Current Thinking on Supply Chain Strategy

This chapter reviews the broad strategies that present opportunities for firms to leverage while designing their supply chains and aligning them to their business strategies. It first reviews some of the prevalent concepts that are often used in the context of supply chain strategy. The supply chains can be classified into four types: lean, agile, speculation, or postponement-oriented. There are two other strategies that have been mentioned in various supply chain strategy literature: postponement and speculation strategies. Supply chains directly manage the following four basic components of a firm’s value chain, which we call the supply chain sphere of influence: management of demand; management of supply; management of inventory; and management of resources. Understanding the driving factors and the overriding objectives in a supply chain is imperative to creating a supply chain strategy for a firm. Controlled Vocabulary Terms business strategy; inventory management; supply chain strategy; value chain