The Extended Enterprise: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Collaborative Supply Chains

Davis and Spekman have written an excellent work that that takes two critical points of departure from traditional supply chain management (SCM) literature. First, Davis and Spekman link SCM with strategy, indicating that SCM (or any form of functional excellence) must be valued for its usefulness as a source of competitive advantage - not as an end in itself.Second, and more importantly, Davis and Spekman emphasize the importance (and challenge) of true collaboration across enterprise boundaries. While supply chain integration is usually treated as a primarily a matter of gaining visibility or improving synchronization throughout a chain (ie, linking IT systems), Davis and Spekman show that true collaboration depends the integration of business processes and the creation of trust outside traditional enterprise barriers. In short, Davis and Spekman have elevated trust to the level of an absolutely necessary condition for true collaboration in the context of SCM.Davis's and Spekman's message comes none too soon for companies that have been been burned by ERP or CRM system implementations that have failed to produce results or recover costs, or partnerships that dissolve in frustration. Even when the IT or business process aspects of such implementations are handled flawlessly, ignoring the "softer" side - i.e, failing to build trans-enterprise trust - produces predictable results and destroys shareholder value.As a consultant dealing with issues surrounding SCM and external coordination, I recommend this book to executives, general managers, and other consultants whose clients struggle to integrate and collaborate across enterprise boundaries.