Richard Bycroft
Aligning Automation with Business Strategy, Customers and Markets – Designing Future-Ready Supply Chains for Competitive Advantage
For competitive advantage, supply chain automation must align with overarching business strategy, evolving customer demands and market dynamics rather than be driven by technology alone. This talk examines how to design future-ready operating models, leveraging automation to deliver tangible business outcomes from efficiency gains to enhanced adaptability. It highlights common pitfalls of a technology-first approach that can turn automation into a costly constraint. The discussion underscores the need for executive leadership alignment to guide successful transformation.
Attendees will gain practical frameworks for strategic decision-making and learn how aligning automation with strategy fosters customer-centric, adaptive supply chains for sustainable competitive advantage.
Key Takeaways
- Three strategies for automation
- Common pitfalls
- What good looks like
About Richard
Richard leads the Grant Thornton Supply Chain consulting team nationally and the management consulting Team in the Sydney office.
Richard is a highly experienced management consultant with foundations built through extensive industry experience prior to moving into professional services.
Richard held senior roles in leading global retail brands in the UK, United States and Australia, including Marks & Spencer, The GAP, Woolworths, Topshop and Coles across strategic, operational and financial roles. This background brings a multi lens approach to delivering innovative solutions for clients, built on a deep, real world business knowledge.
Richard brings a highly engaging collaborative approach ensuring that the client’s knowledge and expertise is successfully combined with the external consulting perspective.
Richard’s particular strengths lie in taking a multi-disciplinary lens across the development of business opportunities, bringing a holistic collaborative approach to business improvement from his diverse experience.
