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Book review: Integrated Enterprise Leadership - Managing Uncertainty in the 21st Century - Publications Article
The article entitled: "Book review: Integrated Enterprise Leadership - Managing Uncertainty in the 21st Century" is in the Publications Articles section of Operations Management Papers area...
ARTICLE DESCRIPTION: In their book Clarke and Lauga, refer to ‘Environmental Consulting’ by which they mean ‘the recycling of other people’s ideas’. This is an apt description to the contents of this book. The areas covered are not new but this should not discourage people from reading this informative document.
MORE INFO: Book review: Integrated Enterprise Leadership - Managing Uncertainty in the 21st Century In their book Clarke and Lauga, refer to ‘Environmental Consulting’ by which they mean ‘the recycling of other people’s ideas’. This is an apt description to the contents of this book. The areas covered are not new but this should not discourage people from reading this informative document. Written as a series of e-mail exchanges between two fictitious characters; Fred Smith, a person new to consulting whose first client is an aerospace company and who through the course of the book takes on a more extensive, multi-site, multi-business unit client, and Anthony Barnes a more experienced consultant working for Delos. Whilst this format is unusual and at first quite entertaining, it does become tedious. The book’s title, “Integrated Enterprise Leadership (IEL) – Managing Uncertainty in the 21st Century,” has been adopted in an attempt to make the area of Sales and Operations Planning more acceptable to Senior Management. The authors focus on both the implementation and operation of IEL and manage to include leading thinking by authors such as Porter, Kaplan and Norton, Tracey and Wiersma, Kotter, Goldratt, etc. If you are looking for an overview of the key elements of these authors, this is a good place to start. The insight into the subjects covered is certainly more extensive than other texts on the same subject. Those of you who are familiar with the work of Oliver Wight organisation will recognise many of the topics described. However, Clarke and Lauga have enhanced the well known five step model and highlight the importance of a clear, well communicated Vision and Strategy (what the company is going to stop doing, as well as what it is going to do) as inputs to both the design and operation of the process, and the need to prioritise new initiatives (innovation). Much of the book contains sound advice for any company, especially those trying to engage Senior Management in the planning process. The importance of understanding the needs and the costs of fulfilling different customer segments is stressed, as is the criticality of sales and marketing owning and delivering the forecasts, in particular the point that all demand is forecastable at some level of aggregation. In terms of implementation, the fact that people design processes, which are supported by systems, is stressed. Therefore, education must play a prominent role in any implementation. This must include not just the mechanics of operating in an integrated environment, but also change and project / programme management, and the need for high quality data that can be aggregated in different ways to meet the information needs of recipients. Rightly, measurement receives much attention with seven core measures; customer order delivery, demand forecast accuracy, lead time reduction, schedule attainment, velocity, new product introductions and quality being highlighted. Whilst, these are excellent measures they perhaps lack the holistic view represented by, for example, the Balanced Scorecard. Put aside the advertising and recognise the source of much of the work described and you have an excellent thesis, which should form part of any supply chain professional’s library. Given familiarity with the subjects covered it took me approximately 3 hours to read the book from cover to cover (missing out the platitudes at the beginning and end of each e-mail), and, although there is nothing particularly innovative, I was left thinking that it was time well spent. The only suspect point was that of safety stocks and this is probably just terminology. Overall, well worth buying. Derek Thomason, MIOM Unipart Solutions Practice
PUBLISHER: Institute of Operations Management
Page number: 13 Word count: 600
Vol 31 - No 03 - May 2005
The article can be downloaded in full from the publisher's site i.e. the Institute of Operations Management.
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