How to develop your Supply Chain Consulting: strategy, right OKRs and goal achievement

Streamline has supply chain consultants as strategic partners from all around the globe. At this webinar, Natalie Lopadchak-Eksi, VP of Partnerships at GMDH Streamline shared the best practices and mistakes to avoid being discovered while working with more than 100 partners, supply chain consultants globally. It doesn’t matter if you are a supply chain consultant in Thailand, Sweden, Poland, or China – you have the same challenges, problems, and techniques.

Let’s uncover them in more detail.

Long-term strategic vision

“If we are talking about strategy – it should be precise, simple, and goal-oriented. We should ask ourselves: will this strategy make my personal supply chain consulting more successful or less successful? A successful strategy is about success, and a fail strategy is about not achieving goals or achieving wrong or less efficient goals,” – says Natalie Lopadchak-Eksi.

A common mistake to consider

Usually, supply chain consultants are great experts in supply chain. They often have top positions in the top companies with global brand names. But sometimes they can be great experts in supply chain, not in supply chain consulting. Supply chain consulting has two pieces: supply chain + consulting. Consulting is absolutely different type of business with different logic, rules, and regulations. So becoming a Supply Chain Consultant means starting from the beginning and obtaining all the needed skills as a Consultant.

A mindset mistake most Supply Chain Consultants do

According to our internal research, 72% of those Supply Chain Consultants who are not completely satisfied with the success and the level of business development, are doing this mistake: they do not have a precise positioning of the services they provide. The main thing is that we have to clearly define our target audience.

How to clearly define your target audience

Positioning means being more clearly defined with your target audience. What kind of company are you working with? Some consultants prefer working with small businesses, others with large companies. Another question is about the industry, which has also to be defined clearly.

Here are the aspects that should be taken into consideration:

One more thing is a priority. Sometimes to get success in supply chain consulting means to focus on your ICP and sacrifice those who are just ok customers.

Right goals aligned with your business plan

The possible activities for supply chain consulting and the revenue to generate:

The top performers combine their efforts and resources. Those who do digital transformation usually work in a team. Those who offer training courses generate a lot of leads. Those who are doing consulting and digital transformation projects are closing deals with clients who are actually supply chain directors and here we have great cooperation.

Setting time-bound and actionable OKRs

Objectives and key results (OKR, alternatively OKRs) is a goal-setting framework used by individuals, teams, and organizations to define measurable goals and track their outcomes. It Is used by Google, Intel, LinkedIn, Twitter, Uber, Microsoft, GitLab, etc.

This technique should be used whenever we want to create something new or achieve something new. KPI indicate performance and the present state of business. If you want to be conservative you will probably use KPI. But when we have to move forward, achieve more, and do something new, that we’ve never done before we will use OKR’s: objectives and key results.

The Bottom Line

“I want you to remember that supply chain and consulting are two different professions, two different competencies and we have to work on both of them in order to be successful in this type of business. And one more important thing is client-centricity in digitalized supply chain consulting. I do believe that businesses need digitalization and People need People. We have to be client-centric and we have always to keep in mind our clients, be more precise and bring clients exactly what they need”, – says Natalie Lopadchak-Eksi.