12 SCS:ROUND TABLE DEBATE
STRATEGY
CRITICAL ISSUES OF
COLLABORATION
Industry leaders focused on the
critical issues of creating and
managing effective supply chain
partner networks at the latest
Supply Chain Standard Round Table,
in association with Wesupply.
SAM TULIP
Partnering, and perhaps to a lesser extent
collaboration have been hot or at least lukewarm
topics of supply chain discussion for the
best part of 20 years – vertically, with initiatives such as
the CBI /DTI Partnership sourcing movement of the
‘90s; horizontally with lobby and self-help groups such
as ELUPEG. But, asked chairman Malory Davies, given
that there exists a whole range of common problems
across organisations, why is partnering or collaboration
not taken up?
Is it, he asked, that people don’t know where or how
to start?, or are there simple communication problems
for which new network tools (such as those offered by
Wesupply) could be the answer? Are the initial start-up
costs of close collaboration prohibitive, and so could
software-as-a-service be the answer? And perhaps
above all, how do you embed partnering as a core
business process, rather than as the personal whim of a
couple of senior executives?
Jane Ansell of Pepsi (see below for full accreditations)
said that she had:“seen examples where partnering
works really well; but then someone moves on and the
arrangement fails. The backing by personalities doesn’t
really work, which implies that we need to enable links
that aren’t related to individual people.”
She explained:“A process that says‘check factor x at
this time’is fine, and it happens; whereas a process that
says‘talk to Joe’is only fine if Joe is there.”But, she
MEET THE PANELISTS
MALORY DAVIES
EDITOR, SUPPLY
CHAIN STANDARD /
LOGISTICS MANAGER
“Given there is a range of
common problems across
organisations, why is
collaboration or
partnering not taken up?”
added, there are difficulties in ensuring that both ends
are compatible in receiving whatever form of data is
sent, and ensuring that can add complexity to what
could be a very simple process.
Vivien Ryan from IBM agreed that partnering
shouldn’t be just about people.“It should relate to
particular processes or requirements – something as
bald as‘getting visibility of the supply chain’. Can you
identify the core processes that are going to be
improved – if partnering isn’t going to improve a core
process, then you don’t do it”.
“Human beings”, suggested Simon Williams,“aren’t
the greatest brains when it comes to dealing with data.
So the type of data transferred between partners is
important – there is an argument for keeping it to the
simplest, lowest common denominator stuff. Otherwise
JANE ANSELL
SUPPLY CHAIN
DEVELOPMENT
MANAGER, PEPSI
“The backing by
personalities doesn’t really
work, which implies that
we need to enable links
that aren’t related to
individual people.”
SIMON BOWES
WESUPPLY
“We need to understand
how to get systems to
start to work together, and
then we can try to spot
the opportunities for
bigger collaborations.”
SEPTEMBER 2008 SUPPLY CHAIN STANDARD
www.supplychainstandard.com
Pepsi can’t do the level of
collaboration we achieve with
the top six with everyone. We
can’tgotoeverycornerstore
and say‘we’re going to help you
with your shelf layout’. We have
to understand what we are going
to get out of it – collaboration
has to be for a purpose that
both sides benefit from. You
have to be clear from the start
what both sides are doing...
CLIVE GELDARD
DIRECTOR, SOLVING
INTERNATIONAL
“It’s important to
understand which bits
you are trying to
collaborate on – only
then can you assess the
business case for putting
the effort in.”
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