The fundamental challenge of integrated management is to reditional emphasis on functionality in an effort to focus on process achievement. Over the past few decades it has become increasingly apparent that functions individually performed best in class do not necessarily combine or aggregate to achieve lowest total cost or highly effective processes integrative management seeks to identify and achieve lowest total process cost by capturing trade-offs that exist between functions. To illustrate, in terms of logistics, a firm might be able to reduce total cost to serve a customer as a result of spending more for faster, dependable transportation if the overall cost of inventory associated with the process can be reduced by an amount greater than that being spent for premium transportation.