Caroline Emberson

Supply chain management: theory, practice and future challenges

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to critically assess current developments in the theory and practice of supply management and through such an assessment to identify barriers, possibilities and key trends.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a three‐year detailed study of six supply chains which encompassed 72 companies in Europe. The focal firms in each instance were sophisticated, blue‐chip corporations operating on an international scale. Managers across at least four echelons of the supply chain were interviewed and the supply chains were traced and observed.Findings – The paper reveals that supply management is, at best, still emergent in terms of both theory and practice. Few practitioners were able – or even seriously aspired – to extend their reach across the supply chain in the manner prescribed in much modern theory. The paper identifies the range of key barriers and enablers to supply management and it concludes with an assessment of the main trends.Research limitations/imp...

The barriers to customer responsive supply chain management

Purpose – It has been suggested that “customer responsive supply‐chain management” and “agile supply‐chain management” are necessary for the new competitive conditions. However, there is an enormous gap between the idealised prescription and actual practice. The aim of this paper is to examine, in some detail, the factors that can help to explain this mismatch between rhetoric and reality.Design/methodology/approach – To do so, it focuses on a “best‐case” situation – the retailer Marks and Spencer and its relations with its clothing suppliers. This company has traditionally been renowned, among other things, for the sophistication of its supply‐chain activities. The research reported here is based on detailed interviews with suppliers and buyers.Findings – The research reveals that the tenets of the customer responsive supply‐chain management model are technically feasible. But, the study also finds that even under circumstances where there is evidence that it works well, and produces valued outcomes, it ...

Customer responsive supply chain strategy: an unnatural act?

There has been a shift in the last few years from prescriptive models of supply chain strategy to more embracing frameworks that accommodate a range of different approaches. However, there has been a tendency for these models to differentiate by product type. In order to achieve alignment between demand creation and fulfilment this basis for differentiation should, we conclude, change to buying behaviour. We have explored the opportunities for increasing customer responsiveness through the alignment of demand creation and fulfilment by means of empirical studies of six supply chains in three sectors (electronics, process industries and third-party logistics). Our study found that there is currently little evidence of such alignment in practice. There was a marked absence of proactive “management” of the supply chain, and a lack of alignment within the demand fulfilment process itself, and between the demand fulfilment and creation process (including new product introduction). Performance measures were used to optimise functional performance at operational levels within a supply chain rather than the performance of the supply chain as a whole.