Supply Chain & Network Operations

Our Services

Sourcing & Procurement 

Procurement in 2025 will look very different than it does today. This radical and rapid change is transforming how organisations source and procure the various goods and services they need to operate. As a result, new strategies, skills, knowledge, and tools are emerging to address today’s and tomorrow’s shifting challenges and opportunities.

Explore additional resources

How Generative AI will transform Sourcing and Procurement Operations

From ChatGPT to Bard, generative AI technology is finally here and making waves—including in the sourcing and procurement landscape. Discover the many ways generative AI can boost efficiencies, unlock value, birth new digital capabilities, and revolutionise what’s possible across source-to-pay processes in the world of supply chain.

2023 Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey

What capabilities and strategies are today’s most successful procurement organisations investing in? See observations and trends from our 2023 Global Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) Survey—based on the responses of almost 350 procurement leaders from more than 40 countries.

Digital Twins and the Digital Thread change the game by integrating the physical and digital worlds

Digital Twins are taking centre stage as organisations look to digitalise their operations. But how do organisations capitalise on them? Digital Twins are a replication and digital representation of a real-life product or process, using a feedback loop between the digital and the physical worlds, connected to a single stream of data called the Digital Thread. They promise to bring benefits across the value chain by simulating reality and predicting the expected behaviour.

Resilience of the Swiss logistics industry

The resilience of Swiss logistics and its dimensions were examined in view of the three likely crisis scenarios of an increase in geopolitical tensions, extreme climatic events and the outbreak of a pandemic.

Sustainable supply chains through supplier illumination

Regulations like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) from the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation will make sustainability reporting mandatory and increase the focus on companies’ carbon emission disclosures. Understanding, measuring, managing and reporting carbon emissions, especially those related to the supply chain (Scope 3), can significantly decrease a company’s risk and be a source of competitive advantage.

Digital Transformation in Supply Chain

In recent years, both consumers and employees’ expectations for services have risen. They want them to be fast, interactive and transparent experiences. This is quickly becoming the ‘new normal’ in both customer and employee interactions with a company. That in turn sets a high bar for internal operations processes which must meet these new expectations – especially in the supply chain. Digitisation of business processes is the key to meeting these expectations. Processes that are still paper-based and manual must be brought into the digital world to streamline their integration, make them less complicated and cumbersome, reduce the number of steps, and deliver the intuitive and interactive experiences now expected.

The conversation around Supply Chain and COP26

This report by Polecat explores stakeholder conversations in the weeks preceding COP26, crystallising around closely interlinked ESG themes such as climate action, biodiversity, human rights, labour practices, social impact, governance, and health. It uncovers both major and emerging themes cited by key governmental and non-governmental stakeholders, as well as heightening impact between September and October 2021.

Procurement in a circular economy

Procurement’s contribution to an organisation’s success is about more than managing spend. As the world transitions towards a circular economy, the Procurement department has many vital roles to play.

Supply Chain Interview Series

Deloitte Switzerland reached out to key players in the Swiss manufacturing industry to share their thoughts on how various factors impact supply chains, how they adapt to challenges and what they consider to be the most important ways to build supply chain resilience, beyond COVID-19 and into the future.

Building Supply Chain Resilience beyond COVID-19

Global supply chains were clearly impacted as a result of COVID-19 and the ensuing consequences of the pandemic in markets around the world. Collectively, these events served as a true litmus test for supply chain resilience. Along with their global counterparts, industrial products (IP) companies in Switzerland found themselves quickly needing to address critical dependencies in their supply chains. In addition to close supplier relationships, increased digitalisation and advanced technologies—such as predictive analytics, machine learning and AI—will play an increasingly important role in managing potential supply chain disruptions in the future.

A Circular Transition

The topic of Circular Economy (CE) continues to gain traction in sustainability discourse and programming. The topic is notably included in political agendas such as part of the EU Green Deal, while consumer preference increasingly favours recycled content. And yet a narrow interpretation of CE often causes organisations to miss out on the full value of sustainability initiatives by focusing on recycling alone.

Effectively closing the loop between planning and execution

Synchronising planning and execution is a never-ending struggle in companies with complex supply chains. The typical tendency is to be overly reactive to execution issues without closing the loop with planning. This can lead to neither capability providing the expected value. In this article we explore distinct planning and execution capabilities and what it takes to synchronise them.

Sourcing Optimisation: reach the next level in Digital Procurement

Increasing Procurement impact by leveraging data and automation with advanced technology

Shaping sourcing and procurement in a post-COVID environment

Wider macro risks affect the entire business world and the extended supply chain. Managing procurement risks and cost need to be the priority to adjust to the new economic reality and coordinate investments reducing the complexity of supply chains while at the same time improve supplier transparency.

Using technology to get on top of Scope 3 emissions

Every day we witness the effects of global warming: glaciers melting in the Alps, excessive temperatures damaging runways in the UK, many Southern European countries facing water shortages and Pakistan hit by its worst floods in recent memory. This impacts us all, and we must act quickly to reduce carbon emissions and avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change.

Blockchain and the COVID-19 imperative

HThere is a clear value proposition for blockchain technology within the life sciences industry. Native features of blockchain, or Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), ensure data integrity, accountability, and traceability to foster an environment of trust throughout the ecosystem’s users and contributors. These same concepts – built on layers of integrity and accountability – also serve as the guiding principles of the global life sciences ecosystem. This clear alignment in principles has resulted in a boom in industry use case exploration and development.

Agile in Procurement

Having landed in the new normal – a more volatile economy and more fragile supply chains – procurement organisations are looking for ways to evolve and meet their targets. In order to thrive, a new approach to organising and managing work in an adaptable manner is crucial. Is your organisation agile enough to adapt?

Coming soon: the german supply chain due diligence act

On the 1st of January 2023, Germany’s new Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (GSCA) will come into effect. Governments see the implementation of new regulatory requirements as a catalyst for positive change in global supply chains. The GSCA will affect all of a company’s products and services, from procurement to final delivery of the product or service to the customer. It will therefore have a big impact on the company itself and on its direct and indirect suppliers.

How to get on top of Scope 3 emissions with technology solutions

In a previous article, we investigated the difficulty reporting Scope 3 emissions due to problems with data availability across complex, dynamic supply networks. In this article we investigate how technology can help to overcome this difficulty and provide a technology solution framework, based on customer and business requirements. The next article will outline some exemplary technological solutions in the market and address their functionalities. In combination, the articles will explain how to choose the right technology.