Global supply chain survey
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
IDC’s latest Theory & Practice newsletter includes a summary of early results of a global supply chain survey they are conducting. IDC indicates they have received over 800 responses.
According to the report, the survey has found that “the top priority for supply chain strategies is reducing costs, but responsiveness and collaboration remain key.” It goes on to say “global competitiveness is pushing manufacturers to become more agile to better handle demand variability.”
If you’ve read anything on this blog you know that the focus is on enabling increased responsiveness within global supply networks. To be more responsive, companies need to empower their people with the information and tools to enable them to act quickly and decisively. It’s been my experience that doing so requires collaboration. But this collaboration is people-to-people. When most people write and talk about collaborating with suppliers they are referring about system-to-system collaboration. That certainly has it’s place and value in automating the execution of transactions across a global supply network. However, when things go wrong, people need to step in. It’s people that need to analyze the situation, collaborate with other people and figure out the course corrections and tradeoffs that will get things back on track and meet the goals of the company.
