The transparent supply chain solution called the Control Tower acts as the supply chain nerve center, utilizing technology, organization and processes that capture product movement visibility from the supplier all the way to the customer.

Pharmaceutical companies are running hard to keep pace with changes brought about by digital technology. Mobile communications, the cloud, advanced analytics, and the Internet of Things are among the innovations that are starting to transform the healthcare industry in the ways they have already transformed the media, retail and banking industries. Pharma executives are well aware of the disruptive potential and are experimenting with a wide range of digital initiatives.

In 2010, when Netflix was still early into its shift from DVD rentals to online movies and shows, it started using Amazon Web Services, the retailer's cloud computing division. Now that Netflix streams 100 million-plus hours of video every day, it's sticking with Amazon partly because of Amazon's scale and features, and partly because switching vendors "would be a significant multi-year effort," says Yury Izrailevsky, Netflix's vice president for cloud and platform engineering.

If the company is the bus and its leader is the driver, as Jim Collins' famous analogy states, then it stands to reason that when the bus is moving, the driver should mostly be looking out the windshield (toward the future) rather than consulting the rear-view mirror.