In this issue: Leadership matters in 2022

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the September-October 2022 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

September-October 2022

Once again, it’s time for Gartner’s Top 25 supply chains, the annual list of the 25 supply chains that have made it to the top, plus five Masters that have consistently outperformed year after year. You can read the article, along with some web-only material on scmr.com, to find out what it takes to become a supply chain leader. Last year, I was struck by how the leaders were embracing ESG, or Environmental, Social, & Governance. That has only been reinforced in this year’s report. In fact, ESG has been on the agenda of every event I’ve attended this year, including the keynote address at this year’s ISM conference. Whatever is the…

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Once again, it’s time for Gartner’s Top 25 supply chains, the annual list of the 25 supply chains that have made it to the top, plus five Masters that have consistently outperformed year after year. You can read the article, along with some web-only material on scmr.com, to find out what it takes to become a supply chain leader.

Last year, I was struck by how the leaders were embracing ESG, or Environmental, Social, & Governance. That has only been reinforced in this year’s report. In fact, ESG has been on the agenda of every event I’ve attended this year, including the keynote address at this year’s ISM conference. Whatever is the future of regulation in this area, I think it’s clear that supply chain will play a major role, especially when it comes to sustainability. Clearly, leadership matters.

The rest of this issue focuses on an emerging concept in supply chain management, one that I’m sure will percolate down from industry leaders. That is co-opetition, or the shared supply chain. This is when companies that are otherwise competitors for customers come together to share—and optimize—their assets, such as warehouses, distribution centers and transportation assets.

It has long been common in the maintenance side of the commercial airline industry. Airlines fight like cats and dogs for market share; yet they all realize that it’s too expensive for every airline to own spare jet engines and other critical and expensive parts. So, they create pools of shared assets.

As you’ll learn in the two articles about American Eagle Outfitter’s new approach to e-fulfillment, AEO is developing a shared network of distribution centers and transportation services for other like-minded retailers who might otherwise compete. In the words of Shekar Natarajan, AEO’s chief supply chain officer, banding together is the only way that small-to-mid-sized retailers can get the scale necessary to compete with the e-commerce giants.

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