As supply chain efforts mature, and a few companies do move to the most
advanced levels of performance, one distinction becomes apparent. Firms that
embrace the inherent concepts, as part of a total extended enterprise optimization
effort, have gained the high ground. The leaders have used advanced
techniques to focus first on operational excellence and then on customer satisfaction,
to open a serious gap between less able competitors, with several
companies beginning to dominate their industries. Positions achieved by such
leaders as Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Intel, Nike, and Dell bear
witness to the values being added through a concerted enterprise-wide improvement
effort. These leaders have discovered the advantages offered by moving
their supply chains into a position of having superior capabilities, gained through
greater access to knowledge across what becomes an enterprise-wide intelligent
value chain network.
When that knowledge is combined with an effort to develop greater customer
intimacy and satisfaction, especially with the most important customers,
the advantage becomes an ultimate distinction in most industries and markets.
To complete this chapter, we want to explore the advantages to be gained by
applying all of the premises presented earlier in this text to a business system
that operates in an intelligent network environment � a true level 5 operation.
To establish the goal of such a network, we would cite a statement made by
Debra Hofman of AMR Research: �Companies need to optimize the demand
and supply side of the network so there is a transparent flow of information that
brings the components together into a finely tuned network that is synchronized,
high performing, agile and responsive to changes in the signal� (Hofman, July
2003). We could not agree more, and when these conditions are attained, a
market advantage is the reward
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