Supply Chain Management and Performance - Fundamentals to Research

Recent developments in the business world have forced companies to adopt supply chain approach to manage their businesses rather than using the traditional approach of vertical integration. By doing so, companies are able to cut their inventories and costs down; improve their ability to respond to fluctuations in demand; and can also get benefits like shorter lead times, higher profits, higher productivity, better quality, and finally, greater customer loyalty. Since a supply chain is a network of several companies doing different businesses, performance measurement becomes a complex issue. In the era of supply chains, performance of individual companies does not matter alone. It is the overall performance of supply chains which now matters. Management of supply chains and their performance become more demanding when environmental and uncertainty issues are also considered. Population growth and industrial developments in India are adding to the environmental concerns.