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Supply chain
Leading supply chain transformation with strategic discipline: Stefan Noeken
Stefan Noeken, former EVP of Supply Chain Management and member of the executive board at Hilti Corporation, offers insights into the strategic evolution of supply chains and the key imperatives required to drive sustainable supply chain transformations.
In our 2025 IMD Global Supply Chain Survey, we highlight the specific challenges leaders face when transforming supply chains today. To complement the 2025 survey, we have interviewed leaders in the field to get their insights on best practice in a complex and changing environment.
Stefan Noeken spent over two decades leading end-to-end supply chain initiatives on a global scale for Hilti. Today, he contributes his expertise in multiple supervisory board roles at Vaillant Group, PERI Group, Vorwerk Group, and Hoerbiger Holding.
The shift toward strategic supply chains
Noeken sees three clear phases in the evolution of supply chain management. In the early 2000s, supply chains were fragmented with limited transparency and mainly cost-driven, often organized in silos and transitioning towards globalization, he explains. The 2008 financial crisis sharpened the focus on working capital management, cash flow optimization, and resilience – elevating supply chain management to a strategic function within organizations.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic forced companies to move beyond efficiency. Both agility and resilience became strategic differentiators. Today, supply chains are seen as essential levers for managing risk, ensuring business continuity, and creating competitive advantage. Given the global scale, complexity, and number of stakeholders involved, this has become a Herculean task.
Increasing complexity and need for resilience
Noeken observes that senior executives and board members often misunderstand the demands placed on supply chain organizations. There is an underestimation or lack of proper assessment of the complexity of managing supply chains, Noeken notes. Qualifying a second supplier, for example, isn’t just a tactical move – it involves regulatory hurdles, logistical integration, and technical validation. It just can’t be done overnight. Today’s supply chain functions have more visibility and often report to the C-suite, but are still not fully embedded in core decision-making, causing problems and surprises down the line.
As supply chain evolves into a strategic driver, Noeken emphasizes the need for better visibility of supply chain in business operations and the need to focus on resilience. In his role as a board member, he challenges management to assess exposures such as China dependency, the China-Taiwan relationship, government protectionism, and trade policies as well as to explore alternative strategies to offshoring while building awareness for the transformation challenges and required timelines.
“Today’s supply chain functions have more visibility and often report to the C-suite, but are still not fully embedded in core decision-making, causing problems and surprises down the line.”
Strategy is nice, but when it comes to execution, it ultimately becomes a supply chain question.
Executing supply chain transformations
Yet, despite the increasing awareness of the importance and complexity of supply chains in recent years, even the strongest strategies can fall short without clear execution, Noeken warns. “Strategy is nice, but when it comes to execution, it ultimately becomes a supply chain question.” Supply chain transformation requires clear roles and structures, as well as the redesign of processes and integration of new technologies.
Transformation is both a people and systems challenge, given the complexity and volatility of the overall supply chain ecosystem. For example, because countries are reluctant to cede control, logistics often stays under national oversight, which then makes it essential to build coalitions with capable, willing people to achieve transformation objectives. The seemingly constant transformation required by today’s volatile environment places a lot of strain on supply chain professionals, many of whom feel overwhelmed in the face of frequent shocks, an aging workforce, and the need to keep up with digitalization and new tools.
Change management, like project management, needs to be explicitly trained as a core capability in an organization. This is particularly important in supply chain management, he notes, because supply chain spans the entire organization, from R&D to marketing, sales, and stakeholder management. As a result of the transversality of today’s supply chains, Noeken observes a shift in the leadership profile required in modern supply chain management. T-shaped leaders are needed, experts in supply chain operations with deep functional knowledge, but also a broad understanding of other business functions to benefit customer outcomes. Noeken also emphasizes that people need to be committed to the mission and vision of the organization, which requires aligning incentives, tying supply chain rewards to key performance indicators, and ensuring the size of those rewards is meaningful. As an example, a company in crisis when he started to get involved had a forecast accuracy of 40%, which improved quickly after being tied to the incentive structure for the organization, alleviating parts of what drove the crisis.
Recruit people with strong expertise in areas where you need improvement, surrounding yourself with individuals smarter than you.
Reflections for supply chain leaders
Drawing on his time leading and advising global supply chains, Noeken shares three key lessons for current and future supply chain leaders:
- Focus on prioritizing key initiatives. With change management, focus on one to three areas that are relevant and where visible progress is achievable quickly, which will earn trust and raise your profile.
- Don’t attempt to do everything by yourself. Recruit people with strong expertise in areas where you need improvement, surrounding yourself with individuals smarter than you.
- Put your team in the spotlight and keep your ego in check. Shift the focus to their success, not just your own, and empower them to lead and showcase their capabilities.
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