Despite their pivotal role in driving profitability and customer experience, supply chains remain underleveraged in strategic decision-making at most Indian organisations, with technology infrastructure gaps and capability challenges hampering their transformation into strategic growth engines, according to a PwC India survey.
The survey of 156 senior executives across manufacturing, retail, pharma, infrastructure and energy sectors found that 32% of business leaders acknowledged supply chains are yet to be integrated into board-level strategic discussions, while only 16% of organisations reported being well-prepared for large-scale supply chain disruptions.
Technology infrastructure gaps emerged as the single biggest challenge, cited by 76% of respondents, followed by capability challenges (61%) and siloed working environments (53%). Despite growing investments in digital transformation, only 3% of companies classified their supply chain solutions as truly innovative.
“In today’s volatile business environment, supply chains sit at the intersection of trust, technology and transformation,” said Ajay Nair, partner and leader for supply chain and operations at PwC India. “Their elevation from backroom functions to strategic enablers is critical to building resilience, agility and sustainable growth.”
The report highlighted significant gaps in responsiveness and resilience. Only 21% of organisations considered themselves responsive enough to meet customer expectations, while 28% admitted they frequently fall short of basic customer demands. Meanwhile, 35% of respondents described their supply chains as fragile and vulnerable to disruptions.
On sustainability, while 42% of organisations have initiated work on Scope 3 emissions tracking, only 6% reported achieving actual reductions, underscoring the challenge of translating environmental commitments into measurable outcomes.
