o far as to advocate the need to fu

o far as to advocate the need to fully disintegrate traditional organization structure.
Most observers of current logistics practice feel significant inroads into improved
process performance are being realized as a result of modifying and repositioning
functional capabilities. The key is to align, focus, and measure functional performance
in terms of process contribution. At stake in closing the great divide is commitment to
facilitated by well-defined processes, relevant measurement, common
forecasting and planning, and a supportive reward system.

How Much Integration Is Enough?
The critical question concerning a firm's ability to participate in supply chain collaboration
is, How much internal integration within a participating firm is necessary or desirable
to achieve across-the-supply-chain collaborative success? This is a difficult
question to answer. Any assessment must acknowledge two facts.
First, few, if any, existing supply chain arrangements are, in fact, end-to-end integrations.
The more common examples reflect integration of cross-organizational
processes involving either procurement and manufacturing or marketing and distribution.
In other words, the separation of these cross-organizational processes serves to disrupt
a firm's continuous supply chain operations. However, even limited integration appears
to create value for the participating organizations. Therefore, one could conclude
that limited collaboration offers sufficient benefits to justify supply chain initiatives.
Second, the number one reason given by executives to explain the limited scope
of and high failure rate of such supply chain collaborations is the inability of participating
partners to perform as promised. For example, collaborations fail because a
firm's manufacturing cannot or does not produce the products marketing promised to
customers. Likewise, collaborations fail because marketing does not provide manufacturers
with timely and detailed promotional plans of market distribution partners. Of
course collaborations also fail because logistics is not able to perform to the expectations
of manufacturing andlor marketing. This second assessment point serves to support
the insight that comprehensive across-the-supply-chain collaborations will not
occur until participating firms achieve high levels of credible internal integration. In
short, long-term supply chains' success will require that participating firms resolve
their internal great divides. Attention is focused on supply chain collaboration in Chapter 15.