Her question, "How can they lower supply and materials costs while keeping supplier and customer relationships intact?" is about supply chain. Her comment, "The approaches, however, don't strike me as particularly novel," is about innovation. She can't see it, and, for the most part, neither can I.
I think back ten or twenty years when Dell Inc. gained fame for its revolutionary cash-to-cash cycle supply chain, when Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) was innovating with supplier relationship models and when Wal-Mart revolutionized retail with its methods and systems.
Maybe I missed it, but where are the new concepts like those of Charles H. Fine at MIT in his book Clockspeed or Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School, in his book Innovator’s Dilemma?
I remember reading about human generations where one generation is innovative, disrupting the status quo, while the next generation is pragmatic, taking the innovations of the previous generation and making them work. Is that what’s going on? I don’t know!
So where is the true innovation in the supply chain? Which companies are the Dells and Wal-Marts? What are the breakthrough ideas that underlie progress? Which companies? Which people? What ideas?
I am tired of hearing about relationships using the term "strategic" because we can’t articulate what we are really trying to say. Can anyone lead me out of darkness and show me today’s true supply chain innovation?
Great Point. I wish I had an answer that would make sense. It seems like nobody wants to be the first company to take a risk and think outside the box. Innovation sometimes comes from the least likely of candidates. There needs to be some CEO and supply chain manager out there willing to step up and show some initiative.
Innovations just need not be technically, developing simple improved supply chain process by making availability of all the parts without adding many inventory in the chain for eg FedEx made an innovation just by improving logistics for which the customers were ready to pay. any thing simple can also make huge differences.
That's exactly what seems to have happened - a decade ago, everyone and their mother seemed to have at least some sort of novel-sounding supply chain idea (altogether brilliant or a twist on a old practice that passed for new). Now, the conversation and initiative seems to have stagnated. It could be like you said - this generation is pragmatically implementing past ideas, and in times of economic hardship, that may be all they can do. Or, maybe those last-generation ideas weren't sustainable and didn't work like expected, which now has created a chilling effect for others to champion a project (Would anyone admit to that? Probably not. But, I'm sure not all announced supply chain programs got high marks). It's possible, too, that people have just tired of the buzz or forums that once existed where people collectively brainstormed and expressed opinions - theoretical, if not actionable - have faded into memory. The other side of that same coin is that we (me, you and others reading this) may have become too jaded; our expectations for innovation are too high, and we're not appreciating the slow-and-steady progress that rarely makes hadlines. Admittedly, it takes a lot to wow me these days. As a journalist hardened by hearing too many false promises, I know I'm a cynic sometimes.
Speaking of which, I'll be at the Mobile World Congress this week, the huge monster mobile/telecom show in Barcelona. Top execs from Cisco, Nokia, Ericsson, Intel, Qualcomm, RIM, and other well-known companies will have their time on stage. I'll be listening pretty closely for that next big idea that may well get the electronics supply chain fired up again. I'm waiting to be wowed.
How can we think of supply chains when talking about companies such as Google? Or when talking about internet companies that don't really deliver a product.
Cloud computing is making every company reconsider the way they work, it must, somehow, relate to supply chains.
We cannot expect an innovation to happen every now and then. Innovation requires creativity and out-of-box thinking and there is no guarantee of success. For whatever innovations we might have seen , those may be only the success stories. Behind them there could be hundred other innovative ideas which may have failed and hence got unnoticed. If some management student takes this as his research project then many of these failed ideas can be brought back to work by analyzing the reasons of their failures.
We seem to have lost the ability to control our destiny. You work hard but fall farther behind. You can’t count on much to be "as expected" in the future.
EBN Dialogue enables and encourages you to participate in live chats with notable leaders and luminaries. Not only editors and journalists, but the entire EBN community is able to comment and ask questions. Listed below are upcoming and archived chats.
Archived Dialogues
Thailand Stages a Comeback Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Euro-Crisis: What It Means for High-Tech Firms Join EBN Editor in Chief Bolaji Ojo and Contributing Editor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday, July 12, at 10:00 a.m. EDT for a Live Chat on high-tech and Europe's economic difficulties.
Microsoft Surface: Potential Winners & Losers What are the implications for the electronics industry supply chain of Microsoft Corp.'s decision to launch its own tablet PC? Join industry veteran and EE Times' systems and OEM expert Rick Merritt on Tuesday, July 3, at 12:00 pm EDT for a Live Chat on this subject.
Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Peter Drucker famously said "Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window." Yet in the razor's-edge world of electronics—with a lean supply chain and just-in-time demands—the need to know the future is vital.
While no one really can accurately predict the future, we can take guidance from another Drucker saying which is the best way to predict the future is to create it.
You've heard the saying "the No. 1 supply chain risk is your people." That hasn't always been the case. But today's complex global supply chain requires a new type of multitalented employee. It's one who understands, finance, marketing, economics, is savvy with technology, graceful with relationships and can think analytically.
Where are these people? Are universities properly preparing the next generation supply chain professionals? How do train your existing workforce for these new, demanding positions?
Brian Fuller, editor-in-chief of EBN, will lead a 60-minute Avnet Velocity panel discussion that will ask and answer these and other questions swirling around today's supply-chain talent challenges.
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