The Scope and Span of Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Studies on supply chain management suggest that the scope of business processes being coordinated across supply chains is broad. However, little empirical evidence exists that corroborates such claims. In this study executives randomly selected from a diverse array of industries were surveyed to determine the scope of processes that are being integrated across organizational borders, the extent to which they are being jointly managed, and the span in terms of the number of tiers across which they are being managed. The results indicate that a large proportion of companies that practice supply chain management are attempting to integrate logistics, marketing, and operations‐oriented processes with those of other companies in their supply chains. Also, the span of a company's supply chain management efforts significantly relates to the extent to which it jointly manages business processes with other firms.