Critically Evaluate The Development Of Supply Chain Management Over The Last 30 Years From Its Roots In Physical Distribution Into A Strategic Boardroom Level Business Issue

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Business economics - Supply, Production, Logistics, grade: 1, Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, language: English, abstract: ‘The real challenge is to improve the capabilities across supply chains significantly in order to drive out cost and realize revenue benefits – fast’ (Gattorna 2003, p.4). This statement both demon-strates the importance for enterprises and emphasizes the complexity of the supply chain require-ments these days. In times of strong competition almost everywhere it is especially important to meet customer needs and thus ‘achieving high levels of service’ (Taylor 1997, p.3). But where does Supply Chain Management (SCM) have its roots and what stands behind it? The purpose of this essay is to critically evaluate the development of SCM. It will both include an explanation of the differences between logistics and SCM and its reasons as well as an explana-tion why supply chain managers are now part of the senior management group. Therefore, the history of physical distribution, logistics and SCM will be mentioned, these three central terms will be defined precisely and four academic strategic approaches will be introduced briefly.