Oct 18, 2006
Creating the Optimal Supply Chain – Review (Avoiding the Cost of Inefficiency: Coordination and Collaboration in Supply Chain Management)
In Part 1 of Creating the Optimal Supply Chain, a report made available publicly by Supply Chain experts from BCG and Wharton, I reviewed the section titled You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure’: Maximizing Supply Chain ValueYou Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure’: Maximizing Supply Chain Value. In this post, I want to review the next section of the report titled – Avoiding the Cost of Inefficiency: Coordination and Collaboration in Supply Chain Management.
When I’m having my groceries checked out at Walmart, the clerk almost always asks me the following question in some form or the other:
“Did you find everything you wanted?”
And invariably I answer – “Yes!” whether or not it is true. I can only think of one time when I was searching helter skelter for 1 particular product (a baby boppy pillow) that I told the clerk. And I set a chain of events in motion. The clerk didn’t know where I’d find it. So she called up her manager and she led me straight to the product even though I had been searching that exact aisle for a good 10 minutes.
Ofcourse, there’s no such thing at Walmart.com and that I consider a slip up. Amazon.com addresses this question in a different way by serving up recommendations that my buying/searching profile conjures up in their algorithmic search technique on their page but coming to think of it whether it is 1-click checkout or a haphazard checkout online, none of these retailers bother to ask me this question.
In this section of the report, the authors contend that,
But the process of getting the right product to the right place at the right time at the right price