Accelerating Real-Time Value Creation Through Technology In the early 21st century, the movie rental industry was dominated by a single, multibillion-dollar company with millions of customers and thousands of retail locations. In 2000, Reed Hastings, the CEO of newly formed Netflix, was laughed at when he approached the CEO of that video rental company for a partnership. Today, Netflix is quickly approaching 150 million subscribers across 190 countries, while the video rental company is no longer in existence. As Netflix matured, it used big data and analytics to train the system, using machine learning, artificial intelligence to customise the content to each consumer3. Like Netflix, several corporations have used disputative technologies to eliminate competition and capture market share, Tesla by-passed third-party dealerships and disrupted the automotive service model by providing updates directly to the consumer via their over-the-air (OTA) software updates for their electric vehicles4. Adobe, Microsoft and other providers have moved away from products like storage and software to provide public cloud platforms and services like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and others Lessons Learned from Companies Succeeding in Digital Is there a common denominator between companies like Netflix, Tesla, Amazon and others enabling them to disrupt their respective industries? Yes, the common denominator is the generational shift that is currently underway resulting in changing pattern of consumerism. The leading disrupters understand that the current generations -the Millennials, Gen Z and the Alphas, want more flexible, convenient and inexpensive options for almost everything they consume, and they are developing and deploying simple, yet effective business models built on a strategy of supplying consumers with the custom content, products and services they desire. In simple terms, Netflix, Tesla, Amazon, Microsoft and others are creating a digitised, efficient and customized supply chain to lead in their respective industries. Thus, irrespective of the industry, the keys to success of a business today are to: 1. Recognise the patterns of disruption occurring in your industry 2. Design a supply chain that can overcome these disruptions, and 3. Provide a customised experience to every consumer.

What Are Some of the Disruptive Forces Impacting Business Today? We are living in the age of Industry 4.0 which is disrupting businesses and impacting most industries. To survive and be competitive in the presence of disruptive forces, companies are being forced to innovate in every aspect of their business. The manufacturing supply chain is no exception. Disruptions in supply chain will be quite significant as supply chains globally are not equipped to cope with the disruptive changes caused by emerging technologies, global uncertainty, increased business complexity, changing environmental conditions, and shortages in skilled labour.

1.1. Examine why the traditional supply chain is no longer effective. (10) 1.2 Elaborate on the primary forces disrupting the supply chain environment currently. (10) 1.3 Determine the success factors for organisations that have succeeded in creating digital supply chain operations. 10