The consulting firm Gartner today announced its 20th annual ranking of companies in the “Global Supply Chain Top 25” list, which featured Schneider Electric retaining its top position in and semiconductor powerhouse NVIDIA debuting in seventh place.
Following Schneider Electric, the top five included Cisco Systems, Colgate-Palmolive, Microsoft, and Johnson & Johnson.
"Schneider Electric again performed strongly across every component of the methodology including securing the highest number of Gartner expert votes,” Simon Bailey, VP Analyst with the Gartner Supply Chain practice, said in a release. “The company is reaping the benefits of a three-year transformation initiative that has strengthened customer and supplier relationships, while improving the resilience of their operations.”
Gartner ranks the entries on the list by combining two scores: business performance—measured by public financial and ESG (environmental, social, governance) data—and community opinion—measured by the views of Gartner experts and supply chain community peers.
In the 2024 version, the top 25 companies embraced three general trends, Gartner said:
- Attracting and Engaging Talent. Chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) know that talent is critical to driving high performance and engagement, yet supply chain employee engagement, and likelihood of recommending their organization as a great place to work, both continue to underperform other parts of the business. In contrast, the Top 25 leaders are more consistently funding people-centric strategies, such as using AI to automate processes, investing in knowledge management, and supporting learning and development systems.
- AI-Driven Advances. Supply chain organizations are actively assessing generative AI (GenAI) potential, especially in customer service, planning, and manufacturing, but many are struggling to find clear use cases. The most advanced supply chains have been built on solid foundations in data and digital capabilities. They evaluate both traditional (non-generative) AI techniques and GenAI to build practical use cases that benefit most from AI-driven advances.
- Antifragile Supply Chains. Across industries, leading supply chain organizations have faced a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. This requires CSCOs and their teams to embrace uncertainty, learn from it, and evolve toward an antifragile supply chain. Antifragility illuminates the key linkages between risks, disruptions, and performance. This enables more uncertainty-informed decisions about resource use and investments.
"The supply chain organizations in this year’s Top 25 were notable for better protecting growth rates in a challenging operating environment, while at the same time delivering more sustainable operations," Bailey said. “The best supply chains now have ESG criteria firmly embedded in their operations, while delivering higher than average growth rates, better returns on physical assets (ROPA) and stronger margins.”
