The 2012 Global Supply Chain Agenda

For the 4th year in a row Capgemini Consulting is pleased to present the result of our annual international supply chain survey. The study assesses the views of supply chain executives around the world on their key priorities.

In recent months, the world economy has dropped due to the continuing euro-zone crisis. The resulting uncertainty around the future economic situation is reflected in our 2012 supply chain survey. Specifically, market volatility (52%) was voted the number one business driver that respondents currently face. This is followed by the economic downturn (39% of the respondents). On the other hand, only 17% have an optimistic outlook and believe that economy will recover in 2012. However, when compared to the previous economic slowdown of ‘08-‘09, it appears that companies are better prepared to handle the volatility. In our current survey 52% of the respondents indicate that they are now better prepared for a more volatile environment, while the remaining indicate there are equally (43%) or even worse prepared (6%).

So what are the strategic plans for 2012? 65% of the respondents indicate that they have planned operational excellence projects. Supply chain visibility improvement (57%), and business innovation (56%) are also ranked high in the list.

In this year’s edition of Capgemini Consulting’s annual international supply chain study, 350 leading companies participated from Europe (64%), the Americas (21%), Asia-Pacific (11%) and Others (4%).   In this report we first look at the business drivers for companies in 2012. Secondly we share how companies are prepared for market uncertainty and what kind of measures they have taken to improve their supply chain flexibility. Next, we provide the list of top 10 supply chain projects as voted by our respondents and the difficulties in the project execution. We summarize the report at the end.

> Download a free copy of the report