Steve O’Sullivan
Dublin Institute of Technology
A part-time doctoral researcher and a holder of a Masters degree in supply chain management, Steve O'Sullivan has two decades of corporate experience in the field, across industries such as aviation and consumer electronics. This research aims to spawn a military career that will lead to post doctoral humanitarian advancements.
Research Question and Aim: The research aims to identify how supply chain managers engage in the process of dynamic business - supply chain strategic alignment. The predominant role of supply chain management is that of strategic execution and the research objectives are to determine if organisational responsiveness to supply chain disruption would benefit from direct supply chain representation on the senior management team, thereby holding key membership of the business strategic renewal process, and to develop a process model that establishes the phases of engagement in strategic alignment.
Research Background and Rationale: Strategic renewal is a perennially-unfinished process that all organisations undertake as they aim to alter their path, and positively affect their long-term prospects. For most supply chain professionals, such renewal is often ‘directed’ by the business goals of senior management. There is a marked absence within academic literature as to how this discipline can influence the formulation of subsequent strategies. This is a concerning fact, given that it is widely accepted that supply chains compete, not companies, compounded by the complexity of globalisation along the dimensions of replenishment, time and distance. However, although directed, there is naturally a degree of ‘shaping’ or ‘re-framing’ of strategies to resolve challenges and to align with situational needs, without moving outside the boundaries of the organisation’s core competencies.
The greater the degree of re-framing, the less responsive and agile organisations are when faced with supply chain disruptions. ‘Increasingly, organisations are finding themselves at the centre of un-plannable events that interrupt and threaten their global supply chains’. Disruptions such as quality issues, transportation delays, and poor supplier performance, should be ‘a high priority for senior management as they have a greater cumulative effect over time’ and have a disproportionate effect on demand.
From a military perspective, there is an advancing security threat from elements such as ISIS, and history has shown how major campaigns have failed when strategies and supply chains were mis-aligned, most notably Napoleons’ 1812 Russian Campaign and Hitler’s 1941 ‘Operation Barbarossa’. In the humanitarian domain, there is considerable evidence that the number of natural and man-made emergencies worldwide is increasing. Developing continuous supply chains has not been a priority leading to wastage rates of up to 30 percent in aid delivery in some post-crisis situations. Only 58 percent of organisations have Logisticians in their assessment teams, ultimately leading to problems in the supply chain at a later date as choke points are not addressed.
Research Methodology: Grounded theory will guide semi-structured interviews with corporate supply chain managers, participants of which will be identified through survey, supported by an ethnographic study within the Royal Logistics Corps of the British Army.
Research Contributions: An empirical contribution that determines how supply chain managers engage in the process of strategic alignment and a theoretical contribution through the development of a process model that establishes the phases of such engagement. Both are contributions to the dynamic supply chain alignment literature within the academic domain of supply chain management.
