Strategic Supply Chain Management - Supply Chain Online

CHAPTER 3 Core Discipline 3: Design Your Organization for Performance 125
tor responsible for each of the core plan, source, make, deliver, and return
processes and a well-qualified set of individuals within each group. The
skills within the organization reflected the company’s strategic imperatives:
a demand-management process that could react quickly to current
market conditions, a supply base that could provide palmOne with the best
value in the materials and services it procures, and ongoing improvements
in cost-effectiveness, quality, and customer service.
palmOne’s approach is a good example of how to establish the importance
of your supply chain organization to ensure that it gets the resources
it needs. The best way to gain support and respect for the supply chain as
a strategic asset is to prove that it already is one. Simply put, results talk.
Focus on the Skills You Need
Clearly, balancing the competencies you
need with the competencies you have is
critical to executing your strategy. But what
happens when the demand for skills outstrips
the supply Should you change the
structure of your organization, change your
strategy, or accept the imbalance
Common sense tells us that companies
with well-trained, knowledgeable people
can operate more efficiently, seize
market opportunities more readily, and
weather economic downturns more effectively.
And despite claims to the contrary,
Clearly, balancing
the competencies
you need with the
competencies you
have is critical to
executing your
strategy.
state-of-the-art systems and tools that support supply chain management
are no replacement for human beings. Although they provide a degree of
decision support that was not possible even a few years ago, these systems
demand sophisticated users. In fact, today’s new knowledge economy
requires a new type of supply chain professional—one who can quickly
assimilate volumes of information and use it to make sound decisions. In
effect, the bar has been raised, not lowered. 12
Simply put, behind every world-class supply chain are world-class
people. The same “total cost of ownership” principles that apply to your
material assets also apply to your human assets. Procter & Gamble (P&G)
is a case in point. P&G built an organization that merges manufacturing,
engineering, purchasing, and customer service. 13 The company sees these
functions as an integrated system whose principal purpose is to move
materials from suppliers to customers while adding value along the way.