Four of the world's corporate giants -- Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Caterpillar and Honeywell -- have joined European logistics giant Geodis as founding members of the Global Supply Chain Forum. The forum is a collaboration between the University of Tennessee-Knoxville's College of Business Administration and ESSEC Business School (Paris and Singapore). It brings together industry leaders and outstanding faculty from around the world to discuss global supply chain issues, opportunities and best practices.

The forum's inaugural meeting is scheduled June 28-29, 2011, in Paris.

Through its mix of presentations, breakout sessions and networking events, the forum is intended to allow attendees to interact with peers and academics from around the globe and learn how supply chain issues are managed worldwide. UT Knoxville's faculty members include some of the most-published academics on supply chain. ESSEC is a leading European business school and world leader in executive education with expertise in logistics and supply chain.

At the Paris forum, executives from Nestle and Renault will join the forum's other supply chain leaders in discussing how businesses can leverage their supply chains to attain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Over the next several years, Global Supply Chain Forums will take place in North America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. They will be held in collaboration with UT Knoxville, the Instituto de Logistica e Supply Chain of Rio de Janeiro, and the Central European University Business School in Budapest.

To learn more about the Global Supply Chain Forum, visit http://www.theglobalsupplychainforum.com.

Source: The University of Tennessee