Tapping the Supply Chain Opportunity
Standing out from the pack
Craig provides insight into the ease with which companies lapse into commodity marketing status.
“For years, retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers have tried to define their core competencies,” he wrote in another article in World Wide Shipping called “Three PLs Need to Take It to the Next Level—How to Do It.” “Core competencies were held to be central to the company strategy.” Supply chain management (SCM), however, “was not held to be a core competency,” Craig wrote. “Such companies … failed to realize that SCM is a process that crosses their entire organization and expands into their customers and into their suppliers. Since supply chain management was not held as essential to business success, they looked at outsourcing as a way to reduce costs, not improve their company with supply chain management.”
Eugene G. Schwartz is editor at large for ForeWord Reviews, an industry observer and an occasional columnist for Book Business magazine. In an earlier career, he was in the printing business and held production management positions at Random House, Prentice-Hall/Goodyear and CRM Books/Psychology Today. A former PMA (IBPA) board member, he has headed his own publishing consultancy, Consortium House. He is also Co-Founder of Worthy Shorts Inc., a development stage online private press and publication service for professionals as well as an online back office publication service for publishers and associations. He is on the Publishing Business Conference and Expo Advisory Board.