Supply Chain Game Changers—Mega, Nano, and Virtual Trends—And Forces That Impede Supply Chain Design (i.e., Building a Winning Team)

• Published date: 01 September 2014
• Author: Stanley E. Fawcett,Matthew A. Waller
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12058
• Date: 01 September 2014

Editorial

Supply Chain Game Changers—Mega, Nano, and Virtual

Trends—And Forces That Impede Supply Chain Design

(i.e., Building a Winning Team)

Stanley E. Fawcett

1

and Matthew A. Waller

2

1

Weber State University

2

University of Arkansas

Strategic systems design is essential to structuring and governing a supply chain for competitive advantage. To effectively co-create value,

decision makers must manage the three rights of supply chain design: right players, right roles, and right relationships. Doing this well

requires managers discern how the unwritten competitive rules are changing as well as determine firm readiness to compete. As part of this

analysis, we briefly explore five emerging “game changers”that represent potential supply chain design inflection points: (1) Big Data and

predictive analytics, (2) additive manufacturing, (3) autonomous vehicles, (4) materials science, and (5) borderless supply chains. We also con-

sider four forces that impede transformation to higher levels of value co-creation: (1) supply chain security, (2) failed change management, (3)

lack of trust as a governance mechanism, and (4) poor understanding of the “luxury”nature of corporate social responsibility initiatives. How

well managers address sociostructural and sociotechnical issues will determine firm survivability and success.

Keywords: supply chain design; Big Data; additive manufacturing; supply chain security; trust; change management

INTRODUCTION

The only place success comes before work is in the dictio-

nary.—Vince Lombardi

Successful companies are by nature complex, dynamic sys-

tems. They emerge as decision makers purposely “fit”nuanced

behavioral, organizational, and technology subsystems together

to drive outstanding performance (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967;

Fawcett et al. 2012). They earn customer loyalty as leaders

cultivate “appropriately”collaborative business models to access

supply chain partner’s resources so they can promise and deliver

a distinctive value proposition (Dyer et al. 1998; Fawcett et al.

2007). They endure as managers strategically seek, adapt, and

reconfigure resources to “destroy their enemies”—that is, to take

rivals’business away (Bracker, 1980).

In other words, success is not serendipitous. Success—that is,

survival and superior performance—comes only after the arduous

work that (1) underlies strategy development and (2) is the

essence of systems design (Churchman 1968; Luthans and Stew-

art 1977; Senge 2006). Strategic systems design (see Table 1) is

essential to structuring and governing a supply chain for market

advantage in a dynamic competitive environment (Scott and

Davis 2006; Richey et al. 2010). Decision makers must not only

identify supply chain partners who possess needed skills but also

entice them into becoming a cohesive value co-creation team.

Purposive supply chain design involves a three-step process that

we label the three rights of supply chain design:

1. Inviting the right companies to participate in value co-creation.

2. Assigning them to the right value-added roles and responsibilities.

3. Establishing the right relationships among them.

PURPOSIVE SUPPLY CHAIN DESIGN: A METAPHOR

The NFL, NBA, or... (pick your favorite sports league) draft

offers an apropos metaphor for the work needed to proactively

design a supply chain for competitive advantage. The draft is the

mechanism teams use to select the players who will join the

team (if they are good enough). Before draft day, intensive

analysis is performed to first, define the team’s specific needs

and second, assess various athletes’abilities to fill those needs.

We’ll focus primarily on defining team needs. Analysis is

performed to answer two questions:

1. What are the “unwritten”rules of the game?

2. How ready is the team to compete in the existing and emerg-

ing environments?

In sports, as in the business world, the “unwritten”competitive

rules are always in flux—evolving in response to rivals’strategic

experimentation and emerging talent (Clark 2014). Consider the

following three examples:

•Strategic experimentation. In American-rules football, more

teams play purposively fast—running no-huddle, hurry-up

offenses. To avoid having to adapt, coaches of opposing teams

have sought (unsuccessfully) to use official rules committees

to ban such offenses.

•Emerging talent. In basketball, the traditional shooting guard

has become an endangered species—replaced by more athletic

scorers who slash to the basket (Herring 2014). This new athleti-

cism spaces the floor, providing more action, and higher scores.

Corresponding author:

Stanley E. Fawcett, Business Administration, Weber State Univer-

sity, WB 267, Ogden, UT 84408. E-mail: stan.e.fawcett@gmail.com

Journal of Business Logistics, 2014, 35(3): 157–164

© Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals