3Ps: The Practical Path to Finance and Supply Chain Transformation
Rather than large-scale overhauls, a people-first, phased approach can align finance and supply chain teams around quick wins and practical routines that drive sustainable transformation and ongoing performance gains.
In Brief:
Popular wisdom holds that true transformation starts as a dramatic overhaul – complete with grandly reimagined frameworks and a big-bang system go-live. More often than not, these programs fall flat or even burn out entirely, usually because too much faith is placed in technology and too little in the people and processes that must make it work.
At the opposite extreme, there is the consulting story as old as time: engagements that stretch on for weeks or even months, bogged down in exhaustive fact-finding and lofty theoretical constructs. By the time recommendations hit the executive table, budgets are exhausted and the guidance feels out of step with reality. Every business has at least one set of those slide decks gathering dust, with too little practical action on tools, people or processes to drive real change.
Our experience points to a different path, founded on three intertwined ideas:
This pragmatic, people-centred evolution powered Workwear’s multi-year journey to reinvigorate their supply chain – unlocking more than $25 million in inventory savings in the process – and provides a blueprint for other supply-chain and finance teams to orchestrate continuous, measurable gains in operational efficiency and cash-flow performance.
Pragmatism: Tailoring best practice to your context
Most change programs treat people as passive recipients. Participation flips that model by inviting end-users to co-create the very routines they will run.
During Workwear’s supply chain transformation, the planning team appointed internal champions who ran peer-to-peer coaching sessions and immersive user-acceptance workshops – backed by visible executive sponsorship – so planners shaped new workflows themselves.
That hands-on ownership drove adoption and uncovered practical tweaks on the spot.
In finance, involving analysts in designing the weekly forecast meeting, or co-developing the monthly management-report pack, transforms those sessions from compliance exercises into strategic forums that analysts champion and drive forward.
When people own the change, they become its strongest advocates and architects of progress.
Progress: Funding the next step with early wins
Real transformation isn’t a single leap but a sequence of earned victories. By breaking down a large-scale effort into six-to-nine-month phases – each with a clear objective and funded by the outcome of its predecessor – you create a pay-as-you-go roadmap for change.
This “carving the elephant” approach to staged projects wards off budget fatigue and ever-changing priorities by treating every phase as both proof point and cash cow. Slicing change into manageable intervals encourages participation and keeps risk relatively contained.
It also ensures each phase earns its place – and funding – in the roadmap.
Mapping a pragmatic transformation
When you approach continuous improvement with a focus on pragmatism, participation and progress at every stage, what once felt like an overwhelming overhaul becomes a sequence of manageable, high-impact steps.
Each initiative is grounded in context, co-designed with your people and funded by its own early successes – building confidence, containing risk and embedding new ways of working. In environments where appetite for large-scale change varies, this approach builds momentum through demonstrated wins, earning trust one phase at a time.
If you’re curious about how these staged improvements could apply within your finance or supply chain function, we’d be happy to walk you through benchmarking insights and practical next steps based on where you are today
Contact us for more information or join the CPM Roundtable Network to connect with our SMEs at one of our upcoming workshops.
