Increasingly, the management of multiple relationships across the supply chain is being referred to as supply chain management (SCM). Strictly speaking, the supply chain is not a chain of businesses with one-to-one, business-to-business relationships, but a network of multiple businesses and relationships. SCM offers the opportunity to capture the synergy of intra- and intercompany integration and management. In that sense, SCM deals with total business process excellence and represents a new way of managing the business and relationships with other members of the supply chain.
Thus far, there has been relatively little guidance from academia, which in general has been following, rather than leading, business practice 4, 5 and 6. There is a need for building theory and developing normative tools and methods for successful SCM practice. The exploratory empirical findings reported here are part of a research effort to develop a normative model to guide future research. Executives can use the model to capture the potential of successful SCM.
The Global Supply Chain Forum (GSCF), a group of non-competing firms and a team of academic researchers, has been meeting regularly for the past 6 years with the objective to improve the theory and practice of SCM. The definition of SCM as developed and used by The GSCF is as follows:1
Supply Chain Management is the integration of key business processes from end user through original suppliers that provides products, services, and information that add value for customers and other stakeholders.