OVERVIEW

As Wal-Mart, Procter & Gamble, Warner-Lambert, Kimberly-Clark, Johnson & Johnson, Sara Lee, Fruit of the Loom, and Clorox, to name a few of the pioneering companies, developed their supply collaboration processes, one challenge became clear: Maximum benefits could not be gained unless a large number of retailers and suppliers adopted supply chain collaboration as well. Suppliers, in particular, could not realize enough benefits to make the process worthwhile with just one or two retailers as collaborative trading partners. Critical mass, defined as 50 to 60 percent of the retailer companies, was needed.

Critical mass participation alone would not provide the gains manufacturers needed to maximize the benefit from supply chain collaboration, however. There needed to be some consistency in process, practices, and technology data formats among their retail customers and raw material suppliers.

The question was: What is the best way to gain critical mass and consistency in supply chain collaboration processes, practices, and tools? The answer came from a visionary leader with the stature to influence an industry and leverage cooperative industry organizations that already existed.

The leader was Randy Mott, CIO of Wal-Mart at that time, who has since become the CIO of Dell Computer, another company that built its business model and success on a superior supply chain. Mott was (and still is) different from many CIOs of the time. He viewed the role of the CIO as being a catalyst for business innovation and business performance improvement. ^[*]

In 1996, Mott served on the board...