When it comes to supply chain innovation, many leaders feel caught in a bind. They know they need to build resilience but too often the default response is a big, “safe” software purchase like an ERP upgrade or a "best-in-class" system. The results are frequently disappointing, leaving firms locked into costly cycles and reluctant to try again.
To understand why this happens - and how supply chains might chart a different course - I spoke with Professor Glenn Parry of Surrey Business School, whose research explores value in supply chains, servitisation and ecosystem orchestration.
“one size fits nobody solutions”
JP Doggett: Many of the supply chain directors I speak with rely on ERP or large platform solutions but it feels like projects often disappoint and buyers become hesitant or mistrustful.
Glenn Parry: That hasn’t changed in 25 years. In aerospace we saw firms buy ERP on the grounds of safety. But ERP is a one-size-fits-nobody solution. Either you contort your business processes to fit the system, which destroys differentiation or you modify the software, which is costly and breaks with every upgrade.
One company worked out its ERP project had cost the same as buying a Ducati motorbike for every bill of materials it processed. They could literally have couriered the paperwork on bikes for the same money.
Why value is so slippery
JP: You often frame your work around defining value. How does that apply in supply chains?
Glenn: The first principle of lean is to specify value but value is a slippery construct. People use it to mean financial worth, customer utility or even emotional resonance. Think of an engagement ring: Tiffany says it’s $50,000; someone else says theirs is priceless because it came from a grandmother. Both are value but they’re completely different.
In supply chains, the failure to specify value clearly means leaders rush into fixes without knowing what good looks like. Burning-platform solutions fail because we didn’t benchmark the system, we didn’t ask what was worth improving and we didn’t take a systems perspective.
Creating value vs. capturing value
JP: You’ve also written about the difference between creating and capturing value. What does that mean in practice?
Glenn: It’s not enough to say we’ve created value for the end customer. The question is: who captures it? Is it suppliers orchestrators or platforms? We see firms adding services to products (servitisation) but unless the supply chain is aligned to capture value as well as create it, the model fails.
This shift to product-service hybrids fundamentally changes how supply chains need to operate. Optimising for throughput isn’t enough. You have to think about outcomes across the chain. That’s a different kind of value logic.
Composability as deeper resilience
JP: I’ve been exploring composable and modular architectures. Do you see that as part of the answer?
Glenn: Resilience today is often framed narrowly — as visibility dashboards or early-warning alerts. Composability offers something deeper: the ability to reconfigure capabilities quickly without waiting years for ERP projects. It also lets companies retain control of their own data and models, rather than outsourcing competitive advantage.
But composability isn’t plug-and-play. It demands orchestration, new skill sets and above all, trust. These are socio-technical systems: the technology matters but people and relationships ultimately decide whether change sticks.
Why trust is non-negotiable
JP: Some technologies are marketed as trustless such as blockchain, for example. Do you buy that?
Glenn: No. Blockchain can reinforce trust but it never removes it. Trust is always a relationship between people. In supply chain pilots - minerals, food, wine - the real work is negotiating what data is shared, at what level and under what governance. Technology helps but it’s not trustless.
From how to, to why to
JP: My instinct has been to design SCL-X around how to build composable architectures. But maybe that’s a step too far?
Glenn: I’d think of it as a series. Start with value: what does good look like in your firm and ecosystem? Then move to orchestration: who governs, who holds power, how trust is built. Only after that do you get to the technology stack.
CEOs rarely get time to reflect strategically. Events or workshops can give them that space but you have to ask the prior questions first. Otherwise, you risk building a target operating model on faulty assumptions.
Closing thought
Glenn's research suggests that supply chains don’t fail for lack of technology. They fail when leaders skip the groundwork: defining value, benchmarking what good means orchestrating ecosystems and building trust.
As he put it: "Composability may well be the architecture of the future. But you don’t get there by buying another box of software. You get there by asking what value really means — and who you can trust to create it with you."
JP Doggett
.svg "SCL-X Logo")
