infonet-economy

Supply chain management (SCM) is evolving from a cost optimization topic to an increasingly strategic and effectiveness-driven issue. Companies have discovered - in SCM - an opportunity to sustain competiveness. Supply chain differentiation (SCD), the concurrent operation of several supply chains (SC), is a particularly strong trend in SCM. This paper investigates decisions to apply SCD through two case studies. The results indicate that existing analyses of product and demand characteristics are not sufficient for the design of differentiated SC strategies; consideration of customer interaction and requirements of distribution channels are proposed.