What companies are doing the best jobs of embracing and deploying supply-chain best practices? AMR Research believes it knows and has shared its list of the top performers. The Boston-based firm based its list on financial metrics such as return on assets and inventory turns, combined with field research and case studies. AMR's top 25 performers, starting at No. 1 are: Dell, Nokia, Procter & Gamble, IBM, Wal-Mart, Toyota Motor, Johnson & Johnson, Johnson Controls, Tesco, PepsiCo, Nissan Motor, Woolworths, Hewlett-Packard, 3M, GlaxoSmithKline, Posco, Coca-Cola, Best Buy, Intel, Anheuser-Busch, The Home Depot, Lowe's, L'Oreal, Canon, and Marks & Spencer. "In the on-demand era, the real opportunity is about how you design a business and all its supplier relationships in ways that really haven't been possible until now," says AMR's Bob Moffat, senior vice president, integrated supply chain. "Advantage will flow to companies that embrace this new model and demonstrate the ability to simultaneously excel at the fundamentals of supply chain and leverage next-generation management practices."
