Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a business' supply side activity to maximize customers' values along with gaining competitive advantage in desired market places. SCM connects major business functions and processes within the business; pushing companies into a cohesive, high performing business model. SCM ranges from production, to represents suppliers' efforts to develop and implement chains that can be efficient and economical product development, to information systems that direct all these processes. "SCM is a far reaching activity that has a major impact on a society's standard of living" (Grant 1). Just think, if the supplier of your favorite brand of bread did not coordinate with logistics to schedule the delivery on time, you and other shoppers would be affected. In this paper I will discuss the current trends in SCM. .
Executive input was given in an article by senior executives across different industries, describing current trends in SCM; now and in the next ten years. Currently, service chains are becoming more important than product chains. "With the increasing focus shift from product production to service offer, service supply chain management emerges as a new focus of the supply chain research. There is no common definition on service supply chain management. Particularly, the research on the structure of the service supply chain is still scarce" (Graham 275-276). A growing number of individuals have recently been discovering the potential profit hidden in their supply business. The challenge that manufacturing executives will come across is actually transforming the potential into profit. Overall, improving service quality increases customer's satisfaction which returns increases in new product sales. Service offerings available range from basic parts and labor sales, to faster service response and same day services, to customers having the option to pay only for equipment use and uptime.