On the 27th September 2016 we had the chance to take part, as one of the main sponsors, to an interesting meeting and debate around the topic "Re-thinking the role of supply chains" organized by SCM Portal within its Supply Chain Innovation Hub initiative.

The debate was lead by Janet Godsell professor of Supply Chain & Operations Strategy at the University of Warwick, who made an inspiring presentation on the main trends impacting supply chain and manufacturing processes and economic systems in general.

Janet Godsell summarized these new trends using 5 key words as focus of her presentation:Janet Godsell
- Industry 4.0
- Circular Economy
- Omnichannel
- Market Mediation
- Consumption Driven Supply Chain.

These are apparently different topics, even though, as professor Godsell pointed out, they are part of the same change process we are experiencing now and in the next future.
For this reason they must be examined together, as different sides of the same main trend.

What we brought home
The presentation touched a lot of topics so it's difficult to sum up the content of the whole event. However, we will try to recap the main points we fixed in our minds after the discussion with Janet Godsell.