It’s never been easy, as there have been challenges since the dawn of time with maintaining trade routes, but we’re at a point where it’s now getting harder by the day.

Disruptions are regular.
Risk is high.
Logistics costs are high and spike regularly.
Suppliers are in constant peril.
Markets are unpredictable.
And the list goes on.

How do you create a source-ready supply chain? We know that, especially in manufacturing, you have to direct source with supply chain awareness. (As per our joint series with Bob Ferrari on how direct sourcing solutions don’t work for direct.) We also know that you have to more finely classify your categories in order to come up with appropriate sourcing strategies and day-to-day Procurement Management. That’s why we created Busch-Lamoureux Exact Purchasing which, based on the pocket cube, is the first framework with a real shot at succeeding because it’s the first to admit that risk, complexity, and impact are all fully independent dimensions and that’s why the Kraljic Matrix, and every 2*2 methodology that evolved from it, doesn’t work. And we know that centralization doesn’t work, center-led is decades behind (it’s a center of excellence that shares knowledge and best practices and orchestrates Sourcing and Procurement, with Logistics and Supply Chain, but doesn’t actually execute), and Procurement as a whole has, more-or-less, learned nothing in the past two decades (see our previous posts).

We know a lot on what not to do, and we know a lot on what to do, but what’s the cohesive strategy for a source-ready supply chain? That’s the 40 Trillion dollar question.

And there is no good, or at least no simple, answer.

But there is one common thread.

Human Centric Supply Chains

There’s been one constant in trade since it began. Two, human, parties working out an agreement to exchange goods, where the goods might be currency that represents the ability to buy goods from a third party.

Supply Chains are not managed by technology, not enabled by motorized transportation, and not designed by agentic systems. This is all done by way of human intelligence who deploy the technology to help them be efficient, use modern transportation to speed it up, and agentic systems to help them execute repetitive processes. But the common thread is human intelligence — intelligent humans applying their problem solving, risk management, and wisdom to solve problems, design processes, and apply the right technology to the task. And, most importantly, ignoring (hallucinatory) Gen-AI and hands-off agentic systems. Intelligent humans use the best augmented intelligence technology to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness, 10X-ing their capabilities compared to peers, but they ignore technology that makes decisions — they keep the decisions and strategic analysis to themselves (and their mental acuity in tip-top condition) and use tech for what it is best at, data crunching and tactical processing.

This means that a source-ready supply chain is one that is staffed by intelligent, educated humans across all key functions and locations who can bring wisdom and problem solving to any issue that might arrive and conquer it. Intelligent, educated humans that never cease their quest to learn, improve, and evolve … intelligently … while applying, when it’s appropriate, all the best practice advice that SI has given you over the past two decades.