Supply Chain Leader

 Because of the current economic recession, supply chain management has become a hot topic! In fact, operational and supply chain efficiency is becoming the leitmotiv of CEOs and COOs in order to reduce and master costs, and balance the erosion of customer demand.

This is both a good and a bad news for the field of supply chain.

On the dark side:

Service providers, mostly consulting providers, from all fields understand these trends. And being opportunistic, they start to package their services and to market them as enablers of supply chain and operations efficiency (see Kennedy report).  So you start to see strategy, marketing, IT, HR, and Finance consulting companies, to name a few, talk to executives about their services as operational and supply chain efficiency services and as extending supply chain management to include other fields. Worse, they propose core supply chain services where they don’t have the expertise.

For example, HR consulting services which aim to improve employee motivation can help enhance operational efficiency, but at the same time, should motivation be considered part of the supply chain management field? A similar case could be made for many other fields.

These phenomena could, in the long run, have a very bad impact on the credibility of “true” supply chain improvement methods because these other providers will likely not deliver the results and will bring confusion to the market by extending the field of supply chain to no end! This confusion will make it harder and harder for supply chain experts to demonstrate their unique added value.

On the bright side:

This crisis increases the awareness of the importance of supply chain management as a strategic weapon/ advantage to survive bad economic times and to prepare for better ones to come. This might represent an opportunity for true experts in the field of supply chain, as long as they are able to position themselves clearly and to keep innovating to demonstrate the real added value that they bring to organizations.

Furthermore, the fact that more and more people from other fields are becoming interested in supply chain management can be a plus, since other specialists, in conjunction with true supply chain experts, may help bring to the fore innovative methods to enhance operational efficiency. My position is not that other specialties are irrelevant or that supply chain experts need to “defend their territory”. Rather, I am arguing that the field of supply chain should be circumscribed to what it truly is, rather than including extensions to the field that will lead to confusion that might, in the long run, be detrimental to all those who want to focus on true supply chain issues. I guess I just don’t want supply chain management to be or become a dog’s breakfast…

Am I a purist? Maybe.

Thank you for your comments!

Tweet This Post