Harvard Business Review
In this article for Harvard Business Review, I set out to bridge the gap between the corporate rhetoric of "sustainability" and the hard reality of global operations. For years, companies have hidden behind the sheer complexity of their networks, claiming that tracking a product back to its raw origin was a "mission impossible." In "What Supply Chain Transparency Really Means," my co-author Steve New and I argue that this era of plausible deniability is officially over.
The central challenge we address is that many executives conflate visibility with transparency. Visibility is an internal capability—it’s the data your procurement team has on your tier-one suppliers. Transparency, however, is a deliberate choice to disclose that information to the public, the regulators, and the consumers. You can have visibility without transparency, but you can’t have true transparency without a rigorous foundation of visibility.
We introduced a framework to help leaders navigate this: the Transparency Matrix. It asks two fundamental questions:
How deep do you go? Are you just looking at the factory that assembled the product, or are you tracking the cotton back to the field and the cobalt back to the mine?
What do you disclose? Is it just a list of names, or are you sharing social audits, environmental impact data, and certifications?
The takeaway I wanted to leave readers with is that transparency isn't just a defensive move to avoid a PR crisis or comply with new "duty of care" laws. It is a strategic pivot. By mapping the "black holes" in your supply chain, you identify hidden risks, discover inefficiencies, and—most importantly—build a brand that people can actually trust. In a world where technology has made the "invisible" visible, the most transparent companies won't just be the most ethical—they'll be the most resilient.
Article in Harvard Business Review