Rethinking Your Supply Chain Strategy

Rethinking a supply chain strategy is not a trivial problem. Supply chains tend to be rather complex entities, and the act of thinking strategically about them, what we call supply chain 'strategizing', reflects this complexity. The absence of an established answer in the supply chain management literature regarding how to rethink the supply chain strategy of an organization further compounds what is already a daunting problem. Between 2006 and 2016, a team of researchers at MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) explored the problem of supply chain strategizing, as part the Supply Chain 2020 Project. After a decade of research in collaboration with world-class organizations, significant progress was made. Many questions remain open, and will continue to be explored by an offshoot of the SC2020 Project, called the MIT Supply Chain Strategy Lab.But we feel it is time to share with the community of supply chain managers the insights we have derived so far on how to re-think the supply chain strategy of an organization. That is the purpose of this text.

Understand how to upgrade your supply chain to perform well in complex and volatile markets with this guide covering the strategic, design, operational and tactical bases of supply chain reconfiguration.

Rethinking Supply Chain outlines how organizations can close the gap between the supply chain capabilities they have and the supply chain capabilities they want. The supply chains built pre-covid are no longer suitable in the current volatile business environment. Rethinking Supply Chain explores why and how organizations can upgrade their supply chains to level 5 maturity, enhancing them to be more sustainable, strategy-driven and resilient. It outlines the dangers of using outdated supply chain practices, sharing what goes wrong when organizations run level 5 complexity and variability with a level 1 capability. It shows how organizations can improve their strategic planning, supply chain design, sales and operations planning and business planning processes to respond to new dynamic levels of variability and complexity. It is supported by practical frameworks and roadmaps. This book outlines why supply chain reconfiguration is needed, how to define a business case for change and the steps needed to drive effective transformation. Rethinking Supply Chain also explores how to integrate sustainability into the heart of supply chain design and operations and examines the trade-offs organizations must navigate, depending on whether they wish to be at par, differentiate or dominate on sustainability drivers.

Supply Chain Strategy and Financial Metrics is a step-by-step guide to balancing the triangle of service, cost and cash which is the essence of supply chain management. Supply chains have become increasingly strategy-driven, and this Supply Chain Triangle approach puts the supply chain at the heart of the strategy discussion instead of seeing it as a result. Supply Chain Strategy and Financial Metrics fully reflects the 'inventory' or 'working capital' angle and examines the optimisation of the supply chain and Return on Capital Employed. Including case studies of Barco, Casio and a selection of food retail companies, this book covers building a strategy-driven KPI dashboard, target setting and financial benchmarking. Regular examples and diagrams illustrate how different types of strategies lead to different trade-offs in the Supply Chain Triangle. This ground-breaking text links supply chain, strategy and finance through financial metrics, therefore creating value for the shareholder. Online supporting resources include worksheets covering basic financial concepts such as cash flow and working capital, with example data sets and guidelines/exercises to make it interactive.

Collaboration in supply chains means managing the chain beyond traditional or transactional methods. It involves rethinking the way your business is managed, both internally and externally, and the ways in which employees and partners relate to each other. Stuart Emmett and Barry Crocker's book explains how a relationship-based approach to supply chain management can transform business; how to organise your business internally for effective supply chain relationships and how to transform your external supply chain using relationship marketing, customer relationship management and supply chain partnerships. One of the key distinguishing characteristics of a high performing supply chain is the presence of strategic trust. With strategic trust, the parties have access to each other's strategic plans; relevant cost information and forecasts are shared; risks and rewards are addressed openly. This book explains how to embed a culture of inter-company trust and to realise the benefits of improved supply chain relationships.

Reinvent your supply chain from the outside in – cut costs, growth revenue and increase customer satisfaction. We are now seeing and experiencing increasing turbulence in practically all our major industries, which is leading to costly mis-alignments between suppliers and their customers/end users. The world is no longer as forgiving as it was a few decades ago. Customers going online have become increasingly demanding, and the operating environment has become exceedingly complex. This combination means that companies wishing to survive and thrive in the coming decades must transform themselves to become more agile and market responsive. The problem is: where to start this transformation journey? We all pay lip service to being customer-centric, but the reality is that most of the world’s large corporations have built up their logistics networks (and by extension their enterprise supply chains) over many years of sunk investment, pursuing the flawed philosophy of ‘one-size-fits-all’. The solution to this dilemma is the Dynamic AlignmentTM framework, which directly links the target market, to the operational strategies, internal cultural capability, and leadership styles inside our enterprise. It will help you to adopt an ‘outside-in’ perspective of our market by seeing the world through the lens of our customers; and use the insights gained in this way to reverse engineer the capabilities inside our enterprises to more precisely align with customers’ expectations. Transforming Supply Chains allows you to segment your customer’s expectations into not one, but several dominant buying behaviours. By identifying how your market is structured, you can develop matching value propositions and corresponding operational strategies for each behavioural segment identified and then use those findings to redefine the internal operating structure as well as the external supply chains. Companies already using this model have seen greater customer satisfaction, an uplift in revenue, and a reduction in costs. In some cases, companies have doubled their margins within a year. The full text downloaded to your computer With eBooks you can: search for key concepts, words and phrases make highlights and notes as you study share your notes with friends eBooks are downloaded to your computer and accessible either offline through the Bookshelf (available as a free download), available online and also via the iPad and Android apps. Upon purchase, you'll gain instant access to this eBook. Time limit The eBooks products do not have an expiry date. You will continue to access your digital ebook products whilst you have your Bookshelf installed.