An antagonist (from Greek ἀνταγωνιστής – antagonistēs , “opponent, competitor, enemy, rival”, from anti- “against” + agonizesthai “to contend for a prize,”) is a character, group of characters, or institution that represents the opposition against which the protagonist , or main character, must contend. In other words, an antagonist is a person or a group of people who oppose the main character(s). 

Wikipedia

The stage is set. We are now in the third act. In the script, the supply chain leader is attempting to get value from supply chain software. The pressures are mounting, the service failures are many, and the drama is high. They reach out for answers. Technologies have advanced and they believe that there MUST be a better way. It is less about the cost of software than the delivery of value. The stakes are high. Their career rides on the decision.

If they are a gray hair, like me, they have survived the first two acts of the play. They are callous and skeptical. The stories of “consultant answers” fills their bookshelves like fairy tales stacked on my grandson’s shelf. They know that there is something better out there, and they are looking.

How does the third act end? I don’t know. Let’s look deeper at the plot of the first two acts.

The first act centered on the “birth” of supply chain planning software. The best-0f-breed (BOB) market was a cast of characters. The stories of “bad behavior” are now legend. Unfortunately, the fight became one of market share. Companies like i2 Technologies and Manugistics fought each other. As they battled for market share, the focus on innovation and serving the customer dissipated.

The second act was the promise of the “integrated supply chain.” In this act, very large systems were sold with big price tags and high expectations. The market became mired with large implementations and expensive consulting engagements. The planning systems in this era of software were inferior to the first generation, but they were sold with the belief that 80% would be sufficient. And, that one size could fit all…. Supply chain leaders now know that this was not the answer.

In the third act, companies are waking up. The business requirements have changed. Growth has stalled, and demand and supply volatility is greater. The business pain is high. The complexity of managing a global supply chain has changed everything. Uncertainty is rampant. Due to the amount of investment in supply chain technology in the second act, the CIO is dragging his feet. He does not want to talk about a new system or a different approach. The CIO believes that if he just pushes harder on the tightly integrated ERP providers, that they will step up to the plate.

The third act is very different. Supply chain matters more than ever, and the CIO plays less of a role. To succeed line of business leaders have to learn about new forms of technology and use their influence management to drive supply chain innovation. The traditional definitions of architectures disappear. Here is what I think happens:

• Analyst Frameworks Matter Less. As the supply chain planning and execution technology landscapes get redefined, new software products, services and taxonomies are defined. As a result, the supply chain technologies of the next five years will be difficult to graph in traditional four-box models.
• New Capabilities. While the traditional focus for planning was to take transactional data as an input and drive time-phased data as an output, leaders now know that this is not sufficient. Technology capabilities up the ante. As a result, the new solutions will focus on sensing flows and patterns, driving visualization and insights, and producing intelligent rules and policies as outputs. It will be about end-to-end orchestration of volume, mix and profitability. The inputs will be both structured and unstructured data types. It will be less about integration and more about data synchronization. New forms of visualization will make decision support easier.
• Cloud and Non-Relational Databases Drive New Capabilities. The use of the cloud, and the evolution of Software as a Service models become mainstream.