Supply chain and digital supply chain management applications and services may be losing their return on investment (ROI) luster — at least in the eyes of top executives in a new survey.

As the pandemic moves further into the rearview mirror, supply chain executives show signs of losing the strategic gains they made with their C-suite counterparts, according to new research from Ernst & Young LLP.

Supply chain survey results

While 88% of supply chain executives report that their organization’s supply chain plays a vital role in enhancing the customer experience by promptly addressing and meeting customer needs, their colleagues across the C-suite overwhelmingly (88%) view the supply chain function as a cost center.

Ernst & Young recently surveyed 347 U.S. supply chain executives from various industries whose companies have at least $500 million in annual revenue.

Despite a heightened awareness of the importance of supply chains, 78% of supply chain leaders say their organization is back to focusing on supply chain cost management post-pandemic, with 28% citing cost reduction as one of the top three priorities currently, a shift from pandemic-era strategies.

Supply chain priority shifts since the pandemic

“The series of supply chain shocks that started with the pandemic elevated the role of supply chain leaders in the C-suite, but executive teams are increasingly reverting to outdated views of the supply chain as a cost center rather than a growth engine,” says Ashutosh Dekhne, Americas supply chain and operations practice leader at Ernst & Young. “Our research uncovered concerning perception gaps between supply chain and C-suite executives around the value of supply chain, the digital maturity of supply chains and the value of cross-collaboration.”

Other key takeaways from the Ernst & Young survey

• Almost all (97%) supply chain leaders report facing challenges with supply chain metrics, and only 44% currently track customer satisfaction as a key performance indicator.
• Supply chain leaders are overlooking customer experience, with 84% admitting to spending more time focused on internal operations than customer needs and 76% prioritizing creating new and innovative products over creating the best customer experience.
• To enhance supply chain resiliency, 80% of supply chain leaders are improving internal cross-functional collaboration and 79% are improving cross-functional collaboration with external vendors.
• While 87% of supply chain leaders say their organization has made significant investments to improve supply chain resiliency, about one in five (19%) admit that today, they are unprepared to face supply chain disruptions due to supply shortages.

Sign up

Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.