ARTICLES | INSIGHTS

With increased competition and globalization creating new opportunities and challenges for supply chain planning, it is quite possible that firms will struggle even more with supply chain integration as they attempt to manage and respond to the increasing complexity of markets, suppliers, and investors.

In most organizations, the administration of supply-facing and demand-facing activities –ie: supply chain planning– is a cross-functional effort in order to create and capture value. This means that each functional area such as sales, marketing, finance, and operations tends to specialize in its own portion of the planning activities. However, such process is notorious for generating conflicts over differing expectations, preferences, and priorities with respect to how the matching of demand and supply should be accomplished – despite coordination.

Quality of Process, Information, Procedures, Collaboration and Alignment

Although particular cross-functional interfaces have been developed and adopted by many organizations such as: marketing & logistics and purchasing & manufacturing — very few have achieved the broader-reaching integration that consistently develops multi-functional plans that are executed in a coordinated fashion.

Recommendation

Constructive engagement can have a direct positive impact on the process attributes, such as information, procedures, and alignment quality; and, an indirect positive impact on cross-functional integration

The quality of the attributes and outcomes of a planning process can have a positive impact on participants’ collaborative engagement in that process

The pursuit of alignment in organizational planning can be more important than achieving particular levels of informational or procedural quality Related Insights