Your Supply Chain Called — It Wants a Seat at the Strategy Table 

Retail at its core has always been about moving a product from one place to another — from supplier to consumer. 

Let’s start with a history lesson: 

Picture the traditional general store (the kind you see in old western movies). The store owner knew every customer by name. They knew who needed flour on Tuesday, who would buy tobacco on Friday, and when the next shipment of cloth might arrive. Products were sourced locally (or whatever traders could bring in) and there was only one outlet to manage. The process was unified, personal, and simple. 

Now scale that up to today’s retailers: hundreds — sometimes thousands — of outlets. Customers connected through digital channels. Suppliers spanning the globe. Suddenly that simple flow from A → B turns into a spiderweb of decisions, risks, and interdependencies. Staying aligned across assortment, pricing, promotions, and supply chain isn’t just hard. It’s chaotic. 

The challenges are still rooted in that same basic idea — just magnified: 

• Assortment – putting the right products in the right places 

• Price – ensuring they’re offered at a value customers will accept 

• Promotion planning – hitting financial targets while winning share from competitors 

• Supply chain – physically moving products as efficiently as possible 

The reason these areas became separated is historical. They evolved in isolation. Supply chain in particular became a downstream function in a waterfall: inherit decisions from assortment and price, then optimise the movement in between. 

That world is crumbling. 

Supply Chain Isn’t What It Used to Be 

For years, “supply chain solutions” meant a narrow set of goals: optimise inventory, improve availability, reduce waste. It was a world of forecasts, safety stock, lead times, and OTIF metrics (On-Time-In-Full, for those who aren’t supply chain nerds). 

But technology has blown that definition apart. 

Today, supply chain can’t just be about moving boxes. It’s about whether the business can execute its strategy. In real time. In sync with every other decision being made. 

From Cost Centre to Strategic Driver 

Traditionally, supply chain was treated as a cost to control. That mindset created endless internal debates: should we expand assortment, run more promotions, or hold back to keep logistics lean? 

Modern technology flips that equation. Supply chain is no longer a drag on ambition. It’s a lever for growth. 

• Hyper-localisation – tailoring down to the store or even the individual customer. Nearly impossible without a supply chain built for both strength and flexibility. 

• Dynamic assortment – flexing based on trends, seasonality, and local preferences. Here, supply chain isn’t an afterthought — it’s the bottleneck or the accelerator. 

• Faster innovation cycles – testing and scaling products at speed. The future is uncertain; supply chains need to enable quick wins and fast failures. 

• New customer experiences – from same-day delivery to seamless omnichannel. These sound great in strategy meetings — but they’ve also sunk businesses that underestimated the cost and strain of implementing them. 

AI, real-time data, and connected platforms make it possible to react faster, predict better, and plan smarter. But the real shift is this: supply chain is no longer just balancing SKUs. It’s determining whether your business can actually deliver on its strategy. 

The New Definition of Efficiency 

Old supply chains measured success by unit-level optimisation. Lower costs. Tighter turns. A few percentage points off logistics spend. 

Today, efficiency has a new meaning: 

• Strategic agility – How quickly can you pivot to new formats, new markets, or changing customer expectations? 

• Resource leverage – Are your people and capital deployed where they create the most impact? 

• Execution velocity – Can you turn a boardroom idea into operational reality in days, not months? 

It’s no longer about shaving 3% off logistics. It’s about whether your supply chain helps you lead — or holds you back. 

This Is a Tech Problem 

None of this happens without technology. Not bolt-on systems. Not siloed tools. But technology that rewires how your organisation actually works. 

Your systems need to be: 

• Integrated across planning, execution, and analytics 

• Built for change, not just stability 

• Designed for the edge, empowering decision-making closer to the customer, not just at HQ 

In short: your tech stack must be as dynamic as your strategy. 

Bottom Line: Rethink the Role 

If you’re still treating supply chain as a function to optimise instead of a capability to weaponise, you’re already behind. 

The winners won’t be the ones with the lowest inventory holding cost. They’ll be the ones whose supply chains act as accelerators of strategy — powered by technology that turns ideas into action at scale. 

👉 That’s where the Rusty Bicycle Problem (more on that next week) comes in — why so many retailers struggle to let go of old technology, and how it quietly drags the entire business down.