Here comes a more explicit explanation of my earlier post: I saw a 2x2 matrix last week in SC Digest which was originally developed by Dr. John Gattorna, well-known academic in SCM area. Below you can see the matrix. The idea is to segment the customers not based on the size or profitability or similar measures but based on the type of the supply chain which is needed. As you can see, based on whether the demand is predictable or not and the type of the relationship with the customers, one of the four relationship strategies can be chosen.



I was thinking that the same concept can be applied to the suppliers; so we can segment our supplier base in respect to the type of relationship and demand nature. That´s why I thought for China operations we need systems with great collaborative features (Agile). I hope this is clear response to the emails which I got last night.

What do you think?