Pathways to Customers: Reducing Complexity in the Logistics Pipeline

The fundamental weakness in traditional supply‐chain management thinking is that of trying to change the behaviour of everyone involved by exhorting them to create and maintain a shared vision and strategy. This is fruitless, particularly in global and cross‐cultural situations. A pragmatic, market‐based approach is needed which is repeatedly proven by practical applications and relies on identifying and accepting the differing objectives and styles of other supply chain members, and clustering these seemingly disparate groups into their “natural logics”. These can be aligned, by restructuring the organisation, to allow the natural flows to emerge and operate efficiently. The resulting alignment of the organisation to its markets enables it to achieve near‐perfect customer service.