As David Blanchard concisely explains in his book, Supply Chain Management Best Practices, "When you are out of stock, you're out of business." This simple, clear statement kept reverberating in my mind as Blanchard illustrated the successes and failures from real-life business scenarios in order to present various lessons and best practices for SCM.

As I read through the various scenarios Blanchard discusses, one thing that stood out above the rest was his emphasis on taking responsible action and preventing anyone along the supply chain from becoming complacent. Complacency creates delay, waste and other problems -- all of which are not only detrimental to effective supply chain management, but also to achieving a company's overall business objectives.