The AMR Research Supply Chain Top 25 for 2009 May 2009 Since 1986 AMR Research has studied and fostered the revolution in supply chain as a profes- sional discipline and as a competitive weapon for companies in the post-industrial economy. e governing principle of this emerging discipline is something we call demand driven, which means global supply chains built to serve customers with both operational and innova- tion excellence. Our annual Supply Chain Top 25 identifies those Fortune Global 500 compa- nies that have best demonstrated leadership in applying this principle to drive business results. by Tony Friscia, Kevin O’Marah, Debra Hofman, and Joe Souza AMR Research Content
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The AMR Research Supply Chain Top 25 for 2009
May 2009
Since 1986 AMR Research has studied and fostered the revolution in supply chain as a profes-sional discipline and as a competitive weapon for companies in the post-industrial economy. The governing principle of this emerging discipline is something we call demand driven, which means global supply chains built to serve customers with both operational and innova-tion excellence. Our annual Supply Chain Top 25 identifies those Fortune Global 500 compa-nies that have best demonstrated leadership in applying this principle to drive business results.
by Tony Friscia, Kevin O’Marah, Debra Hofman, and Joe Souza
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The AMR Research Supply Chain Top 25 for 2009by Tony Friscia, Kevin O’Marah, Debra Hofman, and Joe Souza
Since 1986 AMR Research has studied and fostered the revolution in supply chain as a professional disci-pline and as a competitive weapon for companies in the post-industrial economy. The governing principle of this emerging discipline is something we call demand driven, which means global supply chains built to serve customers with both operational and innovation excel-lence. Our annual Supply Chain Top 25 identifies those Fortune Global 500 companies that have best dem-onstrated leadership in applying this principle to drive business results.
Flight to quality2009 marks our fifth year publishing the Supply Chain Top 25. Since 2004 we have chronicled the emergence of new ideas, like the build-to-order model pioneered by Dell and the emergence of content-based value chains exemplified by Apple and Disney. Today we are experiencing a global recession of such depth that no company, however blue chip, can feel certain of its future. The collapse of credit and subsequent steep decline in demand have combined to kill off many, if not most, plans for expansion and investment through-out the global supply chain. In such an environment, it
should come as little surprise that our 2009 list com-prises companies of deeply established reputations and long histories.
Investors, facing uncertain times, tend to shun risky bets and look for security in safe stocks. Sometimes called a flight to quality, this trend reflects a belief that the strong will survive. Our list this year has fewer new names than ever before (only three), each of which contributes to this sense of stability. Intel is back on the list at No. 25, along with consumer staples Unilever (No. 22) and Colgate-Palmolive (No. 20). Not only do these three also qualify as companies of established reputations and long histo-ries, they are also clearly leaders in huge markets.
Despite the fragile world economy, many of the com-panies on this year’s list remain convinced that winners will be those able to position for a return to growth. Privately, these companies will say that they expect to gain market share from their weaker competitors. Most saw the signs of trouble early and secured their cash positions well enough to maintain momentum on vital initiatives. 2010-11 will show where such foresight pays dividends, with greater supply chain agility enabling survivors to knock off competitors for good and deliver huge earnings in the climb out.
May 2009
The Bottom Line: Apple again tops the Supply Chain Top 25, heading a list of iconic leaders in a recession-driven flight to quality.
2008 data used where available. Where unavailable, latest available full-year data used. All raw data normalized to a 10-point scale prior to composite calculation.
Source: AMR Research, 2009
company
Peer opinion¹
(20%)
AMR Research opinion¹
(20%)
3-Year Weighted
RoA² (25%)
Inventory turns³ (25%)
3-Year Weighted Revenue Growth⁴
(10%)composite
score⁵ comments
1 Apple 2887 336 12.6% 45.5 32.7% 7.97 Apple stays on top with an unbeatable combination of killer financials and stellar opinion scores.
2 Dell 2606 123 9.9% 46.2 2.5% 5.86 Continuing its move up the list, Dell remains highly regarded by its peers, with best-in-class inventory turns even as it undergoes a massive redesign of its business model.
3 Procter & Gamble
2668 439 7.7% 5.1 12.3% 5.31 Retaining its position in the top five for five years, P&G remains a leader in demand-driven concepts, now using this advantage to vault into emerging markets.
4 IBM 1798 329 10.1% 20.0 4.9% 5.08 Back in the No. 4 slot, the technology giant delivers holistic value to its cor-porate clients, with the added benefit of leading the way in sustainability.
5 Cisco Systems
1560 293 13.6% 11.0 16.4% 5.02 Cisco combines a far-reaching supply chain vision, strong execution, and deep collabo-ration with customers and suppliers.
6 Nokia 1989 202 14.6% 11.8 11.0% 4.97 Nokia continues to stay ahead of the curve on everything from regional sourcing and deep supplier collabora-tion to an organizational design based on true value chain principles.
7 Wal-Mart Stores
2822 311 7.9% 8.4 8.5% 4.94 Perennial leader Wal-Mart is making a concerted effort to establish a major posi-tion in sustainability, potentially yielding substantial supply chain benefits.
8 Samsung Electronics
1299 344 10.0% 14.3 10.4% 4.63 With laser-like execution and a focus on channel demand sensing, Samsung keeps growing in a down market.
9 PepsiCo 1293 243 15.8% 7.6 10.1% 4.62 PepsiCo continues moving up the list, backed by its best-in-class DSD, lead-ership in sustainability, and a cultural DNA that is wired for excellence.
10 Toyota Motor
2319 298 5.1% 11.2 11.7% 4.36 As the No. 1 carmaker in the world, Toyota still stands as the leader of lean, possessing an enviable execution engine and strong supplier relationships.
11 Schlumberger 309 150 17.3% 10.3 21.5% 4.08 Schlumberger leads the way in supply chain talent development and sophisti-cated logistics management capability.
12 Johnson & Johnson
1181 196 14.7% 3.4 7.7% 3.93 J&J jumped seven slots this year, pro-pelled by high regard from its peers and an outstanding ROA.
notes:1. Peer opinion and AMR Research opinion: Based on each panel’s forced-rank ordering against the definition of “DDSN Orchestrator”2. RoA: ((2008 net income / 2008 total assets)*50%) + ((2007 net income / 2007 total assets)*30%) + ((2006 net income / 2006 total assets)*20%)3. Inventory turns: 2008 cost of goods sold / 2008 quarterly average inventory4. Revenue Growth: ((Change in revenue 2008-2007)*50%) + ((Change in revenue 2007-2006)*30%) + ((Change in revenue 2006-2005)*20%)5. composite score: (Peer Opinion*20%) + (AMR Research Opinion*20%) + (ROA*25%) + (Inventory Turns*25%) + (Revenue Growth*10%)
1505 100 14.7% 4.8 12.1% 3.88 In the ranking for the fifth time, Coke has a formula that continues to create finan-cial value with superior growth and ROA.
14 Nike 1430 119 14.6% 4.4 11.6% 3.87 Nike drives demand with fashion, a classic example of brand and design embedded in physical product.
15 Tesco 1125 227 6.0% 19.0 12.3% 3.71 High turns and enviable growth reflect Tesco’s emphasis on “smart standardiza-tion” and loyalty management expertise.
16 Walt Disney 743 77 7.0% 33.0 6.4% 3.43 Disney combines demand-driven re-plenishment with new collaborative models for pure content distribution.
17 Hewlett-Packard
1381 146 7.6% 11.3 12.0% 3.37 HP’s acute operational focus provides the foundation for its large and complex yet effective global supply network.
18 Texas Instruments
499 72 20.5% 4.0 -2.6% 3.31 TI has long led in the use of advanced software tools for factory and supply chain planning as well as for design collaboration.
19 Lockheed Martin
307 135 9.7% 22.1 4.0% 3.20 Lean strategies, masterful orchestra-tion of its extensive partner network, and a focus on PBL underlie Lockheed’s movement up the ranking.
20 Colgate-Palmolive
428 17 17.9% 5.2 10.9% 3.18 New to the ranking this year, Colgate has stellar ROA and growth rates and has been increasingly visible in demon-strating leadership.
21 Best Buy 1275 144 8.5% 5.7 12.9% 3.15 Best Buy continues to hone its celebrat-ed total consumer experience expertise, introducing new services to attract and retain customers.
22 Unilever 635 96 13.3% 5.0 1.5% 2.87 New to the ranking this year, Unilever’s impressive ROA and opinion ratings sit on top of its flexible supplier segmenta-tion strategies and a strong CSR record.
23 Publix Super Markets
275 20 14.1% 13.7 4.9% 2.86 Maintaining superior ROA and turns and solid revenue growth despite a tough retail market, Publix joins the ranking for the fourth time.
24 Sony Ericsson
716 38 9.3% 15.4 9.0% 2.76 Back on the list for the second time, Sony Ericsson has invested in an im-pressive system of measurement and visibility across its global supply chain.
25 Intel 500 124 11.1% 4.9 -0.2% 2.56 Returning to the ranking, Intel is a lead-er in innovation, low-cost supply chain design, and talent development.
2008 data used where available. Where unavailable, latest available full-year data used. All raw data normalized to a 10-point scale prior to composite calculation.
notes:1. Peer opinion and AMR Research opinion: Based on each panel’s forced-rank ordering against the definition of “DDSN Orchestrator”2. RoA: ((2008 net income / 2008 total assets)*50%) + ((2007 net income / 2007 total assets)*30%) + ((2006 net income / 2006 total assets)*20%)3. Inventory turns: 2008 cost of goods sold / 2008 quarterly average inventory4. Revenue Growth: ((Change in revenue 2008-2007)*50%) + ((Change in revenue 2007-2006)*30%) + ((Change in revenue 2006-2005)*20%)5. composite score: (Peer Opinion*20%) + (AMR Research Opinion*20%) + (ROA*25%) + (Inventory Turns*25%) + (Revenue Growth*10%)
Inside the numbersFor all the anxiety surrounding business this year, one positive trend that remains from last year is the grow-ing importance of content or intellectual property as a key factor in supply chain strategy. Apple again tops our list, and still by a wide margin. The composite score tallied by Apple shows dominance not only in peer and AMR Research opinion votes but also in financial metrics. The success of Apple’s iPhone continues to change the playing field for mobile devices. Even more importantly, it is changing the rules for software and consumer information services. The App Store adds to Apple’s ability to deliver massive sales growth with extraordinarily low levels of inventory.
Much discussion in 2008 surrounded Apple founder Steve Jobs’ illness and the question of how well the company would fare in his absence. Halfway through 2009, this worry seems largely for naught as supply chain veteran Tim Cook took the lead maintain-ing not only smooth operational performance, but a continued flow of innovation. The ripple effect of Apple’s leadership has pushed others in consumer electronics and mobile devices to rethink their place in the value chain.
The Apple effect also drove down rankings for mobile devices makers Nokia (No. 6) and Sony Ericsson (No. 24). Both companies again demonstrated the intensity of competition in this industry, but each seems to have lost something as Apple’s redefinition of the mobile phone has undercut their perceived leadership. Nokia has invested for years in businesses based on content, going all the way back to the N-Gage in 2003 and more recently with its lead position on Symbian, the software consortium that provides the operating systems for mil-lions of smart phones. The Finnish company has also continued to stay ahead of the curve on everything from regional sourcing and deep supplier collaboration to an organizational design based on true value chain princi-ples. Sony Ericsson, meanwhile, has invested in a system of measurement and visibility across its global supply chain that offers best-in-class demand/supply balancing information flows. It has not yet, however, tapped into parent Sony’s entertainment assets effectively enough to make a strategic difference in the content value chain.
Another mobile devices maker, Samsung (No. 8), managed to climb one notch in the rankings this year, helped by strong and balanced financials. The Korean electronics giant not only makes cutting-edge mobile devices that are competitive with the best of Apple and Nokia, it also has huge businesses in flat-panel televisions and other consumer electronics as well as a big semiconductor business selling components to its rivals. The precision Samsung brings to its sales and operations planning process is among the best in the world. This is one reason Samsung’s CEO is able to drive supply chain strategy actively from the top down. Few companies in any industry place a higher value on supply chain as vital to corporate strategy.
A number of others on this year’s list continue to bene-fit from the shift in consumer demand toward informa-tion products. Among these are computer makers Dell (No. 2) and Hewlett-Packard (No. 17). Both benefit from still-surging growth in online media—2003-08 compound annual growth rate for online advertis-
ing was a blistering 32%. HP has grown its scale and breadth beyond any other technology company in the world, simultaneously encour-aging and benefitting from the explosion of media offerings. The effect of CEO Mark Hurd’s opera-tional focus has been acute on what is now one of the largest and most complex, yet effective global supply networks in the world. Looking
ahead, HP will need to capitalize on this scale without compromising its hard-won agility.
Dell remains heavily focused on computer products, but in the aftermath of a strategic shakeup, it has radically redefined its value chain. As its breakthrough direct-to-consumer supply chain model faced new challenges, the company expanded its channels and invested in product design and innovation. Although its three-year growth rate is a relatively low 2.5%, the inventory turns figure remains extremely high (46.2), pulling up its composite score dramatically. Questions may persist as to whether Dell can return to its position of dominance in the computer business, but there can be little doubt that the company knows supply chain.
One interesting point in this year’s list is the posi-tion of two big chipmakers, Intel (No. 25) and Texas Instruments (No. 18), both of which gained a few
One positive trend that remains from last year is the growing importance of content or intellectual property as a key factor in supply chain strategy.
spots in the ranking from last year despite negative three-year growth rates. Part of the explanation is very high three-year return on assets (ROA) figures for both (20.5% for TI, 11.1% for Intel). The more interesting fact is the increased degree of focus each has made on supply chain collaboration as a competitive differentia-tor. TI has long led among all manufacturers in the use of advanced software tools for factory and supply chain planning. It also has established a reputation for collaboration on design that adds value downstream in the manufacturing operations of its customers. Intel, in contrast, is relatively new to the notion of demand driv-ing the design of its manufacturing and supply chain operations. Coming as it does from a strong and suc-cessful tradition of technology push, one might expect Intel to resist such a dramatic philosophical shift. Quite the opposite. With its efforts to develop a completely new supply chain strategy for the low-cost Atom chip, Intel is attempting to use supply chain design as the center of a wider business strategy.
Recession pains were a prominent fact of 2008, and our list disproportionately reflects the shift toward estab-lished, broad-based consumer staple companies. This flight to quality was evident in the rising rankings of five big-name consumer products companies. Procter & Gamble (No. 3), for the fifth time among our top five, managed to jump one notch while traditional rivals Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive each made the list for the first time. Also jumping up the list were PepsiCo (No. 9) and Johnson & Johnson (No. 12). All five of these organizations have invested heavily in demand-driven technologies and processes. Their ability to sense and respond to shifting levels of demand is especially critical during a downturn and one of the reasons each was able to record excellent three-year ROA figures.
Each has also been increasingly visible in terms of demon-strating leadership, with Unilever and Colgate both receiv-ing leadership awards from AMR Research’s analysts in 2008: Unilever was recognized for leadership in corporate social responsibility in the supply chain, and Colgate was cited for excellence in technology leverage in the supply chain. PepsiCo continues to experiment with and exploit its unique direct store delivery (DSD) capability and has developed some truly advanced analytical capabilities to deeply mine supply chain data. Johnson & Johnson, now in our Top 25 for the fifth year running, manages to establish and govern a global supply chain strategy with process councils while still allowing regional or local execution through a highly decentralized organization.
Retailers again constitute a significant slice of the Top 25, with perennial leader Wal-Mart (No. 7) at the top and Tesco (No. 15), Best Buy (No. 21), and Publix (No. 23) all following. Wal-Mart is among a small set of companies for which the recession has a silver lining, with consumers driven to look for low prices. Easily lost in the discussion is Wal-Mart’s concerted effort to establish a leading position in sustainability. While this effort has branding benefits, it stands in the longer run to deliver substantial supply chain cost savings, espe-cially given Wal-Mart’s huge scale.
Tesco again makes the list with a convincing combi-nation of scale—one of every eight pounds spent by British shoppers goes to Tesco—and innovation. Having pioneered the first truly successful home delivery supply chain for groceries, the company is now experimenting through the downturn with consumer financial ser-vices. Consistently unwilling to live by traditional rules, Tesco’s approach to value encompasses more than just operating efficiency. Publix again makes our list largely on the back of extremely strong return on assets (14.1% three-year average) and high inventory turns (13.7). As a regional grocer, Florida-based Publix has taken an active role in its local communities, including extensive emer-gency preparedness for this hurricane-plagued area.
Best Buy remains a leading supply chain by all accounts, both in terms of its solid financial scores and its demonstrated leadership in supply chain innova-tion. Chief among these is the understanding Best Buy appears to have of the increasing complexity and busi-ness opportunity afforded by the content economy. Not only does the company sell products catering to this trend, it also extends the value proposition with home services provided by its Geek Squad and with private-label manufacturing of consumer electronics products.
Walt Disney (No. 16) again makes the list. Last year we saw this as part of the move toward intellectual property as embedded in a value chain. The same points hold this year as Disney continues to employ traditional supply chain practices like demand-driven replenishment for its DVD business and strategic sourcing in its theme parks, with new collaborative models for pure content distribution via the digital supply chain. Pricing challenges, coupled with serious piracy problems for entertainment products, persist in cutting into media companies’ ability to grow earnings, and Disney is not immune. By combining a physi-cal products universe with a digital products universe,
however, Disney is learning valuable lessons about how best to control and monetize its IP.
Nike (No. 14) is another returning blue-chip supply chain leader that benefits from the explosion in content business opportunities. Having established itself as one of the world’s dominant brands, Nike has been able to drive demand with fashion, offering a classic example of content (brand and design) embedded in physical prod-uct. Next steps include finding more ways to leverage the digital supply chain to accelerate value creation on the content dimension while learning how to respond faster to demand for those products that lack Nike’s high-end fashion value.
Operating on some of the same principles is The Coca-Cola Company (No. 13), owner of the world’s most valuable brand. Working as it does through its bottlers to deliver a total supply chain capability, the Atlanta-based company is wrestling with how best to unify brand and marketing innovation with retailer-friendly execution to the shelf. One of its most impor-tant efforts is a regular dialog with the heads of its worldwide independent bottlers to better coordinate demand creation with supply replenishment. Both in terms of ROA (14.7% three-year average) and growth (12.1% three-year average) the Coke formula continues to create financial value. How much better it gets will depend on tightening links to bottlers.
Among industrial companies, several leaders are again back on the list. Toyota (No. 10) secured very strong peer voter points again this year, reinforcing the flight-to-quality mood that seemed to hold. The lean pioneer, weathering historically dismal times in the automotive industry, reported a fiscal year (2008) loss for the first time since its founding in 1937. Despite these chal-lenges, it is clear that the systems and processes Toyota has built around the world position it well to continue to pick up market share worldwide.
Lockheed Martin (No. 19) is back this year, and while its excellent inventory turns (22.1) are largely a product of its role as a prime contractor, few if any complex industrial companies have been as innovative around supply chain strategies. Its organizational structure is explicitly built to extend lean principles from the shop floor to the total enterprise and beyond into its value chain. It has managed to build and deliver the first common platform designs across international military
customers and continues to use integrated process teams across partners to orchestrate the total supply chain.
Complex supply network coordination is the core competence of another industrial giant, Schlumberger (No. 11), which has developed sophisticated logistics management skills around big engineering projects that are highly capital intensive, and therefore very time sensi-tive. One of Schlumberger’s most notable contributions to supply chain leadership has been in the area of talent development, where extensive training and best practice sharing is sponsored across the organization. Requiring, as Schlumberger does, a set of skills somewhere between tra-ditional best-in-class sourcing and engineering-intensive program management knowhow, it is perhaps under-standable that their recruiting and training requirements have forced some innovative approaches to be taken.
IBM (No. 4) again makes our list, now five years straight. Much of what has been said of industrial leaders like Lockheed Martin and Schlumberger applies equally well to IBM, whose business has become primarily one of multi-year program management. The company’s innovation around the “people supply chain” is break-through, and although many years of development certainly lie ahead, principles borrowed from traditional supply chain promise huge gains in the profitability and reliability of its burgeoning services business.
Last, but certainly not least, is Cisco Systems. When we first published the list in 2004, memories of Cisco’s $2B inventory write-down were still fresh, and the company was nowhere near making any Top 25. Since that time, new leadership in the supply chain organiza-tion coupled with an ambitious yet believable vision for Cisco’s place in the post-industrial economy has led to a steady climb up the rankings. From No. 18, to No. 11, to No. 8, to cracking the top five, Cisco is a story of success. Some of what works is basic tech-nology leverage for better operational performance, including a three-layer system for demand planning. Some is organizational, including a “Customer Value Chain Management” structure that combines quality, customer fulfillment, and traditional supply chain to give corporate customers efficiency with high levels of service. Above all, Cisco excels at making supply chain strategic by understanding at all levels, up to and including CEO John Chambers, how this discipline will govern competition in the future.
What is demand-driven excellence?Figure 1 captures the organizational ideal of demand-driven principles as applied to the global supply chain. This model has three overlapping areas of responsibility:
Supply management• —Manufacturing, logistics, and sourcingDemand management• —Marketing, sales, and serviceProduct management• —R&D, engineering, and product development
Excellence is a matter of visibility, communication, and reliable processes that link all three of these functional areas together. When these processes work together, the business can respond quickly and efficiently to oppor-tunities arising from market or customer demand. Defining characteristics of supply chains built to this design include the ability to manage demand rather than just respond to it, a networked rather than linear approach to global supply, and the ability to embed innovation in operations rather than keep it isolated in the laboratory. The demand-driven model is inher-ently circular and self-renewing, unlike the push supply chains of our factory-centric industrial past.
Two basic dimensions of measurement capture the totality of the best-in-class demand-driven global supply chain: operational excellence and innovation excellence. Operations, including delivering as prom-ised to customers and keeping costs under control, are relatively easy to measure and unambiguous as business value metrics. We recommend a hierarchy of metrics, at the top of which are perfect order rate and total supply chain costs, to monitor this dimension.
Of course, operational excellence has value only if customers want what is being made and shipped. To address this dimension, we look at innovation excel-lence. Although far harder to measure reliably, this dimension also can be managed with a hierarchy of metrics, in this case topped by time to value and return on new product development and launch (NPDL)—see Appendix A for details. Companies that manage to balance leadership on both these dimensions over time not only satisfy their customers but also earn better returns on capital invested, whether in assets or research and development.
product
demandsupply
A system of technologies and processes that senses and reacts to real-time demand signals across a supply network of customers, suppliers and employees.
Figure 1: Demand-driven principles in supply chain
Appendix A: supply chain top 25 methodologyThe Supply Chain Top 25 ranking comprises two main components: financial and opinion. Public financial data gives us a view into how companies have per-formed in the past, while the opinion component provides an eye to future potential and reflects future expected leadership, a crucial characteristic. These two components are combined into a total composite score, with the financials accounting for 60% of the total score and the opinion piece 40%.
We start with a master list of companies derived from the latest publication of Fortune’s Global 500 ranking. We pare the list down to the manufacturing and retail sectors, thus eliminating certain industries, such as financial services and insurance (see Table 2 for a full list of industries that are excluded). Some individual
Appendices
companies are eliminated because of unavailable finan-cial data.
Each year we examine the methodology used to develop the ranking with two sometimes conflicting goals in mind: consistency and improvement. We want to improve the methods and procedures we use, but, for the sake of consistency, do so in a way that builds on what we’ve done in previous years. We are continually considering new metrics that might give us additional or better insights into supply chain performance and reassessing the weightings used to ensure a fair reflection of market and business realities. In 2008, we published an article detailing the changes we were considering in order to get input from the wider supply chain com-munity (see “Changes to the Supply Chain Top 25 Methodology: Our Ideas”). We received extensive and extremely helpful feedback, which was incorporated into the changes we implemented, as detailed below.
table 2:
Source: AMR Research, 2009
Industries not included in the Supply Chain Top 25
Airlines Healthcare: Insurance and managed care
Securities
Banks Homebuilders Shipping
Computer Services/Software
Insurance Telecommunications
Diversified Financials Mail, Package and Freight Delivery
Financial componentSimilar to previous years, three financial metrics were used in the ranking:
ROA• —Net income / total assetsInventory turns• —Cost of goods sold / inventoryRevenue growth• —Change in revenue from prior year
This year for the first time we used a three-year weighted average for the ROA and revenue growth metrics. The yearly weightings were as follows: 50% for 2008, 30% for 2007 and 20% for 2006. For inventory, we shifted to a quarterly average calculation versus the end-of-year snapshot balance sheet number we’ve used in the past. For all the metrics, where 2008 data was unavailable, the latest available full-year data was used.
Inventory gives us some indication of cost, and ROA provides a general proxy for overall operational effi-ciency and productivity. Revenue growth, while clearly reflecting myriad market and organizational factors, offers some clues to innovation. ROA and inventory turns were weighted at 25% each, while growth was weighted at 10%. Financial data is taken primarily from a company’s individual annual reports, with Hoover’s online financials as a secondary source.
The shift to three-year averages accomplishes our goal of smoothing the spikes and valleys in annual metrics—often not truly reflective of supply chain health—that result from events such as acquisitions/divestitures, or the discrepant impact of market cycles on the highly asset-intensive industries. It also accomplishes a second, equally important, goal: it better captures the lag between when a supply chain initiative is put in place—e.g., a network redesign or a new demand planning and forecasting system—and when the impact can be expected to show up in financial statement metrics like ROA and growth. Inventory, on the other hand, is a metric that is much closer to supply chain activity, and we expect it to reflect initiatives within the same year. The reason we moved to a quarterly average was to get a better picture of actual inventory holdings throughout the year, rather than the snapshot end-of-year view provided on the balance sheet in a company’s annual report.
Opinion componentThe opinion component of the ranking, which consti-tutes 40% of the total score, is designed to provide a forward-looking view that reflects the progress com-panies are making as they move toward the idealized demand-driven supply network (DDSN) blueprint. It is made up of two components, each equally weighted at 20%: a panel of AMR Research experts and a peer panel.
The goal of the peer panel is to draw on the extensive knowledge of the professionals that, as customers and/or suppliers, interact and have direct experience with the companies being ranked. Any supply chain profes-sional working for a manufacturer or retailer is eligible to be on the panel, and only one panelist per company is accepted. Excluded from the panel are consultants, technology vendors, and people not working in supply chain roles (e.g., PR, marketing, finance, and the like).
We had 400 applications to participate in the peer vote in 2009, up 70% over 2008. Of those, 230 were accepted, 170 of which completed the voting pro-cess. Participants came from the most senior levels of the supply chain organization across a broad range of industries (see Appendix B for a complete demographic breakdown of peer panelists).
There were also 20 AMR Research panelists across industry and functional specialties, each of whom drew on his or her primary field research and continuous work with companies. The 40% opinion weighting is equally divided between the Peer Panel and the AMR Research panel at 20% each. Companies must receive votes from both panels to be included in the ranking. Therefore, a company that had a composite score fall within the Top 25 solely based on the financial metrics would not be included in the ranking.
One of the changes we strongly considered this year was to implement the concept of affinity groups into the opinion component of the score in order to offset the advantage that companies with strong brand recognition have in the voting. The idea of the affin-ity groups is straightforward: tag each company being voted on as either an industrial or consumer company, and weight the votes of its affinity group more heavily than the non-affinity group.
The reality is less straightforward. After extensive testing and evaluation of numerous options for implementing this concept within the ranking engine, the bottom line was that the result—that is, the degree to which it actu-ally balanced out the brand recognition issue—was not significant enough to warrant the increased complexity that would result. A potential increase in complexity is not a minor point: One of our requirements is that the methodology be intuitive, transparent, and understand-able, particularly to the supply chain community the ranking is intended to serve. While this approach did not work, we will continue to investigate alternatives for dealing with the brand recognition issue.
Polling procedurePeer panel polling was conducted in mid-April via a web-based, structured voting process. The process was identical to previous years: Panelists were taken through a four-page system to get to their final selec-tion of leaders that came closest to the DDSN ideal as defined in AMR Research Reports and repeated in the instructions on the voting website for the convenience of the voters.
The first page provides instructions and a descrip-•tion of the DDSN ideal. The second page asks for demographic information. •
The third page provides panelists with a complete •list of the companies to be considered. We asked them to choose 30 to 50 that, in their opinion, most closely fit the ideal. After this subset of leaders was chosen, the form •refreshes, bringing just those chosen companies to a list. Panelists are then asked to force-rank the com-panies from 1 through 25, with 1 being the com-pany most closely fitting the ideal.
Individual votes were tallied across the entire panel, with 25 points earned for a No. 1 ranking, 24 points for a
No. 2 ranking, and so on. The AMR Research panel and the peer panel used the exact same polling procedure.
By definition, each person’s expertise is deep in some areas and limited in others. Despite that, panelists were not expected to conduct external research to place their votes. The polling system is designed to accommodate differences in knowledge, relying on what author James Surowiecki calls the wisdom of crowds to provide the mechanism that taps into each person’s core kernel of knowledge and aggregates it into a larger whole.
Composite scoreAll the information previously discussed—the three financials and two opinion votes—is normalized onto a 10-point scale, and then aggregated using the afore-mentioned weighting into a total composite score. The composite scores are then sorted in descending order to arrive at the final Top 25 ranking.
Metrics: The ones we use and why, and the ones we wish we had One of the primary lessons learned in publishing the Supply Chain Top 25 is that existing public financial metrics are bad at identifying the businesses that have the best potential to make money with a demand-driven approach to the value chain. Perhaps this is not surprising since financial accounting principles were developed in the hard-asset, factory-intensive economy of the early 1900s. For example, the balance-sheet treat-ment of inventory as a valuable asset rings false for the many short-cycle businesses today that see inventory as more of a liability.
Similarly, soft assets, like brands and intellectual property, which are so essential to demand creation, are impossible for standard accounting to handle, and are thus usually under-counted. Even income statements can obscure real costs with sneaky capitalization rules.
We prefer metrics that better describe two basic dimen-sions of performance: operational excellence and inno-vation excellence (again see Figure 1).
These are the dimensions that point meaningfully to the better value chain, identifying which business is faster, stronger, and smarter. Betting on next year or quarter is a matter of knowing who is the better ath-lete, not merely who won last year. Our premise is the better athlete is more likely to win markets and profits in the future. Therefore, the companies able to demon-strate superior performance against these dimensions merit a higher share price multiple on a dollar of cur-rent earnings.
Through our ongoing, deep supply chain research, including detailed supply chain benchmarking stud-ies of 70 companies, AMR Research has identified the metrics that map to these dimensions which, if we had them, would clearly convey which companies had the healthiest value chains:
For each of these performance dimensions, we have published a full hierarchy of metrics that allows man-agement to assess overall performance at the highest level, diagnose problems via process decomposition, and make corrections at the tactical work level.
However, from our work with companies and our benchmarking studies in the past, we are all too aware of how inaccessible this data is in most companies, particularly within a realistic time frame. Moreover, while some companies may have the data we seek, we are limited in that whatever metrics we choose must be available in an audited fashion for each and every com-pany in the total population of the Fortune Global 500. Therefore, we look to publicly available financial data to find the closest possible proxies, as detailed above.
As noted above, we are continually examining addi-tional metrics to incorporate into the methodology, balanced by the need for consistency. Our Supply Chain Top 25 webpage features a number of write-ups concerning these efforts. For example, we have inves-tigated the possibility of using days sales outstanding (DSO) as a proxy for customer satisfaction, indepen-dent customer ratings for input on customer views, cash-to-cash for supply chain throughput rates, and the ratio of inventory versus revenue change as a measure of how efficiently a company manages growth.
While our investigations revealed it was not feasible to apply these metrics within the quantitative methodol-ogy used for the Top 25, we did use them in additional analyses that we published throughout the year, and we will continue to do so this coming year.
