@Risk

For the fourth year in a row, Apple has finished at the top of Gartner, Inc.’s Supply Chain Top 25.

The Supply Chain Top 25, a list Gartner compiles to raise awareness of the supply chain discipline and how it impacts the business, ranks companies based on two main components: financial and opinion.

Public financial data gives a view into how companies have performed in the past, while the opinion component provides an eye to future potential and reflects future expected leadership. These two components are combined into a total composite score.

This year’s top ten finishers (and their scores) are: (more…)

For the third year in a row, Apple took first place in the Supply Chain Top 25, a ranking initiative conducted by AMR Research, a Gartner, Inc. company.

AMR Research has released a Supply Chain Top 25 report annually for the past six years, and this is the first time a company has been ranked No. 1 for three consecutive years. Analysts attribute Apple’s success to its ability to consistently bring both operational excellence and innovation excellence to bear in some of the most competitive markets in the world. According to AMR Research, Apple has broken new ground in transforming a supply chain into a value chain by starting with the consumer experience and designing its network to serve that master first and foremost.

The Supply Chain Top 25 also includes other notable achievements. For example:

• Second-placed Procter & Gamble (P&G) is the only company to have been in AMR’s Supply Chain Top 25 for six years running.

• Cisco Systems has climbed steadily in AMR’s rankings for five straight years, moving up two slots to No. 3 this year.

• Five companies — Research In Motion (RIM), Amazon.com, McDonald’s, Microsoft and Inditex — joined the Top 25 for the first time in 2010.

“Twenty years ago, a typical product company had supply chain reporting to manufacturing, with responsibility mainly for inbound materials management and outbound shipping,” says Debra Hofman, research vice president at AMR Research. “New data shows that supply chain reports to manufacturing in only 6 percent of companies surveyed, while 61 percent have the head of supply chain reporting directly to the CEO, general manager or president of the business. It seems clear that supply chain has grown up and the business has taken notice.”

Here is the complete list of the Supply Chain Top 25: (more…)

Today’s supply chains are global and complex –and that means companies are relying on external vendors more than ever before. But, what would happen to your business if a key vendor failed to perform? Do you have contingency plans in place? Perhaps even more important, do you know the warning signs that indicate a vendor is in trouble?

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