What do some of the most renowned global business leaders and founders have in common? They have a uniform.

Read also: Tips to Manage Successful Remote Teams in Supply Chain Management

Black, grey or white t-shirt. Black or blue jeans. The same nondescript trainers.

It’s not a secret – actually, you can usually spot an article about it online every other month. But madness or not, there is a method to having a ‘uniformed’ look: it reduces the number of decisions made in a day.

It’s widely acknowledged that we make around 35,000 decisions within a typical 24-hour window. Meaning best estimates have us making well over 200,000 choices a week. From what to eat for breakfast, what road to take to the office, choosing a birthday gift for that friend. To selecting the optimum supplier for a new product, finding alternative shipping routes after a disruption, sourcing the right data for your quarterly report.

For Supply Chain teams, it’s a whole other ball game. Managers and leads are making tens or even hundreds of business-critical decisions every day. Decisions that can have a ripple effect across entire businesses, regions, and even our wider trade industry. Often doing so at the detriment of their own wellbeing.

So how can we resolve the decision fatigue epidemic in our operations? By reducing mental strain in teams, and creating an environment where managers and leads have more space for strategy and focus. And much of the solution is already at our fingertips.

A prevalent issue, the world over

Decision fatigue is exactly what it sounds like: a heightened number of choices that must be made, leaving individuals feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, and compromising the quality of decisions made.

It’s unlikely I have to explain. In fact, it’s more likely you’ve already been affected by the phenomenon – directly or indirectly. 

A 2023 global study from Oracle and New York Times bestseller, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz found that 85% of business leaders have felt “decision distress”. And around 72% of respondents say that the volume of data makes decision-making more challenging, both in a professional and personal capacity.

This isn’t confined to a specific region or industry. The study spoke with 14,000 professionals across 17 countries and several sectors. 69% of respondents said they face “decision dilemma” more than once every single day.

Facts, stats and figures aside, there are people behind the percentages. And they’re suffering. Reduced capacity, brain fog, anxiety and frustration, and burnout are all side effects of decision fatigue. Not to mention increased stress levels at work.

For businesses, it’s resulting in poorer quality of decisions and outcomes, imperative information being missed, and loss of revenue, productivity, and value in the chain.

So to say that decision fatigue is prevalent in business is completely accurate. But in the Supply Chain sector, it’s an epidemic. 

Decision-fatigue in Supply Chain = global impact.

Supply Chain has long been susceptible to complexities and disruptions. High numbers of stakeholders, suppliers and shipping companies involved in a single value chain; the tasks, documents and systems required to manage supply; and unexpected and uncontrollable disruptions.

The logistics of managing this day-to-day can take its toll. And yes: lead to decision-fatigue over time.

Lack of visibility and the prevalence of siloes is a huge contributing factor. Because communication is often limited between collaborators, it’s easier than you may think for the chain to become one giant game of Chinese whispers – and for human error to increase. Suddenly, even simple task management can result in hundreds of wasted hours a month and thousands lost in revenue.

And not only that, siloes in the Supply Chain have become the accepted norm; many managers and leads are expected to find solutions quickly and quietly, and implement them before those ripple effects occur. Placing huge pressures and urgencies on teams.

It’s not that decision-fatigue starts and stops in the Supply Chain – it’s happening across industries. But increased globalisation within the past several decades has meant that it can have huge impact on global trade, global economies, and global businesses.

It’s a vast issue in the sector, difficult to control, and without viable solutions now, we risk our Supply Chain superheroes burning out, and our sector becoming more and more challenging.

Supply Chain managers and leads are the lynchpin to global trade

At its root, decision fatigue in the Supply Chain comes from an overwhelm of data, an overwhelm of task management, and a lack of infrastructure to streamline both. Intelligent technology, intelligently implemented can drastically change that.

Back to that survey: when asked what can help reduce or eliminate decision fatigue, 94% of those in the Supply Chain sector said the right data and insights will bolster decision-making.

Think of it as an enabler, not a replacer. AI-led software can analyse millions of data points to source more efficient processes and operations across your Supply Chain.

The correct implementation of AI-based tools reduces the need to continually monitor every link across the chain, eradicates these strenuous siloes, and yep, reduces the need for constant decision-making that can compromise the quality of managers and leads’ work, and day-to-day.

That’s what can be minimised. What about what can be gained? Well, Supply Chain teams will be in a better position to think strategically and laterally about a business’ operations, developing more enhanced ways of working and outcomes. Businesses can gain thousands of hours and millions of dollars back from increased productivity and efficiency, not to mention reputational strength within the market. 

So there’s no need for your managers and leads to start wearing a daily ‘uniform’. Unless they want to, of course.