Supply Chain Leadership: A Look Back at Past Winners

Leading supply chains face a more volatile environment than ever, with tariffs, geopolitical unrest and technological disruption on a scale never seen before.

To remain ahead of disruption, networks are required to assess operations regularly and to prioritise resilience and agility to keep operations streamlined.

We take a look at what the leaders in our sector have been doing over the past year and why learning from a global audience can benefit your network. 

Making supply chains digital

Looking back at some of last year’s winners, a standout candidate was Lenovo. Winning the Digital Supply Chain Award, the global technology company was noted by the judges for its data security and compliance, for which it embedded protection into every layer of its digital supply chain.

Not only this, but other factors that contributed to its achievement included its centralised governance, encryption, regulatory alignment and zero-trust policies. This framework meant ISSC safeguarded sensitive data while ensuring compliance. Its culture also stood out, with mandatory training and secure workflows fostering its innovation advances while maintaining integrity.

The past 12 months have seen Lenovo ranked as the fifth best global supply chain in the The Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2026, which is its highest ever ranking.

When asked by Supply Chain Digital what sets its operations apart from the rest, Che Min Tu, Senior Vice President and Group Operations Officer, Lenovo, said: “[It is] our ability to combine a global manufacturing footprint with localised operations, deep digital capabilities and a strong ecosystem of suppliers and technology partners. 

“That combination gives us the agility to navigate disruption, scale innovation and deliver the best possible experience for our customers and partners around the world. As AI continues to reshape every industry, we see a tremendous opportunity to further transform how supply chains operate and set the standard for operational excellence.”

Projects driving future supply chain excellence

Royal Mail were awarded Project of the Year at last year’s Awards. It won the accolade thanks to its alignment of transformation with procurement and supply chain best practices. It achieved real-time asset visibility, optimised fleet usage and extended asset lifecycles through Wiliot’s IoT platform. 

The delivery giant’s focus on sustainability and integration of risk management during this phased rollout helped raise the bar for industry standards for efficiency, compliance and resilience.

Since this project, Royal Mail has continued to display why it was celebrated last year. Just before Christmas, it rolled out 104 micro-electric vehicles across six UK sites to replace diesel vans and cut emissions. 

Meanwhile, most recently, it announced in its ESG report that it cut its emissions per parcel by 20% in 2024-25, largely thanks to its increased use of low-emission biofuel Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) in its fleet of large trucks. It also reduced its Scope 3 emissions, including almost halving the number of domestic flights.

Advancing sustainability in supply chains

Sustainability is a topic that will draw the focus of many supply chain leaders as we look ahead to the future and innovation working to drive it forward should rightly be celebrated.

Last year’s winner in The Sustainable Supply Chain Award was Infosys, a global consulting and IT services company headquartered in India. 

Its reputation for innovation and large-scale delivery capabilities means that Infosys’s clients benefit from modernised operations, enhanced efficiency and the ability to adopt new technologies while advancing sustainability and talent development.

In fact, late last year, Infosys collaborated with PepsiCo to support a digital transformation with a unified Sales+ platform serving 500,000 weekly store visits.

Another significant contributing factor to its success was the way it engaged stakeholders in its sustainability journey, using structured programmes, supplier partnerships and community initiatives.

Its dedication to sustainability continued this year too. One example is its collaboration with ExxonMobil to deploy immersion cooling systems that aimed to reduce energy consumption and emissions for sustainable data centres.

Celebrating supply chain leaders

With last year’s award recipients continuing to show exactly why the judges celebrated them, we look to those organisations that in the past 12 months have demonstrated supply chain excellence in challenging conditions. 

The deadline for entries for the Global Supply Chain Awards is the 9th July. Make sure you are part of the celebration to reward the individuals and organisations responsible for the continued seamless supply chain operations amid the global geopolitical uncertainty.

Here are the dates and times you need to know for the Global Supply Chain Awards 2026:

• Entries close: 9 July, 2026
• Shortlists announced: 20 July, 2026
• Awards Ceremony: 8 September, 2026, at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House, London

The awards are part of Supply Chain LIVE, which is taking place on 8 and 9 September at the QEII Centre, Westminster. The event is co-located with Sustainability LIVE and Procurement LIVE.