Companies that have the skills and knowledge to have a tighter relationship with the end customer will emerge stronger, more resilient, and more digital.
Much has been written about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains and the predicted long-term effect on the global economy. What no one expected to emerge from this disruptive period, however, is clarity into the key attributes that will define success in a post-pandemic global economy.

In talks with our Digital Supply Chain Institute member companies, we’ve found that nearly all of them are engaged in digital transformation projects. Some are large-scale, enterprise-level endeavors, and others are more modest efforts focused on fixing immediate problems. One thing that is frequently missing in the planning and prioritization of these projects is a clear set of targeted performance improvement outcomes. It’s easy to be drawn into simply creating a short-term workaround or become lost in building large-scale infrastructure while overlooking the critical improvements and outcomes that a digital supply chain offers.

At the Digital Supply Chain Institute (DSCI), we have been conducting a series of discussions with supply chain leaders as part of our Women Leading Digital Supply Chain Transformations initiative. On January 27, we were fortunate to have Julie Hamilton, chief commercial officer at Diageo, the global beverage company, join Sugathri Kolluru, DSCI manager, emerging technologies, for a discussion of the leadership lessons from the pandemic. Here are some snippets from the conversation edited for brevity and clarity. You can watch the entire 30-minute program here.