Most of us inherently understand that the dynamics of an industry and the value drivers of a company within that industry should play a key role in guiding supply chain strategies.

Still, it was good to see the illustration below, from a recent research note on "Profitable Proximity Sourcing," from IDC's Manufacturing Insights group and analyst Simon Ellis. It does a nice job of segmenting manufacturing supply chains into one of four types:

• Technology-Oriented Value Chains
• Engineering-Oriented Value Chains
• Asset-Oriented Value Chains
• Brand-Oriented Value Chains

As shown in the diagram, the predominant supply chain strategies flow directly from the characteristics of each value chain type.

This week, we also summarized the new IDC concept around Profitable Proximity Sourcing, which it offers as a more sophisticated construct than "Low-Cost Country Sourcing. (See From Low-Cost Country Sourcing to “Profitable Proximity Sourcing?”).

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