A VC in Vacationland

I have a confession to make.  Most of the supply chain strategy books I have read in the last 30 years or so are not very good.  Many times I thought that I should write the definitive book on supply chain strategy, but never thought that I understood the complexities well enough to do it. John Gattorna, a retied Andersen Consulting/Accenture supply chain partner from Australia and a good friend, has produced a very definitive book on supply chain strategy, Living Supply Chains: How to Mobilize the Enterprise Around Delivering What Your Customers Want.  And, yes, I am jealous because John has got it mostly right.

One reviewer, Paul Lim, Founder of Supply Chain Asia, has done a good job of summarizing John’s research and findings:

"Sainsbury recently lost share in the market by failing with their supply chain. Wal-mart and Dell won in the market by getting theirs right. Smart supply chains can be decisive. In the J Sainsbury debacle, there was nothing wrong with the strategy, except no one thought to check if the personnel in the company were capable of delivering such complex and sophisticated plan within such a short time frame, and they are paying the price now. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example – it is happening every day. Living Supply Chains is unique in looking beyond the systems and technology of your company, to developing the role of people and behavior in placing customer-focused supply chains at the heart of their enterprise. Based on John Gattorna’s empirical research, Living Supply Chains shows you how to drive the design and management of your supply chains by starting with your customers and understanding their ‘dominant buying behaviors’. In most cases, only 3 or 4 of these will be ‘dominant’ and should then be ‘hardwired’ into the organization’s selling approaches, performance indicators and logistics operations.  With ‘quick’ diagnostics and guidelines executives can use to rapidly identify and close performance gaps, logistics and supply chain management can finally move from the hands of the functional specialists, to the executives. Analysts and shareholders alike have recognized that taking back control of this vital area of business will have the most fundamental impact on future share price performance."

And finally, I am grateful John acknowledged that I also have some good ideas around supply chain strategy.  He cites my paper on Quick Change Supply Chains (available on my web site) as being an important contributor to his thinking on how supply chains need to evolve and innovate in the 21st century.  Thanks, John, for the plug.