Management and Production Engineering Review
Volume 4 • Number 4 • December 2013 • pp. 66–75
DOI: 10.2478/mper-2013-0040
CRITICAL ATTRIBUTES ON SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGY
IMPLEMENTATION: CASE STUDY IN EUROPE AND ASIA
Ilkka Sillanp¨a¨a
1
, Nurul Aida binti Abdul Malek
2
, Josu Takala
3
1
Department of strategic management, University of Vassa, Vassa, Finland
2
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Johor, M alaysia
3
Department of Production, University of Vassa, Vassa, Finland
Corresponding author:
Ilkka Sillanp¨a¨a
Strategic M anagement
University of Vaasa
Wolffintie 34 65200 Vaasa, Finland
phone: (+358) 40 7777167
e-mail: ilkka.j.sillanpaa@gmail.com
Received: 6 Octob er 2013 Abstract
Accepted: 8 November 2013 This case study research aims to compare the perform ance of the implementation of supply
chain management (SCM) strategies within Asian and European Companies. The case study
measures company’s opinions of supply chain strategy implementation through utilization
of Sense and Response methodology. Critical Factor Index (CFI), Balanced Critical Factor
Index (BCFI) and Scaled Critical Factor Index (SCFI) are used in this study to represent
the result of comparison between European and Asian companies. From the analysis of
comparison of all Sense and Response models, it can be concluded that there ar e differences
and similarities of critical attributes that affecting supply chain strategy implementation
in Asian and European companies. There are two attributes that have consistent trend for
both regions; innovation and organization structure.
In this research the analysis of supply chain strategy implementation was made for the
needs of manufacturing industry. Suggestions for future research are multiple case studies
in different industry areas in global business environment. The results provide a guideline
to the company to measure the right attributes for making the ri ght decision in a dynam-
ic environment. It also pr ovides go od knowledge for companies to i mplement supply chain
strategies, the main approaches to implement it and the mai n challenges in supply chain
strategy implementation. Supply chain strategy implementation was analyzed in the Euro-
pean and Asian companies. This research shows that there are several developing areas for
companies when implementing supply chain strategies.
Keywords
supply chain management, sense and respond, strategy implementation.
Introduction
Research problem
Supply chain management (SCM) is a manage -
ment concept of the 2000’s. It includes divisions from
the management concepts of the previous decades .
Many definitions for SCM have been presented. SCM
has been and is still reg arded as a synonym for lo-
gistics, supply and SC control. Today the broader
definition determined by the Global Supply Chain
Forum is generally accepted as a norm [1, 2]:
“Supply Chain Management (SCM) is the in-
tegration of key business processes from end user
through original suppliers that provides products,
services, and information that add value for cus-
tomers and other stakeholders”
To develop supply chain and to run and operate
supply chain smoothly it is e xtremely important to
integrate supply chain strategy to the whole supply
chain. Supply chain strategy is the key element of
planning operational daily work. Acco rding to pre-
liminary research it seems that this research area is
unique.
The research goal can be captured as fo llowing:
The goal is to deepen knowledge in supply chain
strategy implementation in the manufacturing indus-
try.
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