Follow the leaders: Scoring high on the supply chain maturity model – Mainland China perspectives on supply chain fulfillment

The IBM Global Business Services 2007 Mainland China Value Chain Study examines the status of supply chain management in Mainland China. It provides comparisons between Mainland China and other surveyed geographies and forms part of the global IBM value chain research program conducted progressively in North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and India in 2005 and 2006. This particular report highlights the key survey findings related to three key supply chain fulfillment functions: Customer order management, Manufacturing and Logistics.

Globally, leading companies have evolved and transformed their supply chain execution from static, isolated and internally-focused to externally collaborative. Many of them are further evolving toward an on-demand, customer-driven supply chain. According to previous value chain research by IBM, leading companies carry less inventory and have lower raw material shrinkage costs and a higher customer satisfaction rate.¹

Mainland Chinese companies are striving to meet their supply chain objectives; however there is still room for improvement in virtually every process area, as will be explored in this report. In comparison to other regions, Mainland Chinese supply chains achieve good and leading results on certain supply chain management (SCM) key performance indicators (KPIs), such as on-time delivery performance.

Mainland Chinese respondents agree that profitability is the first objective of SCM, but do not feel it is as critical as those in markets like Taiwan and India or in mature markets like Japan and Northern America do. Companies in Mainland China recognize the importance of cost reduction for the success of SCM, even though they are not facing as much cost pressure as those in the Australian/New Zealand (ANZ), North American and Japanese markets. Quality improvement is viewed as very important in SCM, as compared to other countries or areas. According to the surveys across the globe in 2006, responsiveness has now taken the place of quality among the three top objectives in all markets except Mainland China and Taiwan.

To read the full report, download the PDF file at the top of this page.

References
¹ Butner, Karen. "Follow the leaders: Scoring high on the supply chain maturity model." IBM Institute for Business Value. November 2005. IBM subsequently conducted research and published reports beyond the North American market, including perspectives on Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Japan and India.