Analyst Insight: A perfect performance means playing the right song for the right audience. This even applies to supply chain. When supply chain is one-size-fits-all, the orchestra falls out of tune, compromising quality to try to satisfy everyone. To deliver the best performance consistently, businesses need to prioritize customer demands through segmentation and synchronization. This reassembles supply chain to place customer needs at the core, allowing harmony between the business and customer. - Rodrigo Cambiaghi, Principal; Claudio Menegusso, Senior Manager; and Carolyn Dombrowski, Consultant, all with Advisory Services of Ernst & Young LLP

Analyst Insight: Ever wonder why a majority of inventory optimization projects struggle to completely realize potential benefits? Most companies focus solely on inventory strategy, without taking a comprehensive, holistic approach. Taking the holistic approach introduces two additional levers to inventory optimization - business alignment and execution excellence - which, coupled with inventory strategy, enable supply chains to achieve strategic and targeted performance improvement goals. We call these the three rings of inventory optimization. - Rodrigo Cambiaghi, Principal; Claudio Menegusso, Senior Manager; Mark Johnson, Manager; and Saurabh Jha, Senior, all in the Advisory Services of Ernst & Young LLP

Analyst Insight: Best-in-class companies are evolving to meet their customers' needs by reverse engineering their supply chains to align with overall sales strategies and customer desires. This process involves integrating and working various verticals within a company in order to achieve the desired outcome. Supply chain professionals are taking a different look at their companies' operations through the lens of customers' perspectives and expectations, and organizing the supply chains around those focal points. - Rodrigo Cambiaghi, Principal, Ernst & Young LLP and EY US Leader for E2E Supply Chain practice; and Dieter Bölzing, Principal, Ernst & Young LLP and EY Supply Chain Strategy & Planning, EMEIA