The findings from this year’s study suggest that there are strategic moves that the firm should make now to position itself and its supply chain to outperform the competition both now and when recovery happens.  They are:

• Building cross-enterprise approaches to managing supply chain activities

• Determining the optimal balance between customer service requirements and the total landed cost of providing that service on an order-by-order basis

• Investing in approaches, tools and technologies that enable optimized supply chain decision making

The challenge that firms must deal with is how to advance these strategies in a period of financial adversity.  The economy has leveled the playing field for business.  In the past three years, the Masters of Logistics (firms with sales revenues greater than $3 billion) had created a notable competitive gap in logistics and supply chain management between themselves and other size firms.  This gap has almost disappeared in 2009.  The window of opportunity for medium- and small-sized firms to act is now.  The study findings indicate that the Masters have implemented initiatives that will enable them to emerge from the economic downturn in a position of greater strength than before the recession.