Navigating Disruption in the Publishing Supply Chain. An Interview with Philip Davies - Part 1

Oliver Dick: Thanks for your time, Philip, can I kick off by asking about the move to digital in the publishing world, what are the implications for the sector?

Phillip Davies: Well, like many publishers who are looking to be more digital, that is where they are building their strategies, making investments, and building skills. But the implication of this move is, what do you do with the legacy operating model and assets you have in the business? That’s supply chain legacy, IT legacy, print and supplier legacy, how do you navigate through that? That’s the big challenge.

OD: What does that mean for the business?

PD: It means finding new solutions for assets that are going to be under-utilised, a more flexible workforce and a move to variable costs as much as possible.

You also need to manage carefully long-term contracts or liabilities that don’t give you flexibility.

OD: So what will the logistical model look like in this new asset-lite business?

PD: Well, you’ll certainly have to be more flexible in the supply chain, because the demand for your physical books isn’t just going to decline over time, but that demand is going to be much more volatile and unpredictable. The print supply side will become much more ‘just in time’.

There are many examples of how you can both get it right, but, in some cases, horribly wrong too.

OD: How do you get it right?

PD: For retailers, it’s all about speed-to-market and flexibility. From concept, all the way through to the customer. It traditionally took twelve months, but now is down to six to eight weeks.

In publishing, it will be about achieving a balance between margin from print production, inventory levels, cost of logistics and speed to customer. Where to print, print run sizes and print on demand, together with where to hold stock for a global customer base, are all critical dynamics.

OD: What does this mean for the teams who have to work differently to respond to the new digital world?

PD: Like many globalised businesses today, we print both in Asia and locally to manage speed to customer and margins.

To manage this effectively during the disruption of digital, there is a need for a global view of inventory and of supply chain assets. There is a need to integrate deeply across manufacturing, inventory and supply chain. And there is a need to leverage across owned and outsourced services in order to manage long-term commitments, capacities and capabilities.

OD: How about the skills requirements?

PD: There are always deep skills required in functional and operational areas of the supply chain. But the newer emerging skills required are increasingly about navigating across functional silos, negotiating the balance between internal and external skills, placing the customer experience at the centre of end to end decision making, and leading with clarity and decisiveness in times of significant uncertainty.

For example, it seems to me that running a really responsive, digital-age inventory model, a globally-efficient physical supply chain and a procurement model to deliver margin and speed to market are three different skill sets.

Achieving the right balance in recruiting these deep skills, together with the alignment required across the value chain is one of the critical roles of leaders.

OD: Thank you, Phillip. We’ll delve more into leadership in the second part of this interview.

The Odgers Berndtson Procurement and Supply Chain Executive Search Practice works with organisations throughout the world to discover individuals with the strategic skills, critical analysis, and cross-sector experience to create value and drive business growth through best-practices supply chain, and innovative procurement.