Scott at 3663 sees forecasting as the intermediate answer, "Forecasting integrated with demand so that we can use information and technology to make a decent forecast," she says 3663 is very dependent on accurate procurement decisions.

Bagley at Unilever is a great advocate of the role technology and information can play in re-inventing the supply chain. "What our supply chain has today that it didn't have in the past is access to information, and our supply chain is dependent on information.

"So if we want to bring innovation into play, we need to start by thinking about bringing in the information that is available and incorporating that into making a more efficient supply chain."

CIO and the supply chain

"CIOs are currently involved to the point of delivering systems and meeting the requirements of the business. They are looking at today's requirements and they need to be looking to the future," Madden says. "Because collaboration will become more important also the needs of the organization to reduce emissions," she adds. CIOs becoming involved in the supply chain will need to develop an information architecture that enables collaboration. "This will mean that an organization will have to have a service-oriented architecture (SOA) in place for this greater flexibility and the ability to share data. When this is in place an organization can change its KPIs."