Supply chain leadership
IndustryWeek has an interesting article here talking about supply chain leadership. The article talks about various approaches companies take to establishing a leadership position and cites some specific company examples.
As we work with brand owners and contract manufacturers, I’m finding an increasing interest in leadership around being demand-driven and responsive to change. And, at the root of the ability to do this is ensuring supply chain visibility and empowering front-line decision makers to respond to change in a quick and accurate manner.
I’m also seeing a change in the relationship between supply chain, or supply network, partners. It seems that when companies first started to outsource there was an implicit “washing of the hands” of that problem as manufacturing was turned over to a third party. Companies have evolved their thinking and now are focusing on closer relationships with their suppliers as they recognize the critical coordination that must take place across the virtual enterprise to respond to change.
This is driving a closer working relationship and greater sharing of information. While I’m not seeing a move back to vertical integration and I don’t see companies wanting to micro-manage their partners, companies are absolutely rising to the challenge that a distributed, multi-enterprise supply network poses by enabling broad supply network visibility and ensuring that the people in the trenches have both the visibility and tools they need to coordinate an effective response to change across the network.
