Picking Nits - Again

A trade publication this month published a 5+ page piece about collaboration in distribution, its origins, and its potential benefits. Kane Is Able's Chris Kane (Chief Customer Strategy Officer) was quoted extensively, and he has spoken and written eloquently on the topic.  In fact, collaboration for consolidated transportation among supply chain competitors and with supply chain partners is a powerful technique.

Where my personal train begins to go off the rails lies in the implicit notion that prospective participants in such collaborative ventures will be swayed by the sheer logic, clear cost advantage, and enabling technology involved.  Some might.  But, sustained and continually improving performance in this effort, or in any collaborative initiative in supply chain planning and execution, demands a rigorous and thorough application of trust-building, alignment, and people-to-people communications tools and techniques to hang together.

These are all-too-often the missing ingredients when we begin to talk about collaboration and relationships in the supply chain realm.  Good intentions, warm feelings, and a solid going-in business case are simply not enough.  Without the foundational work - and it is work - collaborative solutions are likely to be sub-optimized from the beginning, and susceptible to slow decay as time goes on.  The real and lasting collaborations need strong frameworks and continuous maintenance to support the success of operational details.

What do you think?