Preface
Facing unprecedented global competition and economic volatility, companies must turn their attention to the strategic leverage and value locked in traditional supply chain management. The supply chain impacts virtually every financial metric included in the company's balance sheet and income statement, and supply chain operations excellence can create gains of more than a 35 percent increase in return on capital employed. According to APQC's Open Standards Research benchmarks, best-in-class companies outperform their median competitors by a 50 percent or more supply chain cost advantage across all industries—a gap that hasn't closed in more than 25 years. Transforming your supply chain management into a journey for continuous performance improvement and operations excellence is no longer an option; it's a strategic mandate.
For the past 30 years, I have been “infotaining” audiences around the world with presentations both informative and, at least I think, entertaining. Commonly, though, across all of the feedback I receive following a conference or symposium, is the comment that people felt a bit “fire hosed.” Despite the great content, fast pace, and a few chuckles, they wished that they had had more time to digest the material. So, I started breaking up my presentations into more digestible topics and scope, and kept the pace and chuckles, but I was less satisfied. The problem is that the intricacy of the complexity of supply chain management can't be captured in sound ...
