Article Review: Supply Chain Challenges: Building Relationships

This report provides a comprehensive review of the article "Supply Chain Challenges: Building Relationships," which explores the difficulties in achieving an agile and adaptive supply chain. The review summarizes the article's problem statement, methodology, arguments, and claims, highlighting the importance of relationships and talent over technology in supply chain management. The article, based on a roundtable conversation, emphasizes the need for adaptive strategies, scenario planning, and the shift from cost reduction to managing transitions. The review analyzes the arguments, supported by case studies, and discusses the conclusions and recommendations, which focus on the value chain. The author recommends that if the value chain is properly focused on and managed, the issues with the supply chain can be resolved upto greater extent and companies can overcome the procurement and supply related concerns. The report concludes that the article is valuable for current marketing professionals, offering relevant insights into the complexities of supply chain management.

Running Head: ARTICLE REVIEW
Article Review
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction and Background
It has been alleged that supply chain management depends solely on the connections and
relationships. The existing literature suggests some of the relationships which play an essential
role for achieving success in supply chain management. The term relationships connote a range
of aspects in the supply chain management. There are the transactional relationship tactical ones,
the internal relationships and many others too. There are other relationships too among the
members of the supply chain community. Few of the most significant challenges of supply chain
are the quality customer service, the costing, the risk management, supplier relationships, fast-
changing markets, the unforeseen delays and many others (Fernie & Sparks, 2018). In this
paper , the article of Beth S, Burt DN, Copacino W, Gopal C, Lee HL, Lynch RP, and Morris
that is titled as Supply Chain Challenges: Building Relationships will be reviewed. The authors
of this article have taken up the challenge related to the supplier relationships and highlighted the
key aspects.The article will be summarized and analyzed on the basis of its problem statement,
methodology, the argument and the claims and the logics underneath. Lastly, the paper will
conclude by summing up the important points and recommend for future study.
Problem Statement and Methodology
The article probably starts with the problem statements itself. The article starts with the
idea that despite years of process breakthrough along with elegant solutions with technologies,
an adaptive and agile supply chain still remains an elusive goal. The issue with most of the
business organization is that they consider supply chain as something covered up with software
and systems whereas the truth is that it is about talent and not technology. The main question that
has driven the authors is how people could be made to work together in the growing complexity
of the current market.

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The article is the form of a roundtable conversation that has gathered many leading
thinkers and doers in the particular field of supply chain management such as practitioners Scott
Beth of Intuit, Sandra Morris of Intel, and Chris Gopal of Unisys. Additionally Hau Lee from
Stanford and David Burt from the University of San Diego have brought about the latest
research. The consultant’s perspectives have been added by Robert Porter of Warren company
and William Copacino from the Accenture company. All the leads have presented a wide-
ranging view of these types of topics such as the role of the chief executives along with the latest
technologies and they have explored both the strategic and tactical techniques in the recent stage
of the supply chain management (Beth et al., 2003).
The problem is put in the context by the senior editor of Harvard Business Review Julia
Kirby who explored the issues properly and provided adequate information regarding the
obstacles and opportunities in the management of supply chain. He has also presented that there
are issues with the talent development, the use of latest technologies and the role of the chief
executive. The gap has been found out by him that is widening between the average performers
and the supply chain leaders. As far as the methodology of the article is concerned, it is evident
that the article is rather an edited transcript of the conversation in the panel. Moreover, the
opinions of Julia Kirby also have been presented forming another strong base for the
development of the problem statement. As per the views of Julia Kirby, direction of priorities
have changed a lot in the last two years due to the economic downturn and plunging into
overcapacity. The article has followed the question and answer method to discuss about the
issues and address them one after another. The article has made plenty use of case proofs and
examples and there are clear correlations between the claim and the evidence. The article uses no
primary sources because no survey or interview has been conducted. It is pretty evident that all

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the information have been extracted from the real-life experiences and exploration of the supply
chain of different organizations (Zhong et al., 2016). According to my views, since the members
of the panel are self-sufficient in terms of evidence and validity of arguments, it is an adequate
method to address the issues. The members of the panel have been in this filed for a long time
and continuously researching on this topic to bring more improvements.
Analysis and Discussion
In the article, regarding the diversified priorities of supply chain management, Chris
Gopal has pointed out that through the past years, the security concerns have changed since the
government has imposed new requirements and regulations on the supply chain of firms. Chris
Gopal also points out the need for an adaptive supply chain strategy and talks about necessity of
scenario planning model. As a contrast William Copacino declares that the focus has been
shifted from planning to execution when there are still huge scopes in the planning sides. He
further elaborates on the shift to the basic such as WMS and MES along with RFID due to the
changing need in the market and demand for security. Another most important point has been
raised by Julia Kirby that the focus has been drastically shifted to cost reduction from speed
increase.
In this respect, Robert Porter Lynch has suggested that this has occurred due to the
meltdown of the stock market and the “knee –jerk reaction” of the chief financial officers are
leaving the supply chain in a negative manner. The most serious fact is that most of the
companies are using the ‘cost-cutting’ strategy to gain competitive advantage. Hau Lee puts a
contrasting argument saying he has surveyed on few hugely successful companies who have
become great not by focusing on the cost cutting strategy but with their capacity to manage
transitions efficiently. They have concentrated more on their abilities to adopt the evolving

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technology, the changing market conditions and the different requirements. Based on his
experiences, he claims that those companies can go long term which have the ability to adopt the
change. Providing an instance of Zara, it is pointed out that the companies need to handle the
crisis management properly and Zara has become able to do so. This strategy has been presented
as the ideal triple –A supply chain strategy consisting of the agility, adaptability and alignment.
Providing the case of Volvo as an instance, Lee claims that sometimes companies run up
to the capacity limit while giving special deals on a specific product. Volvo made planet of green
cars in the year 1995 but could not sell them all. After selling those on special deals secretly by
the sales and marketing people. Hence, undoubtedly the article has abundantly used the case
studies of companies to strengthen the arguments. The claim have found base when company
instances are used as references by the people of the panel. These real-life references have made
the arguments more logical, clear and convincing presented with a simple language and easy
flow of words (Garcia & You, 2015). The arguments are consistent throughout the paper because
it is the question answer format hence giving scope to everyone to share their thoughts in for or
in against. Undoubtedly the arguments are backed by facts from the well-known companies such
as Dell and Walmart and others too. All the members have contributed a lot making the reading
easy and the issues and seen from everyone’s perspectives.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The article concludes with one of the most significant aspects of a supply chain hat is the
value chain. As Lynch pointed out that value chain is the most neglected part but it is the
important of all. People need to think about it and work on it equally as they do on supply chain.
On the other hand, there are companies such as the South west Airlines which have focused more
on the value chains. The ultimate recommendation is that if the value chain is properly focused

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on and managed, the issues with the supply chain can be resolved upto greater extent and
companies can overcome the procurement and supply related concerns. I believe that that the
recommendations are completely feasible because supply chain and value chain are not so
different and these two are intricately related. When the value chain would be worked on , the
supply chain of the company will automatically get organized. However, on a concluding note it
has to be acknowledged that the article is a wonderful piece of information and worth reading for
the current marketing generation.

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References
Beth, S., Burt, D. N., Copacino, W., Gopal, C., Lee, H. L., Lynch, R. P., & Morris, S. (2003).
Supply chain challenges. building relationships. Harvard business review, 81(7), 64-73.
Fernie, J., & Sparks, L. (Eds.). (2018). Logistics and retail management: emerging issues and
new challenges in the retail supply chain. Kogan page publishers.
Garcia, D. J., & You, F. (2015). Supply chain design and optimization: Challenges and
opportunities. Computers & Chemical Engineering, 81, 153-170.
Zhong, R. Y., Newman, S. T., Huang, G. Q., & Lan, S. (2016). Big Data for supply chain
management in the service and manufacturing sectors: Challenges, opportunities, and future
perspectives. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 101, 572-591.