Seventy-six percent of logistics transformations never fully succeed, failing to meet critical budget, timeline or key performance indicator (KPI) metrics, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc. At a time when logistics leaders are regularly launching new transformation initiatives, the survey findings also showed that effectively responding to team resistance and incorporating feedback increased the odds of transformation success by 62%.
"Leaders often respond to resistance by ramping up urgency and adopting a directive leadership style, which is not only ineffective, but actually counterproductive," says Snigdha Dewal, senior principal researcher in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice. "Instead, leaders should engage their teams from the start of the process, embrace the areas of resistance as a resource, not a problem, and act on feedback to adapt transformation plans and how they are implemented. Harvesting the collective wisdom of their teams can lead to dramatically improved odds of success.”
Key Takeaways:
- Gartner surveyed 306 logistics professionals from organizations with $500 million or more in enterprise-wide annual revenues. The global survey was conducted from November to December 2023. The survey found that more than 80% of respondents had attempted four transformations in fewer than five years, averaging almost one a year. Internal change resistance played a greater role in obstructing the success of their transformation initiatives than outside pressures.
- The survey findings showed that 81% of logistics leaders believe that transformation is critical, yet only 20% adopted the approach of using resistance as a resource to leverage the collective wisdom of their teams to improve transformation outcomes. Adopting this less common approach dramatically improved the odds of transformation success by 62%.
- The prevailing urgency approach, characterized by directive leadership, limited stakeholder engagement and a “get with the program” mindset, led to a 47% decrease in the odds of transformation success. Gartner calculated the odds of transformation success was determined from regression analysis of actions and messaging adopted by organizations during their logistics transformation towards their teams, and its subsequent impact on success metrics.
