Who Does Supply Chain Best

Supply chain excellence is defined by the ability to use the supply chain to deliver the business strategy. The maturity of process allows companies to improve the potential of the supply chain to maximize opportunity and mitigate risks while raising the effective frontier. 

As companies mature, they want to know how their supply chain compares to others. They also want to know whether they are getting better or worse and what good looks like. They are hungry to know if they have reached their supply chain potential. While this sounds simple, the answers to these questions are not easy. The ability to get comparison data on supply chain performance is easier said than done. 

While there are many services in the market that have evolved to share benchmark data, there are many pitfalls. Companies need to 

Consistent definitions matter. When it comes to supply chain benchmarking, the basics matter. Definitions, granularity, and frequency of the process need to align for data to be relevant. 

Common data model. To be useful in benchmark comparisons, the planning systems need to have a similar data model. Very few companies have implemented planning in a similar enough manner to facilitate peer group benchmarking. For most, this is overlooked. 

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So, who does supply chain best There are many attempts in the market to crown a supply chain leader and while there are many methodologies attempting to define who does supply chain the best, they are inadequate. One methodology throws all companies into a spreadsheet and compares them on growth, inventory, and asset utilization and asks peers to rate the companies. This methodology has a number of problems. Supply chain excellence cannot be determined this simplistically. Instead, it needs to be evaluated in a stepwise holistic manner based on three criteria ... 

When asked, "Who does supply chain best " the supply chain pioneers rated Apple and Dell as second and third in delivering snpply chain excellence. In the design of their snpply chains, there are many commonalities ... 

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