Not only the end-consumer serves as the ultimate objective, it also provides vital information and practical assistance to the decision making in the process of supply chain management. The end-consumers needs and wants, where they are, how many they are and how much they can afford and etc. give the supply chain manager some very precise guidance as how to achieve market responsiveness.
It is therefore beyond the shadow of doubt that supply chain and its management have always been, still are, and will certainly continue to be customer oriented. This customer orientation gives the fundamental reason and purpose of its existence. It also ensures that supply chain management has to be a system perspective based management approach that engages every participating member of the supply chain to align to the customer orientation.
1.3Defining Supply Chain Management
Defining the supply chain management can be both dead easy and extremely difficult. It is dead easy because it is so widely known and widely practiced in almost all businesses. There is hardly a need to teach the "A, B, C" again. It is also extremely difficult because the definition must capture .all what supply chain management in practice has reached far and wide. As an attempt, the author proffers the following ,definition: