The culture within a company has a major impact on the maturity of supply chain
management. Companies with a clear sense of their purpose also tend to score
higher in terms of maturity. This is the conclusion reached by the Supply Chain Excellence Leadership
Platform (SCELP), a platform run by and for supply chain professionals.
Within the field, there are various models that companies can use to determine how
mature they are in the field of supply chain management (SCM). The best known is
Gartner maturity model, but there are other models, all of which convey more or less the same message
: companies move towards maturity by adopting an outward-looking perspective
, break down the barriers between internal departments and shift the focus from
cost-cutting to value creation. Companies have a mature supply chain if it is
based on mutual trust and shared goals and makes a fundamental contribution
to the realisation of the business strategy.
The question is how companies can achieve that level of maturity. The Supply Chain
Excellence Leadership Platform (SCELP), after more than four years of knowledge sharing and development,
has come to the conclusion that corporate culture plays a crucial role in this. In addition to scientific
findings, this conviction is partly based on the results from four SCELP members, who have
have, over the past few months, used a number of simple measurement tools to assess the corporate culture and the supply
chain maturity within their own organisations. During the round-table discussions
on these findings, it emerged that all SCELP members saw a clear link between
corporate culture and supply chain maturity.
Clan and adhocracy cultures
Two types of culture in particular are important for supply chain collaboration: a clan culture and an
adhocracy culture. In a clan culture, employees have a great deal in common and are loyal,
whilst great value is placed on teamwork, participation and consensus. An adhocracy culture
is characterised by a dynamic, entrepreneurial and creative working environment, in which people
are keen to take risks and embrace new challenges. Scientific research by
Maarten Snijders, a supply chain consultant at BLMC, has previously shown that companies with a clan culture
are better at delivering customer value than average. Companies with an adhocracy culture
score higher on collaboration with external parties in the supply chain. Based in part on the four
companies studied, SCELP argues that these two cultures contribute to a mature supply chain.
In addition, SCELP has established a link between supply chain maturity and the deeper
goal or ‘purpose’ (also known as the ‘inner why’) of an organisation. This purpose extends beyond
making a profit or increasing market share, but reflects the meaning the company
attributes to its activities. However, many companies have lost sight of their purpose and formulate
their vision and strategy purely in terms of ‘what’ and ‘how’. The organisation’s raison d’être as
unifying element is then lost from view. This makes it difficult to foster a culture
in which staff are engaged and motivated to work together with other staff and partners
to continually create new customer value. SCELP therefore endorses the view that a clear
purpose also has a positive impact on supply chain maturity. The findings of the
four companies studied confirm this assertion.
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