inevitable, 86% of CEOs see a resiliency challenge in their supply chains. It’s clear that no silver bullet exists, but multiple strategies are underway to protect and strengthen supply chains, including an increasing trend toward nearshoring, onshoring, and friendshoring.
From a sustainability perspective, the complexity of the work involved appears to be the most significant barrier to progressing supply chain decarbonization. Yet, 86% of CEOs are confident they have the talent to implement sustainability in their supply chains. This interesting insight indicates that having the talent doesn’t necessarily mean understanding how to tackle the issue.
Exploring the hot topic of AI, almost all CEOs professed to be considering or actively using AI in their supply chains. However, only 22% expect AI to have a great impact in the next year. With global corporate investment in AI forecast to hit over $630 billion by 2028, businesses must close the impact gap to ensure value for money.
The final insight concerns cost reduction, which remains a priority for 99% of CEOs. While traditional means of cost reduction, such as supplier auditing, is still a go-to approach for around half of CEOs, the same amount are now exploring bigger and bolder initiatives. CEOs are broadening the parameters of what can be targeted for savings, reflecting a new perspective on the impact of good procurement.
What can we take from the insights in the 2024 Supply Chain Barometer? The challenges that suppliers pose and address are now clearly seen as business-impacting topics, ones that deserve a significant proportion of CEOs’ attention. The responses suggest few magic formulas or silver bullets. Different strategies are being deployed, and as the difficult operating environment persists, there will undoubtedly be a renewed and bold focus on operating costs that will reduce any financial stress and enable investment in solutions. For now, the CEOs’ eyes are very firmly on supply chains.
If you need to get to grips with the challenges of today, we can help. Complete the form below to read the insights from this year’s Supply Chain Barometer, or get in touch with us today.
