Supply Chain Metrics

That Matter
Q&A with Lora Cecere
moderated by Prof.dr. Bram Desmet
Founder: Lora Cecere
• Founder of Supply Chain Insights
• “LinkedIn Influencer”, +80k followers
• Guest blog for Forbes
• Author of 3 books: Bricks Matter (2012), Shaman’s Journal (2014)
and Supply Chain Metrics That Matter (December 2014)
• Founder of online supply chain community called ‘Beetfusion’
• Partner at Altimeter Group (leader in open research)
• 7 years of Management Experience leading Analyst Teams at Gartner
and AMR Research
• 8 years Experience in Marketing and Selling Supply Chain Software at Descartes
Systems Group and Manugistics (now JDA)
• 15 Years Leading teams in Manufacturing and Distribution operations for Clorox,
Kraft/General Foods, Nestle/Dreyers Grand Ice Cream and Procter & Gamble.

Contact Information:
• Email: lora.cecere@supplychaininsights.com
• Blog: www.supplychainshaman.com (6000 pageviews/month)
• Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/search/?q=lora+cecere
• Twitter: lcecere (5750 followers)
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/pub/lora-cecere/0/196/573 (35,000 followers)
 1 – Our company is stuck at the
intersection of operating margin
and inventory turns
 2. Sales and Finance don’t
understand the complexity of
the supply chain
Manage Costs Like a Decathlete
The Efficient Supply Chain is the
Most Effective
 3 – In our company
functional goals overpower
corporate objectives
Alignment
4 – In our company we are too
reliant on historical best
practices
5 – In our company we lack a
balanced set of metrics and
targets
The Effective Frontier
Correlations to Market Capitalization
6. The last question … what’s
your advice to the companies
that want to improve on the
metrics that matter (max 5
words)
Retail: Operating Margin vs. Inventory Turns
(2006 – 2015)
Dow & DuPont
Key Takeways
• develop understanding of supply chain as a
complex system
• ensure functional goals are complemented with
company wide goals and incentives
• adopt forward thinking supply chain practices such
as outside-in
• set targets for a portfolio of metrics that matter
• all this will drive improvement on both operating
margin and inventory turns
 Thank You!

lora.cecere@supplychaininsights.com bram.desmet@mobius.eu

@lcecere (+7000 followers) @bram_desmet

linkedin.com/pub/lora-cecere/0/196/573 be.linkedin.com/pub/bram-desmet/1/788/823/
(+80,000 followers) +32.497.58.28.60
Blog: www.supplychainshaman.com
(6000 pageviews/month)