Vineet Khanna - Planning transformations, orchestration, and why technology comes before process

In this episode, Ben and Wim talk to Vineet Khanna, former Senior Vice President and Global Head of Supply Chain at Nestlé. Vineet has more than 37 years of experience, 25 of them in leadership roles across supply chain, procurement, finance and operational excellence, and now advises companies from strategy through execution.

Vineet explains why most planning transformations don't deliver business results and how to define success in numbers and capabilities, why orchestration is the DNA of supply chain rather than a new idea, and his contrarian view that technology now comes before process: start with the decisions the business has to make, see what technology makes possible, and only then design the processes and the operating model.

In this episode

• (00:58) Into supply chain by accident: manufacturing, finance, sales and ERP before the function existed
• (03:42) The two hands of a supply chain head: the CFO and the head of sales
• (05:26) Why most transformations fail: "going live is not the definition of success"
• (05:58) Define success in numbers and in capabilities, such as signal-to-response time from 15 days to two
• (06:53) Keep hold of the outcome through blueprinting, planning and execution; plan backwards from the end point
• (09:41) The science and the art of a transformation: stakeholders, co-ownership, headquarters versus regions
• (12:45) Orchestration: "supply chain has the word orchestration built into it"; there is nothing external
• (14:56) What technology makes possible now: visibility, simulation and optimisation "at the press of a button"
• (18:00) Technology first versus process first, and why his view changed in the last three to four years
• (19:40) Start with decisions, then technology capability, then process, operating model and organisation
• (22:00) AI: the capability is there; organisations impose it on old operating models and then blame the ROI
• (25:00) Why smaller companies are moving faster, and the "AI native enterprise" experiment
• (27:00) What to read, and the four skills that will matter: finance, technology, communication, adaptability

Three quotes

"Going live is not the definition of success. Not dying is not equal to winning the battle."

"Start with the technology capability. You may find that your ten-step process is redundant and you now need a two-step process."

"If AI is not giving the ROI, the best place to look is the mirror."

Questions this episode answers

Why do planning transformations fail to deliver results? Because success is defined as going live rather than as business outcomes, and because the outcome is not held onto through blueprinting, planning and execution. Define the numbers and the capabilities first, then plan backwards from them.

Should a planning transformation start with process or technology? Vineet's view: start with the decisions the business has to make at each horizon, then look at what technology can do, then define the processes, the operating model and the organisation. Old sequential processes and structures become redundant when technology connects and simulates continuously.

What is supply chain orchestration? The original purpose of supply chain: connecting demand, supply, suppliers, co-manufacturers and customers as one system. What is new is that technology now makes it possible in near real time.

Resources Vineet mentions: the Financial Times and The Economist, because every piece of news has a bearing on supply chain · a finance course for every supply chain professional · following the evolution of AI, data centres and semiconductors.