6. Supply Chain Management: The Systemic Challenge

Practitioners extensively recognize the supply chain as an overall system with growingly complex interdependences. Nevertheless, several studies have pointed out that managers fail to see the whole system, and hence they do not operate consistently to such recognition, but they usually approach the issue from a local optimization perspective. This kind of reductionist solutions create large inefficiencies, which damage the profitability of the various supply chain members. Under these circumstances, we highlight the deployment of the systemic approach as the great challenge of the 21st-century supply chains. This paper develops this idea. Firstly, we explore the concepts of efficiency, flexibility and resilience as core operational goals for supply chains operating under the current global scene. Secondly, we underscore the systemic approach by defining the basic supply chain archetypes underlain by contrary philosophical approaches. Thirdly, we devise a framework based on three strategic axes—education, orchestration, and methodology—from which the systemic challenge must be tackled.