Core Competence and Partnerships

European and Asian executives find that their U.S. counterparts lag in the critical skills of planning integration and implementation. They are too quick to think the job is completed when the negotiations are finalized. 

In Chapter 15 we described the transformation to the emerging partnership model — shrinking participants and fewer echelons. This has begun or continues at an accelerating pace in many industries. It should be considered a wake-up call that the pa to success will lie in developing partnerships. As the quotation notes, many have much to learn about this process. To the extent the trend is at work in a particular industry, companies in that industry face imperatives if they are to survive. These imperatives include the following  

What form does a competenq in SCM take Prahalad and Hamel point to three criteria for a core competence. These are the following  

We can illustrate how a partnership strategy could possibly evolve from an activity system using Acme as our example. Acme s strategy called for a resf ructuring of its supply chain along the lines of a newly developed activity system. These activities fit together to form a supply chain to better serve its customers. 

Acme is likely to have more partners in its future — one set of partners will consist of customers, another of peers and suppliers. 

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