Executive Overview Supply chain excellence matters. It can make or break corporate performance. To drive improvements, companies need a clear definition of supply chain competency. It is easier to state than to define, and the market is full of beliefs that are not grounded by hard, cold facts. Now 30-years old, the practice of supply chain management is still evolving. While companies speak of ‘best practices’, and boast about improvements in operating margin, inventory levels and asset management in conference after conference, we do not see it in our analysis of balance sheet information for any industry. The reason? The supply chain is not well-understood by executive teams, and many companies have pursued a project-based approach (implementing multiple projects with ROI above a threshold) or a focus on vertical excellence (where functional charters create very strong functional excellence); however, this is misguided. We do not find that these two approaches make a difference. Instead, we find that it is supply chain leadership driving resilient, predictable, and forward-looking processes that drives sustained balance sheet improvement. We find that for top performers that it happens in a slow and steady pattern versus the big-bang approach. Supply chain leaders want to drive excellence. By their nature, these leaders are competitive. They want to drive performance improvements, increase corporate value and outpace competitors. It is not easy. The rate of business change is intense and the personal stakes are high. Day after day, leaders must answer questions like, “Which path should I to take? What are the best technologies to use? What is an acceptable rate of performance? How am I doing against my peer group? And, what can I learn from others that I can use to improve the performance of my own operation?” Until the development of the Supply Chain Index there was no independent and objective data-driven methodology that could answer these questions. With the development of this methodology, there now is a way to gauge improvement. Collecting the data and doing the analysis in this report is the result of a 24-month effort. We were fearful at the end of the process that it would be difficult to pick the top performers, but we should not have worried. When we applied the methodology, the top companies hopped off the page. They were easy to spot. Listed by industry, the Companies to Admire are listed in Table 4. Within a peer group, we place them within alpha order. Due to the complexity of the analysis it is hard to rate them more granularly. No companies made the list from the contract manufacturing, medical device, paper, pharmaceutical or retail peer groups. Likewise, there were more companies that made the list in the industrial than the consumer value networks.

1. By Lora Cecere
Founder and CEO Supply Chain Insights LLC
and
Abby Mayer
Research Associate Supply Chain Insights LLC

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Contents
Research Overview
Disclosure
Research Methodology
Judging Supply Chain Performance
Judging Supply Chain Improvement: The Supply Chain Index Methodology
Balance
Strength
Resiliency
Calculating a Score for the Supply Chain Index
Why the Time Period Matters
Supply Chains to Admire
Executive Overview
Measuring Supply Chain Improvement
Improving Performance on the Effective Frontier
What Is a Value Network?
Progress within the Consumer Value Network
Retail
Apparel
Consumer Packaged Goods
Food and Beverage
Chemical
Packaging
Progress within the Healthcare Value Network
Pharmaceutical
Medical Device
Progress within the Industrial Value Network
Automotive
Automotive Suppliers
Consumer Electronics
Semiconductor
Recommendations
Conclusion
Appendix
Alternative Measures Considered for Resiliency
Metrics That Matter Reports
Other Reports in the Supply Chain Index Report Series
About Supply Chain Insights, LLC
About Lora Cecere
About Abby Mayer
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Research Overview
The term supply chain excellence is easier to say than to measure. Having a clear definition is critical to enabling an effective operating strategy. To help supply chain leaders fill this gap, over the course of the past two years, we have studied industry progress on supply chain excellence by analyzing corporate balance sheet and income statement information.
This work started with a deep analysis by industry. Each industry has unique rhythms and cycles with a possible band of performance across the critical supply chain metrics of growth, operating margin, inventory turns and Return on Invested Capital (ROIC). The supply chain leader’s goal is to improve the potential of the supply chain within the possible range for the industry.
To determine what is possible, in past two years we have published 18 reports to analyze the progress of companies within specific industries for the period of 2000–2012. These reports, by Supply Chain Insights LLC, were published in a series called Supply Chain Metrics That Matter from August, 2012 through March, 2014. These deep studies of supply chain performance within specific industries were preparatory work to build a methodology to gauge supply chain progress using financial ratios. To select the Supply Chains to Admire, we analyzed peer groups to understand first what was possible, and then to determine which companies were outperforming their peer group on the metrics of growth, operating margin, inventory turns and Return on Invested Capital. After determining the overperforming companies, our next goal was to judge supply chain improvement. It is our belief that companies that are delivering on the goal of supply chain excellence not only demonstrate better than average balance sheet results against their peer group, but also drive improvement against the peer group.
While it is easy to measure performance, gauging improvement is more difficult. To accomplish this goal, we needed to define a new methodology. We wanted to produce a methodology that could be used by all companies—large and small—within an industry peer group for a given time frame. This led to the Supply Chain Index which was developed with input from the University of Arizona School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, and based on the performance patterns in orbit charts.
The Supply Chain Index is a composite metric, measuring a company’s improvement on balance, strength and resiliency factors within a peer group for a given time period. In this report, we analyze the progress of 3 value networks: consumer, healthcare and industrial. A value network is a group of

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trading partners focused on delivering goods and services effectively to the point of consumption. We focus on two separate time periods: 2006-2013 and 2009-2013.
The goal of this report is to identify, and celebrate, the success of the companies that have excelled in driving both performance and improvement. In future studies, it is our goal to study these companies closely to understand the performance drivers. We want to share the insights to help other companies gain higher levels of supply chain performance.
Disclosure
Your trust is important to us. As such, we are open and transparent about our financial relationships and our research process. This independent research is 100% funded by Supply Chain Insights.
These reports are intended for you to read, share, and use to improve your supply chain decisions. Please share this data freely within your company and across your industry. All we ask for in return is attribution when you use the materials in this report. We publish under the Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States and you will find our citation policy here.
Research Methodology
The basis of this report is publicly available information from corporate annual reports and income statements for the period of 2006-2013. To complete this analysis, and understand the patterns, we partnered with a research team from the School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU) during the spring of 2014 to develop the Supply Chain Index methodology to analyze supply chain improvement based on pattern analysis of performance. Details on the math used in this methodology are outlined in the Appendix of this report.
In the analysis of the Supply Chain Index, we use supply chain financial ratios as opposed to absolute numbers. The use of ratios allows us to compare large companies to small entities, and also to compare the progress of companies operating in different countries using differing currencies. Additionally, it allows us to track progress over time. In Table 1, we share the supply chain ratios we have been mining to understand the trends in the Metrics That Matter report series. For the Supply Chain Index, we measure the patterns and trade-offs between growth, inventory turns, operating margin and ROIC.

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Table 1. Financial Ratios Considered in the Development of the Supply Chain Index
While there are other measurements which we believe are important in the determination of supply chain excellence—like forecast accuracy, case fill rate, carbon footprint, and inventory write-offs—we cannot find a reliable and consistent source of data for these metrics that covers all industries and years studied. Instead, we find that the industry data sources are spotty and largely inaccurate due to the self-reporting of data. Without a consistent data source across the industries, we cannot include these factors even though we believe that they are important.
The Supply Chain Index methodology was built on the belief that the supply chain is a complex system with increasing complexity. We believe it is the supply chain leader’s role to build and manage supply chain performance to drive year-over-year improvements which are balanced, strong and resilient. We find that most companies throw the system out balance and are able to only drive progress on a single metric, not the metrics portfolio. To illustrate this point, to develop this report, we studied nearly 200 companies, and we only found 21 of the companies in the study group performing better than their peers on the portfolio of metrics.
While a company may have a goal to drive a singular metric, we believe that this should be a conscious choice. In our review of the data in this report with supply chain leaders, most are not

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aware of how they rate to their peer group. In addition, it has not been their goal to drive a singular metric. Almost all companies are attempting to grow while managing costs and inventory and effectively utilizing assets.
In the management of the supply chain, there are many metrics. In fact, we find that most supply chain leaders measure too many metrics. Our first goal was to determine which metrics should be tracked in the portfolio analysis. After two years of research in building the Metrics That Matter reports, we selected four financial ratios as the foundation of the analysis. Again, they were growth, inventory turns, operating margin and ROIC. This was based on interviews with supply chain leaders and the correlation to market capitalization. To understand the relationship between supply chain performance and market capitalization, we calculated the correlation of seven years of financial ratios (based on quarterly reporting) to market capitalization (the number of outstanding shares multiplied by the share price) on a quarterly basis. The results of this study on the correlation to market capitalization are presented in Table 2. Our goal was to select a portfolio that would be meaningful to all industries.
Table 2. Correlation of Supply Chain Financial Ratios to Market Capitalization
We believe that supply chain improvement takes time. In our research we find that it takes at least three years to drive significant supply chain progress, and that the best improvements take at least five to six years. We also find that it is difficult for supply chain leaders to sustain progress levels that they have achieved. A bad project, a quality issue, or a merger can result in gyrations. As a result,

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most companies go through ups and downs with distinct patterns. We believe that the patterns matter. It is for this reason that in this report we analyze companies’ progress from 2006 through 2013, and then again from 2009 through 2013. For the purpose of industry groupings, we use NAICS code designations. Due to the complexity of comparing conglomerates, we have not included large companies with diverse lines of business in this analysis. Likewise, we have not included companies with a limited peer group. To be included in the analysis, we need to define a peer group of at least eight comparable companies.
In judging improvement, the patterns matter. The foundation of the Supply Chain Index starts with understanding the resulting pattern when two supply chain metrics (generally ratios) are plotted over time on an orbit chart. As shown in Figure 1, the orbit chart enables the visualization of performance patterns. In this case, the company is Apple, Inc. The average values for the two financial ratios of operating margin and inventory turns are shown in the box, and the annual progress is shown as points on the chart. The best scenario is notated in the upper right-hand corner. This pattern of Apple’s performance, as shown in Figure 1, is very characteristic of most companies.
Figure 1. Example Orbit Chart of Apple, Inc.

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The company is improving on one, not two of the critical metrics. We seldom see a company making linear improvement at the intersection of these two important metrics.
However, the pattern of Apple is quite different than that of Walmart, as shown in Figure 2. Note the differences in the patterns. Walmart has primarily focused on improving inventory turns without much improvement in operating margin over the period. Also, the degree of improvement at Walmart is less than what we see at Apple.
Figure 2. Example Orbit Chart of Apple, Inc.
Yet, the patterns of these two companies is much more orderly than what we see in other companies like Dow, DuPont, Mattel or even Procter & Gamble. For most companies, the orbit charts are gnarly patterns. Our first challenge in the building the Supply Chain Index was to create something that could be used across a variety of industries while being applicable to different levels of supply chain maturity. A much more intricate pattern to read is shown in Figure 3. It is depicting the progress of Dow Chemical. (Like many companies, Dow has not made much progress. Note that the performance of Dow in 2013 is at a place similar to where they were in 2000.

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Figure 3. Example Orbit Chart of Dow Chemical
Judging Supply Chain Performance
Supply chain performance for this report is based on the average values of operating margin, inventory turns and Return on Invested Capital. If the company performed better than the industry peer group for these three metrics for the period of 2006-2013 or 2009-2013, they made the first cut of the analysis. These companies were then stack ranked based on improvement as measured by the Supply Chain Index methodology. Only 10 % of the companies studied for this report performed above their peer group averages for these three metrics.
Judging Supply Chain Improvement: The Supply Chain Index Methodology
There are three components within the Supply Chain Index score: balance, strength, and resiliency factors. It is a composite metric where each factor is weighted equally.
In this report, a company’s balance, strength, and resiliency factors are calculated and then stack ranked within its industry. Each contributes equally to the final score. A lower score on the Index

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denotes the greatest degree of improvement. For a more detailed explanation of the math behind the Index, please refer to the Appendix.
Balance
For the supply chain leader, balance in performance metrics in the supply chain is a constant struggle. While companies say that they want to be balanced, they lack a way to measure improvement. The metrics are tightly linked as a complex system. For example, as growth increases there is usually an increase in demand error which can reduce the Return on Invested Capital. Reduced inventory, without improving the form and function of the inventory elements, can wreak havoc on customer service levels. Excess inventory can lead to high carrying cost and product obsolescence. Excessively long days of payables can translate to weakened supplier health and ultimately an increase in costs. The examples are endless: balance in supply chain metrics is critical for supply chain health.
The two metrics comprising our balance measure are revenue growth and Return on Invested Capital. ROIC is a less well-known metric compared to Return on Assets (ROA). ROA has a narrower focus. Our research indicates that ROIC has better correlation with market capitalization and provides a broad perspective on cash flow generation and profitability based on shareholder equity.
ROIC is a measurement of the company’s use of capital. The supply chain leader’s goal is to drive higher returns, through the investment of capital in plant and distribution assets, at a faster rate than the market rate of the cost of capital in public markets.
To calculate the balance factor, we start with an orbit chart of year-over-year revenue growth and ROIC. The balance measure in the Supply Chain Index is a mathematical calculation of the vector trajectory of the pattern of growth and ROIC for the given period. The overall trajectory of this vector from Year 0 (2006 or 2009) to the ending year (2013) is simplified into a single value which represents the company’s ability to balance growth and ROIC.

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In the calculation, companies that were able to drive improvement in both year-over-year growth and ROIC metrics score the best, while companies that deteriorated in both metrics do the worst. A negative number on the balance score means that the company lost ground on the metrics compared to the starting year. In this report, we calculate this factor for two time periods. Our initial analysis considers performance based upon a time period of 2006-2013. Additional analysis focuses on a narrower time period of 2009-2013. Our goal is to examine corporate performance during and after the Great Recession of 2007-2008. The balance metric comprises 1/3 of the total Supply Chain Index calculation.
Strength
A successful supply chain is strong while driving year-over-year improvements. For most supply chain leaders, the two most important metrics are costs and inventory management. In the calculation of the Supply Chain Index, we use operating margin and inventory turns. These two metrics are more directly influenced by supply chain decisions than other broader corporate metrics. It is for this reason they are the two components of our strength metric.
The strength measure in the Supply Chain Index is a mathematical calculation of the vector trajectory of the pattern between inventory turns and operating margin for the period of 2006 (or 2009) to 2013. Inventory turn and operating margin performance is graphed on an annual basis from an origin point (0,0) representing performance on the two metrics at Year 0 (2006 or 2009). The overall trajectory of this vector from Year 0 (2006 or 2009) to the final year (2013) is simplified into a single value which represents strength. Improvement on both metrics simultaneously is graphically shown as movement to the upper-right quadrant with increasing values for both inventory turns and operating margin over the period.
The strength metric comprises 1/3 of the total Supply Chain Index calculation. Sustained improvement on both inventory turns and operating margin indicates a strong supply chain and is reflected in a high strength score. The best performance has a high value for the strength factor.
Resiliency
Resiliency is an adjective easily tossed around as one of the key qualities of a successful supply chain. However, the concept of resiliency is more difficult to define, and there is rarely clarity among stakeholders as to what resiliency is or should be. Here we provide a clear and concise definition.

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As we plotted orbit chart after chart, we could see that some supply chains had very tight patterns at the intersection of operating margin and inventory turns, and that other companies had wild swings. We wanted to find a way to measure this. To accomplish this goal, we turned to the experts at ASU. After evaluating several methods to determine the pattern in the orbit chart, we settled upon the Euclidean mean distance between the points.
In our March 2014 report: Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: Improving Supply Chain Resiliency, we define resiliency as the tightness of the pattern of performance on an orbit chart at the intersection of inventory turns and operating margin.
We also use these two metrics to calculate the strength factor. It is our belief that cost and inventory are largely within the control of the supply chain leader and the tightness of the pattern (mathematically speaking, the Euclidean mean distance) is a measurement of reliability. The factor is based on the ability of a supply chain to maintain a tight, consistent pattern across these two metrics as the business environment shifts and changes over an eight year period (2006-2013) or five year period (2009-2013).
The resiliency metric is similar to the cash-to-cash cycle in that companies should work to minimize the value. A smaller value is better with a lower number for resiliency is an indicator of a tighter pattern and greater reliability in results over the time period. The resiliency metric comprises 1/3 of the total Supply Chain Index calculation.
Calculating a Score for the Supply Chain Index
In the calculation of the Supply Chain Index score of a company within the industry peer group, the balance, strength and resiliency values for the factors are populated and stack ranked. The overall index is a weighting of the three factors.
The details of this work are archived and can be viewed on SlideShare; however, all of the analysis is not included in this report due to the depth of the research. In this archived research, to calculate a Supply Chain Index value, we start by creating a table like the one in Table 3 for each industry peer group for the periods of 2006-2013 and 2009-2013. We first calculate the factors for balance, strength and resiliency and then we stack rank the companies within the peer group. In the analysis of the Supply Chain Index this year, the factors are equally weighted to give a final stack ranking. This stack

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ranked weighting may change in future analysis in subsequent years as we learn more and more about the relationship of the factors to supply chain excellence.
Table 3. Supply Chain Index Ranking System
In the analysis, each industry segment, as defined by NAICS classification codes, was analyzed independently, peer group by peer group. As a result, Intel Corporation will not be directly compared against Ford Motor Company or Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. The definition of a best-in-class supply chain varies by the complexities and realities of the operating environment and it is not a one-size-fits-all business environment. We strongly believe that you cannot compare companies with a simple spreadsheet analysis. Instead, we believe that it requires a deep analysis of the industry patterns between the metrics.
Why the Time Period Matters
The Supply Chain Index is a measure of improvement. For this reason, the beginning year of the measurement and the period of time measured are of critical importance to the ranking. It is the basis for the entire analysis. Initially, we considered the time period of 2000-2013. However, in the development of this report, supply chain leaders gave us feedback that 14 years was too long. The current rigors of global supply chain management are so different from what they were in 2000.
Based on this feedback, we have adapted the methodology to focus on two different time periods: 2006-2013 and 2009-2013. (Due to data availability, the earlier reports for the Healthcare Value Network and Consumer Value Network ended with 2012 data comparisons.) However, here for the final analysis, we have added 2013 performance to archived analyses to enable the reader to understand the relative progress of the companies studied. It is our goal to complete this study

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annually to give supply chain leaders both a sense of their individual performance within a peer group and that of their competitors to help leaders know what is possible.
In evaluating the data, we believe that he larger time period of 2006-2013 encompasses the recession and its aftermath, and is a good study of resiliency. The 2009-2013 time period takes a narrower focus on the recovery from the Great Recession. In some industries, the rankings change drastically based on the timeframe. We see this less in the industrial value network than we saw in the analysis of the consumer and healthcare value networks. We believe that this is due to greater supply chain maturity in the semiconductor, consumer electronics, and high-tech and electronics industry.
Supply Chains to Admire
It is easy to get bogged down in the analysis and miss the bigger picture. The Supply Chain Index is a measurement of improvement. Companies making the biggest improvement often will have the most to lose. A top performing company will make change more slowly. As a result, the Supply Chains to Admire list depends on Supply Chain Index scores (improvement) as well as performance averages.
To make our Supply Chains to Admire list, we developed a list of companies that have posted balanced performance in inventory turns, operating margin, and ROIC, while making progress on the Supply Chain Index. To make the list, the company had to outperform in all three categories while driving an above average level of improvement for the industry. The company performing at the highest level may not rate the highest on the Index. It is just harder to drive improvement when you are already a top performer.

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Executive Overview
Supply chain excellence matters. It can make or break corporate performance. To drive improvements, companies need a clear definition of supply chain competency. It is easier to state than to define, and the market is full of beliefs that are not grounded by hard, cold facts.
Now 30-years old, the practice of supply chain management is still evolving. While companies speak of ‘best practices’, and boast about improvements in operating margin, inventory levels and asset management in conference after conference, we do not see it in our analysis of balance sheet information for any industry. The reason? The supply chain is not well-understood by executive teams, and many companies have pursued a project-based approach (implementing multiple projects with ROI above a threshold) or a focus on vertical excellence (where functional charters create very strong functional excellence); however, this is misguided. We do not find that these two approaches make a difference. Instead, we find that it is supply chain leadership driving resilient, predictable, and forward-looking processes that drives sustained balance sheet improvement. We find that for top performers that it happens in a slow and steady pattern versus the big-bang approach.
Supply chain leaders want to drive excellence. By their nature, these leaders are competitive. They want to drive performance improvements, increase corporate value and outpace competitors. It is not easy. The rate of business change is intense and the personal stakes are high. Day after day, leaders must answer questions like, “Which path should I to take? What are the best technologies to use? What is an acceptable rate of performance? How am I doing against my peer group? And, what can I learn from others that I can use to improve the performance of my own operation?” Until the development of the Supply Chain Index there was no independent and objective data-driven methodology that could answer these questions. With the development of this methodology, there now is a way to gauge improvement.
Collecting the data and doing the analysis in this report is the result of a 24-month effort. We were fearful at the end of the process that it would be difficult to pick the top performers, but we should not have worried. When we applied the methodology, the top companies hopped off the page. They were easy to spot. Listed by industry, the Companies to Admire are listed in Table 4. Within a peer group, we place them within alpha order. Due to the complexity of the analysis it is hard to rate them more granularly.

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Table 4. Companies to Admire
No companies made the list from the contract manufacturing, medical device, paper, pharmaceutical or retail peer groups. Likewise, there were more companies that made the list in the industrial than the consumer value networks.
Measuring Supply Chain Improvement
Why does the definition matter? While it is easy to say the term supply chain excellence, it is difficult to define. Many people think that they know the definition, but there is no agreed-upon standard. The lack of a clear definition, and a methodology to measure improvement, makes progress hard to quantify and track.

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This is the goal of this report. The combination of analyzing supply chain performance coupled with The Supply Chain Index gives a clear view of who is a top-performing company. In this research, we had three goals:
1. Quantify Levels of Supply Chain Improvement. The Index is a composite metric based on the calculation of balance, strength and resiliency factors for a given time period. Each factor measures the pattern of performance over time. In the analysis, there is an underlying assumption that the companies that can sustain the best improvement in these three areas are driving the highest rates of supply chain improvement.
2. Bridge the Gap between Finance and Supply Chain. Our second goal is to bridge the gap between the supply chain organization and the financial team. While the financial team is often backwards-looking at transactions, the supply chain team is forward-looking based on flows. In the process of goal setting, or strategy definition, there is often a temptation to focus on a single financial ratio in isolation, like inventory turns, not realizing that the supply chain is a complex system with tightly interrelated relationships amongst metrics based on supply chain potential. The management of supply chain performance needs to be a system-based approach looking at a portfolio of metrics in a holistic manner. We wanted to give both groups a reference document on what is possible.
3. Understand the Possibilities. Each industry has a unique potential. For example, a reasonable inventory turns value for a consumer electronics company is significantly different than that of a medical device company. As a result, the targets or set points need to be different. Why? The inherent rhythms and cycles of the supply chain—product life cycle, the time to manufacture the product, demand and supply volatility, and demand shaping programs—are different. We often see well-intentioned and unaware executives focus on unreasonable targets for a supply chain performance metric, not understanding the differences between industries, the need to manage the supply chain as a complex system, and the market factors that are driving the change. This report is designed to increase awareness in establishing the best targets for corporate performance for individual companies within an industry, grounded in real possibilities.
As the reader will quickly assess, not all industries, and not all companies within an industry, are equal in their understanding of supply chain excellence. Each of the industries has struggled with

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their own issues, and each is at a very different place in the journey to not only deliver supply reliably, but also redefine value.
Improving Performance on the Effective Frontier
Without a measuring system to gauge performance improvement, supply chain excellence exists in a world of gray, not black and white. As a result, supply chain leaders are faced with the challenge of balancing competing priorities without the ability to measure improvement.
The supply chain is a complex system with complex processes with increasing complexity. Improving supply chain performance requires the management of this complex system of tightly linked and interrelated metrics. In this complex system, supply chain leaders are attempting to balance four distinct priorities: improving growth, improving profitability, reducing cycle time, and managing the ever-increasing complexity. We termed this the Supply Chain Effective Frontier as seen in Figure 4.
Figure 4. The Supply Chain Effective Frontier
In the development of the Supply Chain Index, we selected a metric from each category of the Effective Frontier model and mapped the patterns of the companies within an industry by orbit chart to understand the patterns over time. For Growth, we selected year-over-year revenue growth. For Profitability, we selected operating margin. For Cycle, the Index uses inventory turns, and for Complexity, the Supply Chain Index analyzes ROIC performance. It is our belief that the supply chain is both an engine of growth, and a powerful lever to control costs and inventory.
Each industry is driven by different market factors. While the automotive industry is currently experiencing boom times, growth and complexity are taking their toll on consumer products and pharmaceutical companies. Using the Supply Chain Index methodology, the reader can see that the

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worst impacts were in the consumer electronics industry. In consumer electronics, companies are battling extreme volatility while losing ground on the management of inventory turns and operating margins in a declining market. The resiliency factor is high, and they are losing considerable ground on both the strength and balance factors. However, the reader should note that in these tough markets emerged some of the best stories of supply chain leadership. These macro impacts are outlined in Table 5.
Table 5. Supply Chain Index Industry Performance for the Period of 2009-2013 with a Comparison of Trends from 2006-2013
In the study, only two industries—automotive and medical device—improved balance in 2009-2013 compared to 2006-2013. The decline in growth permeated most industries and eroded the scores on

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the balance factor. As growth receded, companies struggled to maintain balance and strength. Nine out of 13 industries saw erosion in the strength factor. This is due to the decline in operating margins and growing inventories. Resiliency is the factor that showed the most improvement. All but three industries improved resiliency. Only the automotive industry improved all three factors.
What Is a Value Network?
To better understand the patterns, this report is focused on three value networks. A value network is a collection of industry-specific supply chains spanning across companies to deliver value to a common customer. Here we analyze industry progress for the consumer value network (retail, consumer packaged goods, food/beverage, apparel, chemical and packaging), healthcare value network (pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers) and industrial value networks (automotive, automotive suppliers, consumer and industrial electronics, and semiconductor industries). In the delivery of goods and services, the relationships are not linear, they are complex with many links between trading partners.
We live in a world where supply chains, not companies, compete for market dominance. But companies often have diverging incentives and interests from their supply chain partners, so when they independently strive to optimize their individual objectives, the expected result can be compromised.”
Hau L Lee, Triple-A Supply Chains, Harvard Business Review, October 2004
The goal for many supply chain leaders is to collaborate with trading partners and improve costs and inventory across the value network. This has not happened.
Within each value network, we find that each company operates on its own Effective Frontier and occupies a different portion of the chart. The patterns are nonlinear and many companies are moving backwards on one or both of the critical metrics. Interestingly, many companies like Flextronics International Ltd and Dow Chemical have returned to exactly the same place where they started.
The selection of companies for Figures 5 through 7 represents the progress of leaders. Each figure illustrates a different value network. Companies that were making the best improvement and operating at high levels of performance were selected for these charts. While companies have talked

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for many years about supply chain collaboration and the improvement of the supply chain through companies working together, we do not see this in balance sheet results. Instead, we see each company within a network working within a distinct plane of performance without an overall improvement in the value network.
Figure 5. Consumer Value Network
Despite the claims of technology leaders, consulting partners and advertisements in airports, as shown in Figures 5, 6 and 7, most companies are struggling to make year-over-year improvements. While each company can drive positive change in the short-term, in the longer-term, there are limitations of what is possible.

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Figure 6. Healthcare Value Network
Figure 7. Industrial Value Network Orbit Chart

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The greatest improvement happens when five conditions exist:
1. A Clear Definition of Supply Chain Excellence by Leadership. There is no substitute for supply chain leadership. These results cannot happen from the bottom-up. The gap in understanding of supply chain leadership is the first place to start.
2. Strong Horizontal Processes. The second focus needs to be on building strong horizontal processes, focused outside-in, using channel demand and market signals. The goals of these horizontal processes of revenue management, Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP), supplier development, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), help to bridge the gaps between the functions and create organizational alignment.
3. Intentional Design. Supply chain excellence is based on the conscious design of flows. Examples include the design of buffers, push/pull decoupling points, form and function of inventory, and postponement strategies. There are two buffers in the supply chain to absorb demand and supply volatility—inventory and manufacturing—with the outsourcing of manufacturing, the primary buffer of the supply chain is inventory.
4. Value of Supply Chain Planning and Analytics. Most of the leaders in this analysis are good at supply chain planning. They don’t argue about if it matters, they understand the value and are focused on driving improvements.
5. Development of Organizational Capabilities. One of the reasons that Colgate has outperformed is the design of the organization. For ten years, Colgate has had a strong supply chain finance team. This clear focus on metrics and the definition of a supply chain finance and human resource function enables results. Similarly, the building of the Intel Masters program, which defined a clear career path for supply chain professionals was fundamental to driving their improvements.
Each industry has its own challenges. Retail is defining multi-channel; consumer packaged goods companies are struggling with product complexity and intense competition; the pharmaceutical companies are facing a patent cliff and competition with generic drug manufacturers; while the semiconductor manufacturers are struggling with shorter cycles; and consumer electronics manufacturers are trying to manage short inventory cycle times and rapidly shifting consumer demand. The list could go on and on. Understanding the reality of the industry, and the starting point for improvement, is a critical piece of the puzzle to determine metrics set points and defining supply chain excellence.
Progress within the Consumer Value Network
Each industry within the consumer value network is struggling with declining growth. As the volume sold declines, complexity has increased. Improving operating margin and inventory turns is a constant struggle. While revenue/employee increased, labor efficiency did not translate into lower margins.

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Table 6. Overall Trends in the Consumer Value Network
Retail
Stores are closing. New formats are being defined. The race for omni-channel is on. The face of retail is going through a massive change. With the redefinition of the store, as shown in Figure 8, most retailers are going backwards on operating margin and inventory turns. The asterisks in the chart mark the first year (2009) of the pattern.
While it is not clear which retailer did the best on meeting supply chain goals, it is clear that Sainsbury and Tesco lost massive ground. In Figure 9, note the uneven retail performance. Companies perform better on singular metrics than improving a balanced portfolio of metrics on the Effective Frontier. This industry is still in the middle of massive change and process redefinition.

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Figure 8. Retail Orbit Charts for 2006-2012
Figure 9. Retail Performance for 2006-2013

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Apparel
Apparel was transformed by outsourcing of cutting and sewing early in the decade. These labor arbitrage strategies increased inventory in the beginning of the decade, and in the period of 2006- 2013, the industry began to stabilize.
Figure 10. Orbit Charts for Apparel for 2009--2012
With a closer look at the data in Table 7, it is clear that Nike and Ralph Lauren outperform their peer group and drove significant improvement in the period of 2006-2013 and 2009-2013. Hanesbrands is driving the fastest rate of improvement; but as the chart clearly shows, there is a great gap for the company to close. While The Gap drove higher levels of performance, they are not driving the same levels of improvement as Nike or Ralph Lauren.

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Table 7. Performance of Apparel Companies
Consumer Packaged Goods
No doubt about it, the consumer packaged goods company feels squeezed. The race has slowed for global growth and retailers are more competitive with their house brands. As a result, growth has declined from 6% to 3%.
As the effectiveness of national advertising changed radically, the marketing response was to add more products and increase the amount of in-store promotion to drive differentiation. As a result, the average product portfolio increased by 30%. With the increase in promotions, demand error and bias also increased.
Under these tough conditions, every consumer products company on the list struggled. Colgate posted the best performance while driving improvement. With over 42 consecutive quarters of improving operating margin and driving superior performance on ROIC, Colgate makes the list of companies to admire.
Reckitt Benckiser’s global focus on products that are priced for value and delivered reliably gives them high levels of performance, but they are not included on the final list because they are not driving the same levels of improvement.

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Figure 11. Orbit Charts for Consumer Packaged Goods for the Period of 2009-2012
Table 8. Supply Chain Performance of Consumer Packaged Goods Companies
Ask supply chain leaders who does supply chain best, and the most frequent answer is Procter & Gamble.1 For many reading this report, they will struggle to understand why P&G is not on the list of Companies to Admire. In the development of this report, we had many discussions with the team at
1 Bricks Matter, December 2012, Wiley

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P&G to understand why the company lost operating margin and performed at 1/3 the ROIC value of Colgate. It is our belief that the company threw the supply chain out of balance through a zealous focus on inventory, and the rise in complexity was a drag on margin, and ROIC.
Food and Beverage
While consumer packaged goods companies are larger and global, food and beverage companies tend to be smaller and more regional. With local food preferences and rising commodity prices, food and beverage companies struggled to maintain ground on margin and inventories. It was a constant battle. This pressure has increased the focus on improving supply chain performance.
In the face of this pressure, General Mills makes it to the list. The company did a lot of things right. When other companies outsourced IT and depended on more third-party resources, General Mills ran counter to the current and invested in building a top-notch internal IT team. The company excels in the implementation of technologies and has been a poster child for intentional and active design. They are one of the best companies in both supply chain planning, driving innovation through new technology approaches, and supply chain design. Over the period, the gap between General Mills and Kellogg, its closest competitor has grown.
Anheuser Busch InBev N.V. also makes it to the list. With a strong global management team, the InBev organization has focused on the reduction of complexity and the design of the supply chain for global reach.
While Hershey has driven the greatest improvement in supply chain performance, they are underperforming their peer group in inventory. Their progress is significant, but not enough. Likewise, Campbell’s made significant improvement in the period of 2006-2012, but lost ground in 2013 as they attempted to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project with too few resources too fast. This is a pattern that we often see—misjudging implementation times and effort which whipsaws supply chain performance long after.

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Figure 12. Orbit Charts for Food Companies for the Period of 2009-2012
Table 9. Supply Chain Performance of Food and Beverage Companies

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Chemical
The asset-intensive chemical industry has fought back from adverse effects of the recession. With many mergers and acquisitions, these companies are large, complex and global. With slowing growth, and product proliferation of their downstream customers, chemical companies struggle to sense demand. Costs are pushed backwards in the supply chain as CPG companies squeeze chemical companies on costs and terms.
Figure 13. Orbit Charts for Chemical Companies for the Period of 2009-2012
Two companies from the chemical industry make the list: BASF and Eastman Chemical. BASF at 122B$ revenue is focused on becoming more like a CPG company. They are attempting to sell paint directly to consumers in Brazil and are aggressively pursuing the health and wellness supplement products. The company has been aggressive in the adoption of analytics, and the building of supply chain centers of excellence and Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP). Eastman’s progress is one of slow, deliberate and steady focus. They have implemented three supply chain planning systems gaining knowledge each time on how to do well at planning.

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Table 10. Supply Chain Performance of Chemical Companies
Packaging
No company from the packaging industry makes the list. These companies face a tough market. Each is being squeezed for margin, and the payment terms are being elongated. Additionally, they have historically been laggards in the adoption of technologies and new supply chain processes.
Three and four levels back in the supply chain, the packaging companies are struggling more than chemical companies in driving a profitable supply chain. Packaging occasionally requires last minute changes and is often a constraint in the supply chain for new product launch. While their downstream customers want a more agile response with higher artwork capabilities, the packaging sales team is being squeezed by procurement teams in the face of declining margins and lengthening terms.
While companies like Packaging Corporation of America may drive higher levels of performance than their peer group, the company is not driving improvement. There are a few companies like Sonoco Products where consistent and progressive processes are being adopted. Sonoco Products, while overperforming in inventory turns and ROIC, underperforms on operating margin over the period. The Company has just not matured to the degree to make the list.

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Figure 14. Orbit Charts for Packaging Companies for the Period of 2006-2012
Table 11. Orbit Charts for Packaging Companies for the Period of 2006-2012

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Progress within the Healthcare Value Network
Affordable healthcare. Global supply chain expansion. Changing face of healthcare procurement through aggregate buying. These are all challenges that healthcare suppliers face.
The customer is also changing. While healthcare suppliers carefully honed their sales and supply chains to sell the physician, the focus is now on the patient and adapting to the new world of regulation, serialization and product item standardization to improve traceability. With historically high margins, it has been hard for the healthcare suppliers to get serious about supply chain excellence. The companies are typically very large with a strong belief in functional excellence.
Table 12. Industry Trends in the Value Chain for the Period of 2000-2012
Pharmaceutical
Few companies in the pharmaceutical industry are making progress on the Effective Frontier. As shown in Figure 15, most companies are going backwards. Some exceptions include Biogen and Novo Nordisk.
No company in the pharmaceutical company meets the criteria to be listed on the Companies to Admire list. The problem is that the companies in the pharmaceutical industry are driving results in singular, not a portfolio of metrics making uneven progress. For example, Nova Nordisk drives great results on operating margin and ROIC, but falls to beat the industry average for inventory turns.

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Figure 15. Pharmaceutical Company Orbit Charts for 2009-2012
Table 13. Pharmaceutical Company Progress on Supply Chain Excellence

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Medical Device
Medical device companies are resilient, but they are not strong. They have made little progress over the last decade; but with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and in the face of growing regulations, the industry is consolidating and supply chains excellence is becoming more important. As a result, no company in the medical device industry makes the list.
Figure 16. Medical Device Company Orbit Charts for 2009- 2012

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Table 14. Medical Device Company Progress on Supply Chain Excellence
Progress within the Industrial Value Network
Most companies, through technology investment, have created a more efficient supply chain, reducing revenue per employee, but have struggled to improve both operating margin and inventory turns. This holds true for the majority of the companies within the industrial value network.
Table 15.Shifts in the Industrial Value Chain for the Period of 2000-2012

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Automotive
The automotive industry struggled and then boomed. While revenue has been strong, financial results have been more mixed. The orbit chart in Figure 17 illustrates the performance of 10 automotive companies studied in this report.
Figure 17. Automotive Orbit Chart 2009-2013
It is clear from the chart that Oshkosh Corporation and Navistar International Corp have struggled. Volkswagen AG leads the Index rankings for 2006-2013 demonstrating the greatest supply chain improvement although they are not the leader on either inventory turns or operating margin. Audi demonstrates supply chain leadership by performing at a higher plateau on average of operating margin, inventory turns and ROIC, and showing supply chain improvement on the Supply Chain Index for both 2006-2013 and 2009-2013.

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Table 16. Automotive Supply Chain Performance
Many are surprised by Toyota Motor Company’s performance on the rankings. While a leader in Lean thinking and the evolution of supply chain processes, it is clear from the analysis that Toyota has faltered, especially during the period of 2009-2013. The case of negative balance and strength scores were too much to overcome to earn a better ranking.
Automotive Suppliers
Automotive suppliers are a critical component of the industrial value chain. They were brutally squeezed during the depths of the Great Recession and the weakest went bankrupt. Coming out of the recession many have diversified. Figure 18 illustrates how the industry performed at the intersection of inventory turns and operating margin on the tail end of the recession from 2009-2013.
There is a significantly wide range of inventory turns values ranging from low single digits to above 20 per year. Valeo SA and Honeywell International SA which lead the rankings for both time periods have midrange performance on both inventory turns and operating margin. The best overall performance is demonstrated by TRW Automotive Holdings Corporation.

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Balance has been difficult for these companies across both time periods. Without a more cooperative and less adversarial partnership with upstream automotive manufacturers, we see no reason to expect improvement in the future.
Figure 18. Automotive Suppliers Orbit Chart 2009-2013
Table 17. Supply Chain Performance for Automotive Suppliers (2009-2013)

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Consumer Electronics
Several specific companies within the consumer electronics industry are often hailed as supply chain leaders. They have had no choice. The competitive nature of the industry, combined with changing demand patterns and shortening life cycles for electronics, has required high competency. The orbit chart for this industry, shown in Figure 19, has been reduced to show the patterns of nine of the most well-known companies profiled in this report.
Figure 19. Consumer Electronics Orbit Chart 2009-2012
Notice that while automotive suppliers were steadily increasing margins, in consumer electronics most of the companies are showing a decrease in margin.
The unique business model of Apple Inc. enables the company to outperform its peers on both inventory turns and operating margin performance. This high level of performance coupled with innovation puts Apple on the list. Strong performance is also demonstrated by Cisco Systems. A leader in the design of the end-to-end supply chain, the Cisco team has excelled on the creation of value networks and sharing data.

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Table 18. Supply Chain Performance for Consumer Electronics (2009-2013)
Of all of the industries studied, this peer group has weathered the most storms. They are a case study of why supply chain excellence is fundamental for survival.
Semiconductor
Semiconductor manufacturers have a unique challenge in an industry that must begin developing and manufacturing products prior to any demand signals. As a result, their balance and strength scores are low and their resiliency scores are high. Figure 20 illustrates performance of the component companies at the intersection of inventory turns and operating margin from 2009-2013.
The patterns here are very nonlinear and many are in fact looping over the time period. Taiwan Semiconductor (TMSC) and Intel Corporation have done the best job of performance and improvement.
In comparison to other industries, Intel Corporation’s size here seems to be providing it with an advantage. Economics of scale combined with significant work on talent development and network design lend them the edge. In parallel, TMSC’s work on open design networks and collaboration with upstream consumer electronics manufacturers gives it the edge.

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Figure 20. Semiconductor Orbit Chart (2009-2013)
Table 19. Supply Chain Performance in the Semiconductor Industry (2009-2013)

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Recommendations
In the design of supply chains, it is critical to carefully define supply chain excellence. This report is designed to help. Use the methodology to carefully answer these questions:
 Are you making improvement? The Supply Chain Index is a measuring stick for gauging improvement. Using the methodology outlined in the Appendix, define the appropriate peer group and timeframe for comparison and see if your supply chain is keeping pace with your peer group.
 What is the potential of the supply chain? Many times, companies are unclear on the right goals. They do not know how to understand what is possible. Or what is an appropriate target? Using the range and averages of this report by peer group and time horizon set reasonable goals to drive improvement.
 How fast can change happen? The best results happen when there is small, incremental progress. Big bang projects can throw the supply chain out of balance. The orbit charts are a guide to help supply chain leaders know how fast a supply chain can make a transformation.
Conclusion
In the journey towards supply chain excellence, companies need to hold themselves accountable to balance sheet performance. Too few companies have tied supply chain activities to financial performance, and seldom do we find a case study of companies working together to drive sustainable value in a value network.
The patterns are gnarly, but to judge supply chain excellence, performance and improvement need to be assessed together by peer group. It needs to be viewed over time. The patterns matter. It is a journey not a sprint. .
Supply chains have never been tougher to manage. It matters more now than ever. This report is a story of when the going gets tough the tough get going. Many of the companies that have performed the best in this time frame have faced the toughest challenges while companies with high margins and less pressing issues have made less progress. It is our hope that this report can help companies in all industries drive higher levels of performance.

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Appendix
Supply chain leaders want to know if they are making improvement against their peer group. The
financial patterns are gnarly and it is often difficult to assess progress from a simple two-dimensional
plot. To make this easier, we developed the Supply Chain Index.
In building the Index, we used financial ratios versus absolute numbers. The use of ratios allowed us
to compare companies regardless of size, and to also compare companies across currencies.
The math behind the Index is defined below. This methodology was built in cooperation with a
research team from the School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering at
Arizona State University (ASU) in the spring of 2014.
Balance
To develop the balance factor used in the Index, we evaluated a scatter plot of revenue growth and
Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) for a specific company. The balance factor (B) is the proportional
difference of points on an orbit chart for the period of 2006-2013 at the intersection of revenue growth
and Return on Invested Capital. To calculate the balance factor, let i REV denote the revenue growth
of the ith time period, i ROIC denote the return on invested capital of the ith time period and n denote
the total number of periods under consideration. Thus the balance factor is defined as:
 


 

 




1
1
1
1
1
1
ROIC
ROIC ROIC
REV
REV REV
n
B n n
.
Strength
Strength factor is a similar calculation to the balance factor, but with a focus on the intersection of
operating margin and inventory turns. For this analysis, we used a scatter plot of operating margin
and inventory turns on an orbit chart for a specific company. Let i OM denote the operating margin of
the ith time period (e.g. ith year), i IT denote the inventory turns of the ith time period and n denote the
total number of periods under consideration.

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The strength measure (S) is defined as:
 


 

 




1
1
1
1
1
1
IT
IT IT
OM
OM OM
n
S n n
The denominator reflects that there are n-1 differences between n time periods. Figure A depicts the
intersection of operating margin and inventory turns for an example company. The difference in
operating margin and inventory turns between the first and last time period is shown.
Figure A. Inventory Turns and Operating Margin Intersection for an Example Company

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Resiliency
The resiliency factor is a measurement of the tightness of the pattern at the intersection of operating
margin and inventory turns for a given company. For companies that did well, and had a tight patter,
the value will be lower than companies that lacked reliability for the period. To develop the value, we
considered a scatter plot of operating margin and inventory turns for a specific company.
Let dij denote the Euclidean distance between a pair of points i and j and let m denote the total
number of pairs. The resiliency measure (R) is defined as the mean distance of all possible pairs of
points at the intersection. That is,



i j i
ij d
m
R
1
Figure B shows an example of the operating margin and inventory turns intersection for an example
company.
Figure B. Calculation of Resiliency at the Intersection of Inventory Turns and Operating Margin

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Table A shows the distances between every possible pair of points at the intersection. The resiliency is calculated from the mean of the distance values and is equal to 0.7335.
Table A. Calculation of Euclidean Distances for an Example Company
Alternative Measures Considered for Resiliency
To develop the resiliency factor, we considered a number of alternative approaches. One method considered was Principal Components Analysis (PCA). It is a traditional method used to summarize multidimensional data. We considered measures commonly applied with PCA based on eigenvalues and eigenvectors. (e.g., the condition index, percentage of variance explained by the first principal component). Although these measures were reasonable they did not distinguish between orbit plots that were visually different as well as simpler approaches.
We also considered other measures based on the distances (e.g., sum, maximum, minimum and the coefficient of variation of the distances). The mean distance was finally selected to measure the compactness of a set of points. In fact, a similar measure called cohesion is frequently used in cluster analysis to measure the compactness of a set of points. Rather than taking the sum of distances (as in cohesion), we consider the mean to account for the potentially different number of points for each company.

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Metrics That Matter Reports
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Retail
Published by Supply Chain Insights in August 2012.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Consumer Products
Published by Supply Chain Insights in September 2012.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on the Chemical Industry
Published by Supply Chain Insights in November 2012.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: The Cash-to-Cash Cycle
Published by Supply Chain Insights in November 2012.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on the Pharmaceutical Industry
Published by Supply Chain Insights in December 2012.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: Driving Reliability in Margins
Published by Supply Chain Insights in January 2013.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Hospitals
Published by Supply Chain Insights in January 2013.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Brick & Mortar Retail
Published by Supply Chain Insights in February 2013.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Medical Device Manufacturers
Published by Supply Chain Insights in February 2013.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Consumer Electronics
Published by Supply Chain Insights in April 2013.
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Apparel
Published by Supply Chain Insights in May 2013
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on Contract Manufacturing
Published by Supply Chain Insights in August 2013
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Focus on the Automotive Industry
Published by Supply Chain Insights in October 2013
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Closer Look at the Cash-To-Cash Cycle (2000-2012)
Published by Supply Chain Insights in November 2013
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: Third Party Logistics Providers
Published by Supply Chain Insights in December 2013

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Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: A Critical Look at Operating Margin
Published by Supply Chain Insights in December 2013
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: Semiconductors & Hard Disk Drives
Published by Supply Chain Insights in February 2014
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: Aerospace and Defense
Published by Supply Chain Insights in March 2014
Other Reports in the Supply Chain Index Report Series
Supply Chain Metrics That Matter: Improving Supply Chain Resiliency Published by Supply Chain Insights in March 2014
Supply Chain Index: Improving Strength, Balance and Resiliency Published by Supply Chain Insights in May 2014
Supply Chain Index: Evaluating the Consumer Value Network Published by Supply Chain Insights in June 2014
Supply Chain Index: Evaluating the Healthcare Value Network Published by Supply Chain Insights in July 2014
Supply Chain Index: Evaluating the Industrial Value Network
Published by Supply Chain Insights in August 2014
About Supply Chain Insights, LLC
Founded in February, 2012 by Lora Cecere, Supply Chain Insights LLC is a research and advisory firm focused on delivering independent, actionable, and objective advice for supply chain leaders. If you need to know which practices and technologies make the biggest difference to corporate performance, turn to us. We help you understand supply chain trends, evolving technologies and which metrics matter.

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About Lora Cecere
Lora Cecere (twitter ID @lcecere) is the Founder of Supply Chain Insights LLC and the author of popular enterprise software blog Supply Chain Shaman currently read by 5,000 supply chain professionals. She also writes as a LinkedIn Influencer and is a a contributor for Forbes. Her book, Bricks Matter, (co-authored with Charlie Chase) published on December 26th, 2012. She is currently working on additional books, The Shaman’s Journal and Metrics That Matter, to publish in 2014.
With over ten years as a research analyst with AMR Research, Altimeter Group, and Gartner Group and now as a Founder of Supply Chain Insights, Lora understands supply chain. She has worked with over 600 companies on their supply chain strategy and speaks at over 50 conferences a year on the evolution of supply chain processes and technologies. Her research is designed for the early adopter seeking first mover advantage.
About Abby Mayer
Abby Mayer (twitter ID @indexgirl), Research Associate is one of the original members of the Supply Chain Insights LLC team. She is also the author of the newly-founded blog, Supply Chain Index. Her supply chain interests include connecting financial performance and supply chain excellence, as well as talent management issues and emerging markets. Abby has a B.A. in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College and a M.S. in International Supply Chain Management from Plymouth University in the United Kingdom. She has also completed a thru-hike of Vermont’s 280 mile Long Trail, the oldest long distance hiking trail in the United States. As part of the planning and food prep process, she became interested in supply chain management when she was asked to predict hunger pangs for the entire three-week trip before departure. If that isn’t advanced demand planning, what is?!?!