3. Set up an innovation process to handle this demand

Even if you have a clear idea of what it would take to handle this request, set up an innovation process.

• Set up a project committee involving all the parties involved, both internal and external (meetings with external partners are of course managed to ensure confidentiality). In some cases, you'll also need to involve stakeholders (NGOs, government bodies) and sometimes competitors (e.g. for mutualization projects), taking care to comply with antitrust legislation.

• Define the way in which trade-offs will be made (a supply chain is a series of interfaces where compromises are necessarily negotiated). If the project is internal, general management or a delegated person may hold this arbitration power; for a project that goes beyond the company, the innovation will also lie in the way these arbitrations are...