Everyone says their supply chain is digitally mature. Rob Hemel has a five-question test that says otherwise.

Opening our six-part arc on the Supply Chain of the Future, Rob Hemel — Manager of Global Sourcing Contracts at ETS — gives Charlotte de Brabandt and Burkard Schemmel the unvarnished view of where digital transformation really stands in procurement and supply chain.

His case is that digital maturity has entered a second phase. The first was implementing systems; the second is connecting data, embedding AI and enabling predictive decision-making. Most organisations have digitised their processes without ever building an intelligent supply chain, and the competitive advantage over the next five years goes to whoever converts data into foresight.

Along the way: why 50 to 70 per cent of transformation success is really a data plumbing problem, why "technology first" and "change management first" are both wrong, the six highest-value AI applications in procurement and the reason the job market proves nobody has adopted them yet, the vendor pricing squeeze that could turn the ROI conversation from software back to headcount, and what happens to a generation of graduates who will never start on the mailroom floor.

Hosted by Max Kent. Interviews by Charlotte de Brabandt and Burkard Schemmel.