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Rethinking supply chain strategy as a conceptual system
journal contribution
posted on 2016-12-01, 00:00 authored by Roberto Perez-FrancoRoberto Perez-Franco, S Phadnis, C Caplice, Y SheffiChanges to the strategy, context or environment of a business unit may necessitate a revision of its
supply chain strategy. However, rethinking a supply chain strategy is not an easy problem, and has no
clear answer in the specialized literature. Some fundamental questions about supply chain strategizing—
i.e., the process of doing supply chain strategy—have been largely ignored, while others have been answered
with overly-simplistic type-and-match approaches of unclear validity. In this paper, we present a
holistic approach to supply-chain strategizing, called Conceptual System Assessment and Reformulation
(CSAR), developed through a series of collaborative management research projects over a decade. This
paper presents the key ideas of CSAR and explains how it can be used to capture, evaluate and reformulate
the supply chain strategy of a business unit. We argue that these ideas can serve as a step
towards a theory of supply chain strategy. Finally, we illustrate the practical merits of CSAR by presenting
the case of a large world-class corporation that used the approach as a starting point for an initiative to
rethink the supply chain strategy of most of its business units.
supply chain strategy. However, rethinking a supply chain strategy is not an easy problem, and has no
clear answer in the specialized literature. Some fundamental questions about supply chain strategizing—
i.e., the process of doing supply chain strategy—have been largely ignored, while others have been answered
with overly-simplistic type-and-match approaches of unclear validity. In this paper, we present a
holistic approach to supply-chain strategizing, called Conceptual System Assessment and Reformulation
(CSAR), developed through a series of collaborative management research projects over a decade. This
paper presents the key ideas of CSAR and explains how it can be used to capture, evaluate and reformulate
the supply chain strategy of a business unit. We argue that these ideas can serve as a step
towards a theory of supply chain strategy. Finally, we illustrate the practical merits of CSAR by presenting
the case of a large world-class corporation that used the approach as a starting point for an initiative to
rethink the supply chain strategy of most of its business units.
History
Journal
International Journal of Production EconomicsVolume
182Article number
CPagination
384 - 396Publisher
ElsevierLocation
Amsterdam, The NetherlandsPublisher DOI
ISSN
0925-5273Language
engPublication classification
C Journal article; C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalCopyright notice
2016, Elsevier B.V.Usage metrics
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