Gartner, Inc.’s annual Supply Chain Executive Conference held last week in Phoenix, AZ provided the platform for the release of its Supply Chain Top 25, which identifies industry “best practices.”
Unilever scored the top spot for the third year in a row, followed by Inditex, Cisco, Colgate-Palmolive and Intel. Home Depot rejoined the ranking after a three-year hiatus, while Novo Nordisk and Adidas joined the Supply Chain Top 25 for the first time.
“The ranking consists of an impressive group of leaders with valuable lessons to share, including three recent entrants from the life sciences, retail and consumer products sectors,” said Stan Aronow, research vice president at Gartner. Longtime supply chain leader and last year's runner-up McDonald’s joined Apple, P&G and Amazon in qualifying for the “Masters” category, which Gartner introduced in 2015 to recognize sustained leadership over the last 10 years.
Guy Courtin, vice president of industry & solution strategy for Infor Retail, was among those executives attending the Gartner event. He told SCMR in an interview that the “main takeaway” for him was the discussion on digitization. “At this point, a retailer has either embraced it completely, or has accelerated plans to implement it soon. For the laggards, it may be too late.”
He said that the same holds true for the food services industry, which was echoed by Gartner:
“The key to McDonald's success is skillful orchestration across a network of strategic suppliers, service providers and thousands of companies and franchise-owned stores worldwide,” said Aronow. “The company is also experimenting with digital supply chain capabilities like augmented reality to manage storerooms, so staff can spend more time with the customer.”
Rank | Company | Peer Opinion1 | Gartner Opinion1 | Three- | Inventory Turns3 | Three- | CSR Component Score5 | Composite Score6 |
1 | 2,413 | 667 | 10.3% | 7.5 | 2.6% | 10.00 | 6.36 | |
2 | 1,254 | 345 | 16.5% | 3.9 | 10.9% | 10.00 | 4.85 | |
3 | 785 | 541 | 7.9% | 13.1 | -0.4% | 10.00 | 4.41 | |
4 | 898 | 324 | 17.6% | 5.1 | -2.2% | 10.00 | 4.40 | |
5 | 831 | 499 | 8.9% | 3.6 | 4.8% | 10.00 | 4.36 | |
6 | 1,349 | 270 | 17.4% | 3.8 | 6.8% | 6.00 | 4.25 | |
7 | 1,326 | 426 | 6.4% | 4.8 | -0.2% | 10.00 | 4.21 | |
8 | 1,094 | 391 | 7.3% | 8.8 | -0,6% | 10.00 | 3.99 | |
9 | 760 | 193 | 18.1% | 2.8 | 7.8% | 10.00 | 3.96 | |
10 | 1,040 | 186 | 20.4% | 11.8 | 9.2% | 4.00 | 3.85 | |
11 | 783 | 198 | 14.0% | 4.1 | 1.4% | 10.00 | 3.56 | |
12 | 737 | 410 | 4.8% | 5.2 | -0.5% | 10.00 | 3.55 | |
13 | 121 | 49 | 37.9% | 1.2 | 5.3% | 10.00 | 3.37 | |
14 | 390 | 354 | 7.3% | 8.4 | 0.2% | 10.00 | 3.30 | |
15 | 999 | 210 | 9.6% | 2.9 | 4.6% | 8.00 | 3.26 | |
16 | 651 | 227 | 9.2% | 1.0 | 7.6% | 10.00 | 3.25 | |
17 | 907 | 117 | 10.7% | 14.6 | 9.8% | 9.00 | 3.22 | |
18 | 880 | 322 | 6.2% | 2.7 | 2.8% | 6.00 | 3.08 | |
19 | 470 | 281 | 6.9% | 4.4 | -0.5% | 10.00 | 3.02 | |
20 | 1,416 | 256 | 6.2% | 8.3 | 1.6% | 3.00 | 2.98 | |
21 | 619 | 133 | 13.6% | 6.7 | -1.6% | 8.00 | 2.96 | |
22 | 1,558 | 221 | 4.6% | 4.8 | -10.1% | 4.00 | 2.87 | |
23 | 431 | 78 | 18.6% | 5.1 | 6.7% | 5.00 | 2.81 | |
24 | 821 | 115 | 6.8% | 2.9 | 13.5% | 7.00 | 2.58 | |
25 | 679 | 118 | 4.1% | 4.2 | 6.0% | 10.00 | 2.45 |
6. Composite Score: (Peer Opinion*25%) + (Gartner Research Opinion*25%) + (ROA*20%) + (Inventory Turns*10%) + (Revenue Growth*10%) + (CSR Component Score*10%). 2017 data used where available. Where unavailable, latest available full-year data used. All raw data normalized to a 10-point scale prior to composite calculation. “Ranks” for tied composite scores are determined using next decimal point comparison.
Source: Gartner (May 2018)