Strong Supply Chains Through Resilient Operations

CHAPTER 7Fit the Principles to Your Situation and Strategy

In each of the preceding five chapters (Chapters 2–6), we've started with some basic ideas (Listen to customers! Reduce carbon!). And we've gradually moved into ideas that would require pretty big corporate transformations (Put “constant learning” at the core of your values?! Emphasize access over ownership?!?!?). That's not because we expect every reader of this book to run with all of these ideas. Rather, it's because in our experience the companies that do execute successful transformations are on a journey that's shaped a lot like this.

But I don't want to transform, you may be saying. I just want to become a little more resilient! That's fine. In Part II, we'll provide you with plenty of details on how to implement specific resilience practices, and with concrete examples of companies strengthening their supply chains. We believe you will be better at implementing those projects now that you have read Part I and understand the bigger picture. You'll see how the five principles support each other, for example, how an effort to qualify backup suppliers can be enriched by thinking about customer preferences or data analytics.

To close with just one more story: A global metallurgy player acquired a major Asia‐based competitor. It saw opportunities to increase efficiency, optimize its carbon footprint, and become more resilient in the supplier dimension. So as part of its post‐merger integration activities, it took ...