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Insights, trends and essential reading. Gain a deeper understanding of supply chain leadership, optimization and sustainability. Learn from our top-ranked SCM faculty’s experience and research.
See and Be Seen: Is There a Business Case for Supply Chain Transparency?
Companies’ desires to achieve greater supervision and control over their supply chains are heightened in the post-pandemic business environment, and are understandable when one considers the business disruptions that have occurred. Whether driven by internal needs for increased control, by customer directives, or by the need to become compliant with emerging regulations, companies are aggressively seeking ways to achieve higher levels of visibility, traceability, and transparency for materials and finished goods, as well as the actors that facilitate their movement through supply chains.
Cost Avoidance: Not Everything That Counts Is Counted
The purchasing department holds the keys to organizational spending — in some industries, it accounts for more than 80 percent of the cost of sales. Purchasing meets its metrics by cutting costs, commonly recognized as spending less for an item this year than last. But purchasing also makes a significant contribution through cost avoidance, which means making a concerted effort to pay less for something than you would have otherwise, or to avoid an expense altogether.
A Logistics Logjam Is Coming – Are We Ready?
Two irresistible forces soon will crash together in the Western world: the e-commerce boom and the accelerating population shift to urban areas. When these two trends collide, they’ll create a challenge that United States and European logistics systems currently can’t handle.
Purchasing’s Hidden Dilemma: Conflicted Role in New Product Development Costing
Organizations that want to remain competitive make controlling costs and growing profit margins top priorities.
Can Supply Chain Integrity Predict Sustainability?
Led by values-driven millennial consumers, the market is putting considerable pressure on companies to be ethically responsible, part of the increasing focus on companies’ environmental, social and financial performance.
Breaking the Chain: GPO Changes and Hospital Supply Cost Efficiency
Procuring, transporting and storing medical supplies and devices can account for up to 40 percent of a hospital’s total operating expenses.
Crowdsourcing Last Mile Delivery: Strategic Implications and Future Research Directions
From the moment the first online consumer put an item in a shopping cart and clicked “buy now,” supply chain management has been scrambling to adapt its distribution strategies to fit the new reality.
Leveraging the Digital Supply Chain
Digital technology is poised to revolutionize supply chain management in the coming years.
Toward a Digitally Dominant Paradigm for 21st Century Supply Chain Scholarship
Many observers foresee dramatic upheaval on the short-term horizon for supply chain management (if the Harvard Business Review article “The Death of Supply Chain Management” is any indication) as traditional management is transformed by seamlessly interconnected digital information networks. Supply chain research, however, has thus far not adapted to accommodate the accelerating pace of change