Our results were quite fascinating: We found out that supply chain software can no longer be treated as a black box. Companies need a system in which all stakeholders in the supply chain—including the board, customers, suppliers and related areas such as finance and IT departments—can contribute to the decision-making process.
In addition to fostering innovation through the chain, this collaborative approach provides two main benefits: First, it prevents a single function, typically IT, being blamed for poor decisions. It also prevents users from later complaining that the systems don’t perform as expected.
We call such a system a “Supply Chain IT Governance System” and based on the results of our research, we believe that designing and maintaining such a system can dramatically improve the success rate of supply chain IT initiatives. In more precise words, the definition and core elements of such a system are described below:
