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The Digital Supply Chain Challenge 2nd Edition

Breaking Through

By Ralf W. Seifert and Richard Markoff

December 2023

Overview

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Authors

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Overview

Book preview

Authors

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The challenges facing supply chain professionals are changing rapidly. Today, far from focusing on capital expenditures and logistics such as warehousing and distribution, supply chain executives are expected to understand all aspects of the business, appreciate the constraints and expectations of upstream and downstream partners, and possess sufficient technological savvy to navigate the bewildering array of options presented by Industry 4.0 and supply chain digitalization (SCD). This book is for them.

The Digital Supply Chain Challenge: Breaking Through 2nd Edition is a distillation of the authors’ 50+ years of combined supply chain experience, both at the coal face and in the classroom. Their insights and observations – captured in short articles and best-practice case studies – are brought together in one place for supply chain executives to consult at different times during their SCD voyage, to find benchmarks, relevant insights or even just to help formulate the right questions along the way. It is a sort of handbook to the essentials of digital supply chain transformation.

This new edition contains additional chapters on AI, an evaluation of Industry 4.0, why the promised fourth industrial revolution hasn’t happened yet and new cases studies on Henkel, HEINEKEN, L’Oreal and Zalando.

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Publisher

IMD CSL

ISBN

978-2-940485-72-7

Ralf Seifert

Professor of Operations Management.

Ralf Seifert is Professor of Operations Management. His primary research and teaching interests are operations management, supply chain strategy, and digital transformation. His work lies at the heart of one of the most important topics currently facing organizations, as supply chains come under strain due to multiple global changes. He has also worked on industry analysis, competitive strategy, and new venture formation.

Seifert says supply chain management has grown tremendously in importance in recent years, and the agenda for supply chain executives has expanded massively. They must now address topics such as digital transformation, supply chain resilience, and sustainability in addition to worries around cost pressure, inflation, and new geopolitical constraints.

Recent supply chain tensions have been triggered by strong demand for goods at a time of significant supply chain disruptions. It is not clear if the world will ever return to a situation in which just-in-time inventory management is seen as the holy grail. Executives will have to master more profound supply chain transformations to safeguard future operations, he says.

Richard Markoff

has an extensive and varied supply chain background. His career includes 22 years with L’Oréal, starting in Canada in manufacturing before stints in Paris and New York, with ever-increasing supply chain responsibilities and scope.
He completed his adventure at L’Oréal as the company’s first global supply chain standards director, defining and promoting best practices in customer collaboration, distribution, demand planning and production planning.

Throughout his career, Richard has been a constant agent of change and innovation in supply chain. He has been a pioneer of supply chain digitalization, for which he was cited in the Wall Street Journal, among other publications.
He continues this spirit of innovation today as a supply chain strategy advisor, professor, author and board member based in Geneva, Switzerland. Richard is also a co-founder and partner of the venture capital firm Innovobot, where he advises startups on their road to success.

Richard holds a PhD in supply chain management from ESCP-La Sorbonne (France), where his research shed light on supply chain governance and its articulation with finance; an MBA specialized in supply chain from Northeastern University (US); and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from McGill University (Canada).

Keep reading

Article

Building the Foundations for Sustainable Performance - Tariq Farooq

Tariq Farooq, Head of Global Supply Chain at Fresenius Kabi and former CSCO at Sanofi, reflects on why transformation requires disciplined execution, foundational capability building, and alignment between leadership intent and operational reality...

Supply Chain

By Ralf W. Seifert and Katrin Siebenbürger Hacki

in I by IMD

30 June 2025

Case Study

UrbanLuxe: Supply chain and M&A

This brief case exercise presents an increasingly common business scenario: An established player acquires a small, agile start-up to re-energize its value proposition. In this case, established global beauty giant UrbanLuxe acquires beauty start-...

Supply Chain Mergers and Acquisitions Operations Strategy

By Ralf W. Seifert and Richard Markoff

Article

Balancing resilience and efficiency: A literature review on overcoming supply chain disruptions

The supply chain risk management literature differentiates between disruption risk that arises from supply disruptions to normal activities and recurrent risk that arises from problems in coordinating supply and demand in the absence of disruption...

Supply Chain Resilience

By Florian Lücker, Anna Timonina-Farkas and Ralf W. Seifert

in Production and Operations Management

June 2025, vol. 34, issue 6, https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241302735

Article

Can the US use its Ukraine tactics to get Middle East minerals?

The US deal granting it future revenue and access to Ukraine’s mineral sector raises a broader question: is this the beginning of a model for American foreign policy, one that links strategic resource access to long-term diplomatic and financial c...

Supply Chain Geopolitics

By Karl Schmedders

in The National

31 May 2025

Article

‘Designed in California, assembled in the Gulf’: Region gains traction as a friendshoring destination

Multinational businesses are recalibrating their global supply chains, with one eye focused firmly on Washington. As the Donald Trump administration reignites the use of tariffs as a blunt instrument of economic leverage, so-called “friendshoring”...

Supply Chain Geopolitics

By Carlos Cordon

in The National

17 May 2025

Article

Will shortages hit before tariff tensions ease?

As tariff tensions simmer and uncertainty clouds the future of global trade, freight industry leaders reflect on how businesses can brace for potential shortages, adapt supply chains, and stay resilient in a rapidly shifting landscape.

Global Business Politics Strategy Supply Chain

By Simon J. Evenett

in I by IMD

Article

Leading Global Operations - Complexity and Change

Leading global operations through complexity and change in 2025 means embracing AI and ML to streamline supply chains and meet rising demands.

Digital Leadership Strategy Supply Chain

By Ralf W. Seifert and Katrin Siebenbürger Hacki

in I by IMD

Article

Easter egg hunt: How Trump’s trade policy has businesses scrambling for loopholes

“You don’t exit China, you hide it—like colorful eggs.” That’s what a top executive at a European multinational told me, just days after President Trump’s April 2025 bombshell: a new national economic emergency order that slapped a 10 percent tari...

Technology Management Supply Chain

By Howard H. Yu

in Inc.

19 April 2025

UrbanLuxe: Supply chain and M&A

By Ralf W. Seifert and Richard Markoff
Case reference: IMD-2654 ©2024

Summary

Reference IMD-2654

Available Languages English

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Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications

Related topics

Supply Chain

Mergers and Acquisitions

Operations

Strategy

Browse all topics

Balancing resilience and efficiency: A literature review on overcoming supply chain disruptions

By Florian Lücker Anna Timonina-Farkas and Ralf W. Seifert
in Production and Operations Management June 2025, vol. 34, issue 6, https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241302735

Summary

Contact

Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications

Related topics

Supply Chain

Resilience

Browse all topics

Can the US use its Ukraine tactics to get Middle East minerals?

By Karl Schmedders
in The National 31 May 2025

Summary

Contact

Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications