The era of network competition
- The new organisational paradigm
- Collaboration and trust in the supply chain
- Reducing costs through collaborative working
- ‘Co-opetition’ – co-operating with competitors
- Managing the supply chain as a network
- Supply chain orchestration
- From 3PL to 4PL™
- The last word
Throughout this book the emphasis has been upon the achievement of competitive advantage through excellence in logistics and supply chain management.
An increasing number of organisations can be identified in which logistics and supply chain management are quite clearly recognised as major strategic variables. Companies like Xerox, Dell, Zara and 3M have invested significantly in developing responsive logistics capability. Whilst their success in the marketplace is due to many things there can be no doubting the role that logistics and supply chain management have played in achieving that success.
Each year Gartner – a company specialising in supply chain management analysis and research – has conducted a study of leading supply chains and has sought to understand what constitutes the key drivers of supply chain excellence.
Using hard quantitative data and qualitative assessment from a panel of experts, Gartner Research produce annual an annual ranking of the ‘top 25 supply chains’.1 Based on their analysis of the leading companies in their survey they have identified six consistent characteristics exhibited by those companies:-
- Outside-in focus
Leading supply chains are designed from the customer backwards and are demand-driven. - Embedded innovation
This implies a close integration between product design, manufacturing and logistics to ensure that the supply chain begins on the drawing board. - Extended supply chain
A recognition that in today’s world of global supply chains and outsourcing that the close management of relationships from end-to-end is essential. - Balanced metrics
In order to achieve high levels of agility and responsiveness there has to be a realisation that there will be trade-offs across the business. To achieve the best overall outcomes requires a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect the need for balance. - Attitude
A culture that extends across the organisation based on the recognition that internal silos must be removed and that external relationships need to be managed in a spirit of partnership. - Supply chain talent
Supply chains are as much about people as anything. Leading companies actively seek to develop the skills and capabilities that will enable success on the previous five elements.
The new organisational paradigm
It will be apparent that to achieve success in all of these areas will require significant change within the company. It requires a transformation that goes beyond re-drawing the organisation chart and entails a cultural change that must be driven from the top. In fact the basic principles that have traditionally guided the company must be challenged and what is required is a shift in the basic paradigms that have underpinned industrial organisations for so long.
The need for new business models
Most of us work in organisations that are hierarchical, vertical and functionally defined. The organisation chart for the typical company resembles a pyramid and provides a clear view of where everyone fits in relation to each other and will also normally reflect reporting relationships. In essence, the conventional organisation structure is little changed since the armies of the Roman Empire developed the precursor of the pyramid organisation.
Whilst there can be no doubting that this organisational model has served us well in the past, there are now serious questions about its appropriateness for the changed conditions that confront us today. Of the many changes that have taken place in the marketing environment, perhaps the biggest is the focus upon ‘speed’. Because of shortening product life cycles, time-to-market becomes ever-more critical. Similarly, the dramatic growth of JIT practices in manufacturing means that those companies wishing to supply into that environment have to develop systems capable of responding rapidly and flexibly to customers’ delivery requirements. Indeed, the same is true in almost every market today as organisations seek to reduce their inventories, and hence a critical requirement of a supplier is that they are capable of rapid response.
The challenge to every business is to become a responsive organisation in every sense of the word. The organisation must respond to changes in the market with products and services that provide innovative solutions to customers’ problems; it must respond to volatile demand and it must be able to provide high levels of flexibility in delivery.
Perhaps one of the most significant breakthroughs in management thinking in recent years has been the realisation that individual businesses no longer compete as stand-alone entities, but rather as supply chains. We are now entering the era of ‘network competition’, where the prizes will go to those organisations who can better structure, co-ordinate and manage the relationships with their partners in a network committed to delivering superior value in the final marketplace.
The emergence of the ‘network organisation’ is a recent phenomenon that has given rise to much comment and analysis. These ‘virtual’ organisations are characterised by a confederation of specialist skills and capabilities provided by the network members. It is argued that such collaborative arrangements provide a more effective means of satisfying customer needs at a profit than does the single firm undertaking multiple value-creating activities. The implications of the network organisation for management are considerable and, in particular, the challenges to logistics management are profound.
To make networks more effective in satisfying end-user requirements demands a high level of co-operation between organisations in the network, along with the recognition of the need to make inter-firm relationships mutually beneficial. Underpinning the successful network organisation is the value-added exchange of information between partners, meaning that information on downstream demand or usage is made visible to all the upstream members of the supply chain. Creating ‘visibility’ along the pipeline ensures that the manufacture and delivery of product can be driven by real demand rather than by a forecast and hence enables all parties in the chain to operate more effectively.
Supply chain management is concerned with achieving a more cost-effective satisfaction of end customer requirements through buyer/supplier process integration. This integration is typically achieved through a greater transparency of customer requirements via the sharing of information, assisted by the establishment of ‘seamless’ processes that link the identification of physical replenishment needs with a ‘JIT’ response.
In the past it was more often the case that organisations were structured and managed on the basis of optimising their own operations with little regard for the way in which they interfaced with suppliers or, indeed, customers. The business model was essentially ‘transactional’, meaning that products and services were bought and sold on an arm’s-length basis and that there was little enthusiasm for the concept of longer-term, mutually dependent relationships. The end result was often a high-cost, low-quality solution for the final customer in the chain.
This emerging competitive paradigm is in stark contrast to the conventional model. It suggests that in today’s challenging global markets, the route to sustainable advantage lies in managing the complex web of relationships that link highly focused providers of specific elements of the final offer in a cost-effective, value-adding chain.
The key to success in this new competitive framework, it can be argued, is the way in which this network of alliances and suppliers are welded together in partnership to achieve mutually beneficial goals.
Collaboration and trust in the supply chain
It will be clear that one of the key ingredients of supply chain management excellence is a high level of collaboration and, hence, trust across the network.
The benefits of collaboration are well illustrated by the oft-quoted example of the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’. The scenario is that you and your partner have been arrested on suspicion of robbing a bank. You are both put in separate cells and not allowed to communicate with each other. The police officer tells you both independently that you will be leniently treated if you confess, but less well so if you do not.
In fact the precise penalties are given to you as follows:
| Option 1: | You confess but your partner doesn’t. |
| Outcome: | You get one year in jail for co-operating but your partner gets five years. |
| Option 2: | You don’t confess but your partner does. |
| Outcome: | You get five years in jail and your partner gets only one year for co-operating. |
| Option 3: | Both of you confess. |
| Outcome: | You get two years each. |
| Option 4: | Neither of you confess. |
| Outcome: | You both go free. |
These options and outcomes can be summarised in the matrix in Figure 13.1.
What is the most likely outcome? If neither you nor your partner really trusts the other, particularly if previous experience has taught you to be wary of each other, then both of you will confess. Obviously the best strategy is one based on trust and hence for neither party to confess!
This simple example provides a good analogy with the real world. The conventional wisdom of purchasing has tended towards the view that multiple sources of supply for a single item are to be preferred. In such situations, it is argued, one is unlikely to become too reliant upon a single source of supply. Furthermore we can play one supplier off against another and reduce the cost of purchases. However, such relationships tend to be adversarial and, in fact, sub-optimal.
One of the first things to suffer when the relationship is based only upon negotiations about price is quality. The supplier seeks to minimise his costs and to provide only the basic specification. In situations like this the buyer will incur additional costs on in-bound inspection and re-work. Quality in respect of service is also likely to suffer when the supplier does not put any particular priority on the customer’s order.
At a more tangible level those customers who have moved over to synchronous supply with the consequent need for JIT deliveries have found that it is simply impractical to manage in-bound shipments from multiple suppliers. Similarly the communication of orders and replenishment instructions is so much more difficult with multiple suppliers.
The closer the relationship between buyer and supplier the more likely it is that the expertise of both parties can be applied to mutual benefit. For example, many companies have found that by close co-operation with suppliers they can improve product design, value-engineer components, and generally find more efficient ways of working together.
This is the logic that underlines the emergence of the concept of ‘co-makership’ or ‘partnership sourcing’. Co-makership may be defined as:
The development of a long-term relationship with a limited number of suppliers on the basis of mutual confidence.
The basic philosophy of co-makership is that the supplier should be considered to be an extension of the customer’s operations with the emphasis on continuity and a ‘seamless’ end-to-end pipeline. As the trend of outsourcing continues so must the move towards co-makership. Nissan Motors in the UK have been one of the leading advocates of this concept. A key element of their approach is the use of ‘supplier development teams’, which are small groups of Nissan specialists who will help suppliers to achieve the requirements that Nissan places upon them. The overall objective of the supplier development team is to reduce the costs and increase the efficiency for both parties – in other words a ‘win–win’ outcome. Because the cost of materials in an automobile can be as high as 85 per cent, anything that can reduce the costs of purchased supplies can have a significant effect on total costs.
Figure 13.2 depicts a not-untypical situation where a car manufacturer’s purchased materials are 85 per cent of total costs. This is then exploded further where it is shown that the material costs of the component supplier are a figure closer to the average for manufacturing industry of 40 per cent. Of the remaining 60 per cent (‘supplier value added’), 80 per cent of that figure might be accounted for by overheads, of which typically 30 per cent or so would be accounted for by the supplier’s logistics costs (i.e. inventory, set-up costs, transport, warehousing, etc.).
Figure 13.2 The impact of suppliers’ logistics costs on the costs of a car
What this implies is that approximately 12 per cent of the cost of materials to the car manufacturer are accounted for by the supplier’s logistics costs (i.e. 85 per cent × 60 per cent × 80 per cent × 30 per cent). When it is realised that a proportion of the supplier’s logistics costs are caused by the lack of integration and partnership between the car manufacturer and the supplier, it becomes apparent that a major opportunity for cost reduction exists.
Under the traditional adversarial relationship the vehicle manufacturer would seek to reduce his material cost by squeezing the profit margin of the component suppliers. The co-makership approach is quite different – here the vehicle manufacturer seeks to reduce a supplier’s costs, not his profits. Through collaboration and closely integrated logistics planning mechanisms the two parties seek to achieve a situation where there are benefits to both parties. Companies like Nissan Motors in the UK have shown that this is not a Utopian dream but can be a practical reality. The case of SKF, the Swedish manufacturer of bearings and related products described below also demonstrates the benefits of adopting a ‘co-makership’ philosophy.
Working with suppliers to improve agility
SKF, a global manufacturer of ball and roller bearings, linear motion products, spindles and seals – headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden – has had to respond to a number of significant changes in the business environment. With greater volatility across its markets and different rates of development geographically the company had to become far more agile and flexible, particularly in its supply chain.
The company recognised that the key to agility lay not just in its internal operations but with its upstream suppliers. SKF has adopted a strategic sourcing philosophy with the objective of working more closely with suppliers who are willing and able to align their processes with those of SKF. The purpose of this alignment is to enable SKF to move towards a demand-driven supply capability – in contrast to the previous emphasis on cost reduction and capacity utilisation. Suppliers are also seen as partners in innovation where the intention is to create ‘win–win’ outcomes in terms of improved revenues in the final market.
The principle of co-makership can be extended in both directions in the supply chain – upstream to suppliers and downstream to distributors, retailers and even end users. The prizes to be won from successful co-makership potentially include lower costs for all parties through reduced inventories and lower set-up costs as a result of better schedule integration. The implications for competitive strategy are profound. The new competitive paradigm is that supply chain competes with supply chain and the success of any one company will depend upon how well it manages its supply chain relationships.
Reducing costs through collaborative working
Most businesses are constantly seeking to reduce costs but in many cases these cost-reduction exercises mainly focus on gaining internal efficiencies. However one of the biggest opportunities for cost reduction is not within the business but rather it lies at the interfaces with other partners in the supply chain. The rationale behind this assertion is that for most of their existence firms have focused on seeking internal efficiency improvements and have often failed to recognise the significant layer of cost that exists at supply chain interfaces – a cost that is there because those interfaces have not been well managed in the past.
It has often been the case that relationships with suppliers, and even customers, have been at best arms length and at worst adversarial. It is still the case today that some companies will seek to achieve cost reductions or profit improvement at the expense of their supply chain partners. Companies such as these do not realise that simply transferring costs upstream or downstream does not make them any more competitive. The reason for this is that ultimately all costs will make their way to the final marketplace to be reflected in the price paid by the end-user. Smart companies recognise the fallacy of this conventional approach and instead seek to make the supply chain as a whole more competitive through the value that it creates and the costs that it reduces overall.
Where precisely do these cost reduction opportunities lie and how can they be exploited?
There are three key drivers of costs, albeit related, at most supply chain interfaces – all of which can be reduced or eliminated, by collaborative working. These costs might be labelled:
- Transaction costs
- Process costs
- Uncertainty costs
Transaction costs
These are the costs of placing orders, progress chasing, raising invoices, confirming delivery arrangements, handling queries and all the myriad of other activities that are involved when companies do business with each other. Many of these costs are hidden and not easy to quantify and yet they can be significant. However, in many cases they can be dramatically reduced by the adoption of collaborative working arrangements supported by modern B2B e-commerce tools. Today’s information and communications technology has made it possible to connect supply chains from one end to the other, and the availability of ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) over the web means that the costs of communication across networks are relatively low.
The barriers to improving supply chain collaboration to reduce transaction costs are not actually to do with technology rather they are to do with ‘mindsets’. In other words there is still often a reluctance to work as partners and hence to share information across the network. Research has highlighted the significant benefits of reduced transaction costs, shorter cash-to-cash cycles and improved supplier/customer relationships that can be achieved if the barriers to collaboration can be removed.
Process costs
These costs arise because suppliers’ processes do not always align with those of their customers. Thus there are often considerable inefficiencies at the point of contact. In an extreme case, if the different parties use different product codes or have different unitisation requirements (e.g. different pallet sizes) then there will obviously be additional costs. However the lack of process alignment generally means that there will be discontinuities and duplication, e.g. having to re-enter data several different times as orders and products flow from one supply chain entity to another. As well as the time involved, the opportunities for errors to creep in are increased, leading to further cost in the supply chain.
Closer process alignment can be achieved through the creation of joint process teams with members drawn from both sides of the customer/supplier interface. As we highlighted in Chapter 5, many good examples exist in the consumer packaged goods industry where manufacturers and retailers have created teams to implement CPFR initiatives.
Uncertainty costs
These costs arise because there is often a lack of confidence in forecasts and a lack of knowledge about customers’ precise requirements. Hence, as a result, buffers of inventory are created at the interfaces between supply chain entities. Safety stocks are necessary because of uncertainty and/or lack of confidence in a forecast on the one hand and the supplier’s ability to supply on the other.
As a result of this uncertainty it is quite common to encounter a high degree of duplication of inventory. In other words the supplier is holding inventory because they are not sure when the customer’s order is coming or the size of that order. At the same time the customer is holding inventory of exactly the same material/product because they know from past experience that they cannot always rely on the supplier to deliver what they want, when they want it.
The true costs of inventory are much higher than most managers believe. Because inventory is a part of the total asset base of the business it has to be financed just like any other capital element. Given the current problems many companies have raising capital – be it from banks or investors – it must also be recognised that the opportunity cost of locking up working capital in the form of slow-moving inventory does not make sense. Furthermore in today’s turbulent marketplace with ever-shortening product life cycles, the risk of obsolescence is high – meaning that markdowns or even write-offs are more likely. Combine all these costs with the more obvious costs of storing, handling and managing inventory and it is not unusual to see the real cost of holding inventory approaching or exceeding 25 per cent per annum of its value, as we discussed in Chapter 4. Thus holding an item of even just moderate value inventory for only a month or so can be enough to wipe out the margin on its sale.
The key to reducing these unnecessary buffers of inventory is clearly improved supplier/customer communication. The old cliché of ‘substitute information for inventory’ has never been more apposite in today’s business environment. Those companies that have created improved visibility by giving suppliers information on their rate of usage/sales of a product in as close to real-time as possible thus enabling Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) have been rewarded with a significant reduction in inventory and hence cost.
Figure 13.3 below contrasts the traditional approach where suppliers and customers do not work collaboratively but rather seek to win a bigger slice of the ‘pie’. The collaborative approach on the other hand sees both parties as members of the same extended enterprise, working together to grow the size of the pie.2
‘Co-opetition’ – co-operating with competitors
Most examples of collaboration across supply chain boundaries tend to be ‘vertical’, i.e. working with upstream suppliers or downstream customers. However there is a growing interest in exploiting the opportunities for ‘horizontal’ collaboration, i.e. working with others in the same sector who may also be competitors. This is the idea of co-opetition, as it has been termed.3 Underpinning the concept of co-opetition is the view that companies can benefit by working together in those parts of their business where they do not believe they have a competitive advantage. Thus two competitors might share a warehouse and/or outbound transport, perhaps facilitated by a third-party logistics provider. The argument supporting such collaboration is that if costs can be reduced for both parties and no competitive disadvantage is incurred then it makes sense to collaborate in that activity.
Managing the supply chain as a network
The new competitive paradigm we have described places the firm at the centre of an interdependent network – a confederation of mutually complementary competencies and capabilities – which competes as an integrated supply chain against other supply chains.
To manage in such a radically revised competitive structure clearly requires different skills and priorities to those employed in the traditional model. To achieve market leadership in the world of network competition necessitates a focus on network management as well as upon internal processes. Of the many issues and challenges facing organisations as they make the transition to this new competitive environment, the following are perhaps most significant.
1 Collective strategy development
Traditionally, members of a supply chain have never considered themselves to be part of a marketing network and so have not shared with each other their strategic thinking. For network competition to be truly effective, a significantly higher level of joint strategy development is required. This means that network members must collectively agree strategic goals for the network and the means of attaining them.
2 Win–win thinking
Perhaps one of the biggest challenges to the successful establishment of marketing networks is the need to break free from the often adversarial nature of buyer/supplier relationships that existed in the past. There is now a growing realisation that co-operation between network partners usually leads to improved performance generally. The issue then becomes one of determining how the results of that improved performance can be shared amongst the various players. ‘Win–win’ need not mean 50/50, but at a minimum all partners should benefit and be better off as a result of co-operation.
Recently the concept of ‘win–win’ thinking in the context of outsourcing has been developed into a set of principles known as ‘vested outsourcing’.4 This framework, based on research conducted by the University of Tennessee, reflects the argument that the most successful and enduring outsourcing arrangement in supply chains are the result of the company and its service provider having a vested interest in each other’s success and working collaboratively to achieve mutually created ‘desired outcomes’.
3 Open communication
One of the most powerful drivers of change in networks has been the advent of IT, making the exchange of information between supply chain partners so easy and so advantageous. The Internet has provided a ubiquitous platform to enable end-to-end pipeline visibility to become a reality. With all parties ‘singing from the same song sheet’, a much more rapid response to marketplace changes is achieved, with less inventory and lower risks of obsolescence. For network marketing to work to its fullest potential, visibility and transparency of relevant information throughout the supply chain is essential. Open-book accounting is another manifestation of this move towards transparency by which cost data is shared upstream and downstream and hence each partner’s profit is visible to the others. Building this network-based approach to competitive advantage clearly requires a number of significant changes to the way in which the business is run and the ‘mindsets’ of those who manage it.
Supply chain orchestration
With the emergence of the virtual organisation and the extended enterprise comes a heightened requirement for some way of managing the complexity that is inevitably created. Consider for a moment the difference between the supply chain at Ford during the time of Henry Ford and Ford’s supply chain today. Henry Ford had an integrated supply chain because in effect he owned most of it. As well as manufacturing the vast majority of all the components that went into the vehicle, the company also owned steel mills, rubber plantations and mahogany forests! Today’s Ford could not be more different. Most of the component manufacturing business was floated off as a separate company, Visteon, and the steel mills have long since gone. Instead Ford is at the centre of a network of specialist service providers, first-tier suppliers and collaborative alliances. The task of managing, co-ordinating and focusing this value-creating network might usefully be termed supply chain orchestration.
The idea of orchestration is that there has to be a common agreed agenda driving the achievement of the supply chain goals. This itself implies that there must be a supply chain strategy that is subscribed to by the entities in the chain. By the very nature of things, the orchestrator will probably be the most powerful member of the network, i.e. a Wal-Mart or a Dell, but not necessarily. Innovative organisations can utilise their superior supply chain capabilities to act as orchestrators, as the Li & Fung case study below demonstrates.
Li and Fung: supply chain orchestrator
Li and Fung (L&F) is a long-established trading company based in Hong Kong, orchestrating one of the largest and most successful of all outsourced manufacturing networks. It supplies apparel, accessories, sporting equipment, household goods and toys to retail chains located mostly in North America and Europe.
L&F does not manufacture anything in-house, but as network co-ordinator it oversees the manufacturing and delivery processes end-to-end. Its modus operandi is, however, in sharp contrast to automotive industry-style supplier management programmes. L&F does not micro manage or monitor each and every process of a handful of first-tier suppliers. Nor does it control its network through intricately worded contracts or sophisticated IT capabilities. The secret of L&F’s success is that it has learned how to manage outsourced operations through hands-off relationships with over 7,500 trusted and very specialised manufacturing organisations, working with up to 2,500 at any time. L&F’s suppliers are located in around 40 countries, stretching across South-East Asia, into China, the Indian subcontinent, the Mediterranean, Africa and across to the Americas. Together the suppliers represent a highly flexible and highly skilled resource pool, able to meet the requirements of almost any customer. L&F ensures their loyalty by pre-booking between 30 and 70 per cent of the selected suppliers’ capacity each season and rewarding high performers with more business.
When an order is received, L&F is able to draw on this vast array of talent, selecting yarn from one country, to be woven and dyed in another, cut in a third and assembled in a fourth, before being shipped to retailers elsewhere. For each stage of manufacture and distribution it carefully picks the organisation best able to undertake that particular value-adding activity, but then leaves the company to determine exactly how that should be achieved. For each value-adding step, L&F will provide specifications for the work – relating to what must be achieved, but not how – and the deadline by which the supplier must have shipped the work to its next destination. In doing so L&F gets the benefits of control without stifling innovation. It gets the product or service it requires, but leaves it to the supplier to determine the most efficient way of achieving it. If a quality problem or some logistical difficulty arises, then the network is flexible enough for production to be transferred very quickly to an alternative source or location.
L&F is constantly searching for new companies to add to the network, as well as new product opportunities. Over 100 years of experience has provided the company with a deep knowledge of its business and the ability to identify those organisations that have the right capabilities to enhance and sustain the growth and diversity of the network. Co-ordination costs are high, but L&F have demonstrated that these are more than offset by the advantages of flexibility offered by its loosely coupled network.
Another model for the co-ordination of complex networks that has been proposed is the idea of a 4PL™ or a Lead Logistics Service Provider.
From 3PL to 4PL™
Third-party logistics service providers are companies who provide a range of logistics activities for their clients. They might operate distribution centres, manage the delivery of the product through their transport fleets or undertake value-adding services such as re-packing.
The idea of the fourth-party logistics service provider was originated by the consulting company Accenture. The underpinning principle was that because modern supply networks are increasingly global and certainly more complex, the capabilities to manage the network probably do not exist in any one organisation. In such situations, there is a need for an organisation – possibly coming together with the focal firm through a joint venture – who can use its knowledge of supply chains and specialist third-party service providers to manage and integrate the complete end-to-end supply chain.
The 4PL™ would assemble a coalition of the ‘best of breed’ service providers and – using its own information systems capability – ensure a cost-effective and sustainable supply chain solution. Figure 13.4 summarises the principle behind the 4PL™ concept.
In this particular business model a joint venture (JV) has been formed between the client and the partner. As well as putting in equity the client will also transfer its existing logistics assets (e.g. distribution centres) to the JV. Probably too, the staff who manage and run the existing logistics system will move to this new company. The partner’s contribution might include, as well as start-up equity, its information systems capability, its strategy development skills and its process re-engineering skills.
The JV will then identify those specialist providers of logistics services who between them will execute the different activities in the supply chain. Using its information systems the JV now becomes the supply chain orchestrator and delivers to the client, against agreed service and cost goals, a complete network management capability.
Whether the 4PL™ be a JV or some other model there are four key components that must be in place:
- Systems architecture and integration skills
- A supply chain ‘control room’
- Ability to capture and utilise information and knowledge across the network
- Access to ‘best of breed’ asset providers
Figure 13.5 summarises these key requirements.
The last word
We are seemingly entering an era where the rules of competition will be significantly different from those that prevailed in the past. A new paradigm of competition is emerging in which the supply chain network increasingly will provide a source of sustainable advantage through enhanced customer value.
If such an advantage is to be achieved, then it is critical for the organisation to review the way in which it currently delivers value to its customers and to consider whether the time has come to reconfigure the chain to utilise the strengths of other players in the supply chain. One thing is for certain – companies that believe that they can continue to conduct ‘business as usual’ will find that their prospects for success in tomorrow’s marketplace will decline rapidly.
References
1. O’Marah, K. and Hofman, D., ‘Top 25 Supply Chains’, Supply Chain Management Review, October, 2009.
2. Dyer, J.H., Collaborative Advantage, Oxford University Press, 2000.
3. Brandenburger, A.M. and Nalebuff, B.J., Co-opetition, Doubleday, 1996.
4. Vitasek, K. (with Ledyard, M. and Manrodt, K.), Vested Outsourcing, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.