Excellence in Supply Chain Management

Book excerpt: Recent decades have witnessed an explosion in supply chain complexity. Very few firms have succeeded in building excellent supply chains and employing supply chain management (SCM) as a competitive advantage. For the ones which have developed enhanced supply chain design and process capabilities, their performance has far exceeded their competitors'. While for the vast majority of firms, SCM still remains a means of reducing costs and improving efficiency, for the excellent ones, SCM has turned into a source for value creation. What factors drive firms towards supply chain excellence? How can real differentiation be created through supply chains? Excellence in Supply Chain Management examines the characteristics and features of firms that excel in SCM.