In the Press

"News & Views"
Supply Chain Digest, October 20, 2006 - by Dan Gilmore, Editor

"How to Design and Manage Truly Collaborative Supply Chains"
Paper presented by Dr. J. Gattorna at 2006 CSCMP (Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals) annual conference, San Antonio USA, October 2006

Why Waste Time Collaborating with Those Who Don't Want to Collaborate?

Dr. John Gattorna, of the Sydney (Australia) Business School and Cranfield School in the U.K., gave a fascinating presentation on collaboration, based on his book "Living Supply Chains." We'll have a lot more later as well on this, but Gattorna made a powerful case that too many companies spend far too much time and resource trying to "collaborate" with customers and suppliers that don't really want to do so. This in part explains the mediocre results from efforts like Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) and CPFR for many companies.

Key Takeaway: Nearly all companies over serve some customers and under serve others - and don't really know which is which. Customers can generally be segmented in three or four simply types, and the appropriate services and supply chain teams aligned with those markets. Among other benefits, this enables a company to get closer to those customers that really do want to collaborate - relationships which provide many benefits.

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