Related Lit

Emerging Trends in Logistics and Supply Chain Management –

Collaborative Supply Chains

Introduction

Supply chain collaboration is considered as one of the most talked about topics in business nowadays, almost all companies or organizations are in the process of embracing the supply chain activities, no wonder companies that collaborate efficiently through the supply chain have enjoyed intense reductions in costs and inventories, together with customer satisfaction, improvements in speed, and service levels. Supply chain collaboration is described as a long-term relationship where participants share information, cooperate and work together to plan and even revise their business practices to improve joint performance.

Discussion

Benefits of Collaborative Supply Chain

As they say, “Knowledge is power” in a state of supply chain collaboration, sharing of information will likely result in the enhancement of knowledge throughout the chain that permits you to attain earlier and faster decision-making, better-quality customer service metrics, shorter lead times, lesser out-of-stock levels, lesser warehousing and transportation costs, and lesser inventory levels and more inventory turns. According to Kampstra and Ashayeri, big companies gradually view supply chain excellence not just as a source of cost reduction but more importantly, they see it as a source of competitive advantage, with the probable to hammer performance improvement in asset utilization, customer service, cost reduction, and profit generation. Effective collaboration within the cross-functional entity and between cross-enterprise chain entities is essential to achieve these goals collectively and individually.

As stated by Myers (2010) supply chain partners are finding advanced ways to make collaboration work for mutual gain in previously unfamiliar ways. He added that the majority of supply chains are discovering massive amounts of wastes, which they are cutting away to retain working margins....