1st Edition

The Intimate Supply Chain Leveraging the Supply Chain to Manage the Customer Experience

By David Frederick Ross Copyright 2008
    304 Pages 36 B/W Illustrations
    by Auerbach Publications

    The growing power being exercised by today’s consumer is causing significant paradigm shifts away from traditional marketing. This is leading to a whole new take on the structure and functioning of supply chain management (SCM). It’s no longer so much about improving the manufacturing process as it is improving the point and speed of contact and the continued interaction that you have with your customer.

    The Intimate Supply Chain: Leveraging the Supply Chain to Manage the Customer Experience explores how SCM can assist companies to grow and prosper in the new global economy. It focuses on what the customer wants from the supply chain and how organizations must restructure their outdated business models to meet their customer’s needs. Covering this dramatic shift in customer management, David Ross, bestselling author and recognized industry expert, demonstrates how to design and maintain an efficient and up-to-date delivery channel, showcasing the methods and technologies needed to adapt to the evolving, demand-driven market.

    Exceptionally practical in his approach, Ross provides a new perspective that requires a broader mindset about the structure and functioning of SCM. He explains how effective management must start with the aim of getting personal with customers in order to bring total value to their shopping experience. Rather than concentrate on a range of products, this work defines a roadmap that will lead to increased empathy for your customers so that you will be able to provide them with unbeatable and readily recognizable value. When properly traveled, you will discover that it is a roadmap to increased profitability and market share.

    The Revolution in Customer Management: Becoming Intimate with Today’s Customer
    What’s Going on with Today’s Customer?
    Dimensions of Customer Management
    Summary and Transition
    Endnotes
    Learning to Grow and Prosper in a Global Economy: Realities of Supply Chain Management in the Twenty-First Century
    Basis of Globalization—A Primer
    Activating Customer Value in a Global Economy
    Summary and Conclusion
    Endnotes
    The Enabling Power of Supply Chains: Leveraging the Process Value Chain to Support Customer Intimacy
    SCM Foundations
    Summary and Transition
    Endnotes
    Designing and Maintaining a Delivery Channel: Creating Value Delivery Networks to Drive Customer Intimacy
    Value Delivery Networks—An Overview
    Types of Value Delivery Network Intermediaries
    Role of the Value Delivery Network
    Value Delivery Network Decisions
    Summary and Transition
    Endnotes
    The Evolving Supply Chain: From Logistics to the Lean Supply Chain
    Supply Chain Management—An Overview
    SCM Process Approaches
    Lean Supply Chain Management
    Summary and Transition
    Endnotes
    The Adaptive, Demand-Driven Supply Chain: Using the Supply Chain to Manage Risk
    Managing Risk in the Lean Supply Chain
    Advent of the Adaptive, Demand-Driven Supply Network
    Competencies of the Adaptive, Demand-Driven Network
    6.4 Summary and Transition
    Endnotes
    The Intimate Supply Chain: Using the Supply Chain to Manage the Customer Experience
    Basics of Customer Experience Management
    Intimate Supply Chain Competencies
    Summary and Transition
    Endnotes
    Structuring the Intimate Supply Chain: Differentiating Your Supply Chain by Engaging Today’s Customer
    Economics of Intimate Supply Chains
    Intimate Supply Chain Strategies
    Summary and Transition
    Endnotes
    Methods and Technologies: Applying Methods and Technologies to Build Intimate Supply Chains
    The Quest for Customer Intimacy
    Working with Customer Management Technologies
    Intimate Customer Management Best Practices
    Summary
    Endnotes
    Afterword
    Index

    Biography

    David Frederick Ross