Organising for Supply Chain Management

Many companies have introduced the supply chain function in their organisation. Little attention, however, is devoted to the way the supply chain function is organised, e.g. the range of responsibilities it has, the position it occupies in the hierarchy and the skills it requires. The literature on this is scarce. This paper provides initial benchmarking data on company decisions regarding the roles and responsibilities of their supply chain managers and how the various supply chain tasks are coordinated and integrated. Our empirical study in the food, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries shows that differences in supply chain organisational structures are not random. We find that the way the supply chain function is organised seems to depend on the industry and its complexity and, we might speculate, on the strategy of the organisation. By highlighting and trying to explain these differences, we hope to raise top management awareness regarding the structuring options for their supply chain function and the importance of this issue for the organisation