Construir a cadeia de valor do futuro (parte VIII)

A revista The McKinsey Quarterly publicou o artigo "Building the supply chain of the future" de onde sublinho:
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"Growth in developing countries contributes to volatility in global currency markets and to protectionist sentiment in the developed world, for example. What’s more, different growth rates across various emerging markets mean that rising labor costs can quickly change the relative attractiveness of manufacturing locations. This past summer in China, for example, labor disputes—and a spate of worker suicides—contributed to overnight wage increases of 20 percent or more in some Chinese cities. Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Vietnam experienced similar wage-related strikes and walkouts. Finally, as companies in developing markets increasingly become credible suppliers, deciding which low-cost market to source from becomes more difficult.
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Rising complexity (Moi ici: IMO o maior aliado da indústria europeia)
Manufacturing and supply chain planners must also deal with rising complexity. For many companies, this need means working harder to meet their customers’ increasingly diverse requirements. Mobile-phone makers, for example, introduced 900 more varieties of handsets in 2009 than they did in 2000. Proliferation also affects mature product categories: the number of variants in baked goods, beverages, cereal, and confectionery, for instance, all rose more than 25 percent a year between 2004 and 2006, and the number of SKUs4 at some large North American grocers exceeded 100,000 in 2009.
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In such a world, the idea that companies can optimize their supply chains once—and for all circumstances and customers—is a fantasy. Recognizing this, a few forward-looking companies are preparing in two ways. First, they are splintering their traditional monolithic supply chains into smaller and more flexible ones." Moi ici: Qual o posicionamento que a sua organização ocupa? Como pode aproveitar estes fenómenos que estão a alterar a paisagem competitiva enrugada?)