Apple staan nummer 1 in Supply Chain Top 25 van AMR. De ondernemingen in deze top 25 hebben hun logistiek naadloos afgestemd met hun strategie, wat zich vertaalt in een sterke positie in de markt. Dit zijn leerzame voorbeelden!AMR beoordeeld Apple vooral vanwege de goede cash-to-cash resultaten. Dat is de tijd tussen hoe lang het duurt voordat klanten betalen en hoe lang Apple erover doet om leveranciers te betalen. Hoe sneller, hoe beter.
Volgens AMR is cash-to-cash een maatstaf die voorrang verdient boven voorraadhoogte en voorraadfluctuaties die tot nu toe werden gebruikt om de Top 25 van best presterende bedrijven op supply chain gebied vast te stellen. Overigens is cash-to-cash niet de enige maatstaf, het is volgens AMR vooral een maatstaf waardoor het goed focussen is op de prestaties van bedrijven. Apple is ook duurzaam.
Opvallend is dat de eerder gevallen ster Dell nu met stip weer in de lijst is binnengekomen op nummer 4. Verder valt Ahold op, dat in de Top 25 binnenkomt op nummer 24.
De top 25 van 2008:
- Apple
- Nokia
- Dell
- Procter & Gamble
- IBM
- Wal-Mart Stores
- Toyota Motor
- Cisco Systems
- Samsung Electronics
- Anheuser-Busch
- PepsiCo
- Tesco
- The Coca-Cola Company
- Best Buy
- Nike
- SonyEricsson
- Walt Disney
- Hewlett-Packard
- Johnson & Johnson
- Schlumberger
- Texas Instruments
- Lockheed Martin
- Johnson Controls
- Royal Ahold
- Publix Super Markets
En waarom werd Apple nummer 1?
AMR Research’s C.J. Wehlage explores Apple’s rise to the No. 1 slot in the Top 25 through its digital supply chain (see “How the Digital Supply Chain made Apple No. 1 on the Supply Chain Top 25”).
That’s great, but our industrial companies are wondering: how does it apply to those of us with stubbornly physical supply chains?
We talked with C.J. further to get his views on what findings industrial companies can apply from Apple’s strategies. What Apple has done really well is what any company wants to do well, whether they sell a digital or physical product: 1) understand demand and 2) manage supply to respond to demand. Fundamentally, Apple’s story is about really understanding its customer—how customers are using its product and how they want to use it in the future. It’s also about the flexibility to then change their organizational structure, processes, technology, and all the ingrained models that go along with them. This is the ultimate demand-driven supply chain. The product flow here is different than for industrials, but the other three flows—demand, cash, and information—remain.
Apple’s story is, at its core, about change and flexibility. It didn’t start off knowing exactly where this was all going. What it did do was a great job of demand shaping and sensing, and then ruthlessly changed its supply chain in response.
The move to digital product is bleeding out of high tech into other industries. Think automobiles: GM’s OnStar product, in-car GPSs, music, phone, etc. Beyond digital, there are plenty of examples of non-physical, content-related products. Chemical companies routinely offer technical advice to their business customers about the behavior and characteristics of the chemicals they sell to help them figure out how to best adapt it and use it: essentially IP, or content, wrapped around a physical product.
Those two fundamental abilities that Apple is getting very good at, sensing demand and changing the supply chain to respond to it, will continue to be critical