Savvy supply chain executives have recently started to focus on the enormous benefits—to both the bottom and the top line—that a well-managed supply chain can provide. As a result, supply chain management has emerged as a core management discipline. With her finger on the pulse of the supply chain sector, Shoshanah Cohen, lead director of supply chain innovation at PRTM Management Consultants, along with Mark Newberry, senior vice president of logistics at Elizabeth Arden Inc., presented the five core disciplines that make up a strategic supply chain management strategy.

The session introduces the concepts covered in Cohen’s book, Strategic Supply Chain Management: The Five Disciplines for Top Performance, giving attendees an overview of each of the disciplines, as well as tips and tools for overcoming the challenges that come up when companies try to master them. In the session, real-life vignettes from companies like Elizabeth Arden provided examples of how today’s companies are defining and building core competencies needed to prosper in the current business environment.

Cohen first discussed the “new expectations” of supply chain strategy, using graphics to illustrate the ways in which operational strategy advances a company’s overall business strategy. And while more executives are beginning to understand the important role that the supply chain plays in that strategy, “few are asking enough of it, ”says Cohen. “We really need to delve deeper into the concept of supply chain strategy and look at how expectations are changing.”

So what are the five core disciplines of strategic supply chain management? According to Cohen, they are:

Cohen walked attendees through all five disciplines, noting that the best approach involves building a supply chain that fits with an overall business strategy that can, in turn, set the firm’s overall direction. She used fashion manufacturer Zara as an example of how one company turned clothing into a perishable commodity and increased inventory turns and raised profits as a result. “The company constantly collects information about what customers are buying and what they want,” says Cohen. “Then it manufactures in small, frequent batches that allows it to stop production when something doesn’t sell, thus eliminating stagnant inventory and the need to discount merchandise.”

In the end, Cohen says collaboration between all facets of the supply chain goes a long way in establishing excellence within it. “It’s a big change management issue that requires companies to ask their external partners to do things in a new way,” says Cohen, “but this type of collaborative partnering leads to supply chain excellence.”

The following links offer a synopsis of the seven individual Webcasts that made up this year’s GSCC.