AMR Research has come out with Top 25 companies with best Supply Chain. The company to top the list is Apple, followed by Nokia, Dell and P&G. Surprisingly, Wal-Mart is ranked at No. 6. Motorola that ranked No. 12 in 2007 doesn't appear in the list for 2008.
Going deeper into the criteria for rating, AMR has chosen 2 parameters i.e. Inventory Turns and Days Sales Outstanding (DSO). The criteria itself is very lopsided towards financial measurement. By this criteria Dell should have come on top, so have they changed their business model? What about customer service or satisfaction parameters? Inventory turns and DSO can vary for different industry or business model. The concept of differentiating Supply Chain based on efficiency or responsiveness has been completely overlooked. The approach followed by AMR is over simplified.
The prelude to the ranking reads like this "The AMR Research Supply Chain Top 25 identifies companies that demonstrate leadership in applying demand-driven principles to their global supply chains. Our goal is to show how supply chain excellence contributes to economic value creation, and, in so doing, to raise awareness of the importance and influence of the profession." However the measurement used for ranking is not completely aligned. Such surveys only distort the real picture.
