By: Natalie Johnson
When manufacturing, logistics, and commercial teams operate without a shared rhythm, the damage does not announce itself. It accumulates quietly, in excess inventory that erodes margin, in end-of-month surprises that blindside leadership, and in customer credibility that takes years to rebuild after it has been lost.
Lisa W. Brown, a supply chain and operations executive who has led cross-functional transformation at Constellation Brands, including managing a $900 million divestiture without dropping service performance, has a precise view of what that disconnection actually costs. “Misalignment is one of the most expensive problems hiding in plain sight,” Brown says. “You don’t just lose efficiency. You lose revenue, margin, and credibility with customers.”
What Happens When Every Function Finally Speaks the Same Language
When Brown joined Constellation Brands, every function operated on its own logic. Sales had no visibility into raw material-to-customer production flows. Operations had no understanding of how distributor relationships worked. Finance was attempting to hold everything together without anyone understanding what it was doing. The result was an organization perpetually rolling the dice on whether it would make a plan.
The fix was a shared operating rhythm, a unified cadence giving every function real-time visibility into performance against monthly, quarterly, and annual targets. Within months, the dynamic shifted entirely. Teams stopped hoping the numbers would work out and started identifying gaps early enough to close them.
“People stopped saying novenas at the end of every month,” Brown says. “We were actually able to know in advance whether we had a gap and what we needed to do to close it.” The surprise-at-month-end culture that plagues disconnected organizations did not require a technology overhaul. It required every function to finally understand what the others were doing and why it mattered.
Leading a $900 Million Divestiture Without Adding Headcount
The Constellation Brands divestiture required Brown’s team to split service operations between what remained with the company and what transferred to the divesting entity, restructure customer relationships, and maintain service levels throughout, all without adding headcount. In practice, this meant operating simultaneously as a manufacturer and a third-party logistics provider, with teams divided to manage both sides and new routines established to service the divesting company in parallel. What made it possible was not the plan’s sophistication. It was the strength of the base operating model and the clarity of communication throughout. “If you have a strong operating model, you can tweak it to do what you need it to do,” she says.
Every team member needed to understand the destination. Every leader needed to maintain the right cadence, provide continuous feedback on whether actions were correct or needed adjustment, and stay flexible enough to adapt as the picture became clearer. “In uncharted territory, you can’t make a real plan because you don’t know all the pieces,” Brown says. “Communication, setting expectations, and being flexible, that is what gets you through.”
Stop Reacting to Volatility. Build for It.
Most supply chain operating models are built on assumed stability. Every geopolitical event, shift in trade routes, or cost spike triggers a crisis response rather than a planned reaction. The organizations that consistently outperform are the ones that have flipped that logic, treating disruption as a standard input rather than an exception to manage after it arrives.
AI accelerates this capability by processing multiple complex variables simultaneously, such as weather patterns, construction schedules, trade route closures, fuel prices, and geopolitical developments, generating decision scenarios at near-instant speed. A human still makes the final call. But the call is made from preparedness rather than panic. “When disruption becomes part of how you do business rather than an exception to it,” Brown says, “you stop treating every unexpected development as a crisis.”
To learn more about Lisa W. Brown, visit lisawbrown.com or find her on LinkedIn.
