Globalisation is creating a market for far wider diversity in a supply chain, a new report has found, but many companies are failing to make the most of the options available to them.
Service supply chains are still in their infancy, according to the research collected for the Pulse 2Q08 survey, but can offer companies great benefits in the coming future.
Outsourcing the supply of information through a company can save time and money for businesses, and it is expected that such service supply chains will develop far beyond the current view today of simply outsourcing call centres to India.
"It took decades for manufacturing supply chains to mature. Now, organisations are steadily migrating from those vertical integration models to horizontal specialisation," said Stan Lepeak, managing director of research at EquaTerra.
"Ongoing globalisation is accelerating that process and adding new layers of complexity," he added.
Outsourcing any form of supply chain can be an effective way of saving a firm both time and money by allowing a specialist company the chance to improve some aspects of a chain that may be letting other areas of the chain down.
Government and Public Sector:
Download your FREE supply chain case study for government and public sector
