Global Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management is now a top priority for executives in most companies, whether those companies supply goods or services.  For a large number of them, supply chains represent one of the most important opportunities to increase competitive advantage in global markets, as well as being an important driver of profitability and growth. 
For over 15 years, I have focused my teaching and academic research primarily on the management of global supply chains, first as faculty at the Fundação Getulio Vargas Business School (in Brazil) and more recently as professor at the Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College, in the United States and Porto Business School, in Portugal. Throughout this period, I have sought to continuously and carefully select and develop the most updated concepts, methods, and tools to teach global supply chain management. I, also, have listened carefully to hundreds of students, fellow professors, researchers and, above all, the numerous executives with whom I have interacted to identify what were the most relevant and current topics for managers who face the difficult task of managing global supply chains.

Twenty four months ago, I decided to devote myself to structure the material that I had been developing in an organized and logical manner to share this journey with global supply chain management students and readers in general. The result is this interactive eBook.

The reader will also find numerous opportunities, with the eBook and in a directed way, to take advantage of games and activities that are available in the internet to practice some of the concepts discussed in the text. Also, throughout the eBook, interactive quizzes allow students to self-administer and self-check their understanding of concepts explored in the chapters.
Along with this eBook, the reader will find many internet links that will enhance and enrich the learning experience. When discussing cases for instance, the reader will be directed to explore different websites and short video clips about the companies and people involved and when possible, about the issue under analysis itself.

In treating Global supply chain management, this eBook attempts to be balanced between being:
• Strategic and operational;
• Theoretical and applied;
• Social and technical in its approach;
• Quantitative and qualitative in the techniques and frameworks presented;
• Global and local; and
• Applied to physical products and services.

Current topics were included, with the emphasis they deserve, including but not limited to:
• Governance in supply chain management;
• Ethical and cultural aspects of managing global supply chains;
• Risk management;
• Reverse logistics and closed loop supply chains;
• Sustainability;
• Negotiation;
• Performance evaluation and the alignment of incentives and;
• The lean approach to supply chain process analysis.

The themes covered in the chapters are then developed. Numerous boxes illustrate or complement the concepts presented, and most of them can be used in class as mini-cases since they present real situations with questions that challenge the reader to go beyond mere reading into actually applying the concepts studied in analyzing the situations presented in the case.

The eBook has 11 chapters:
1 Introduction to global supply chain management
2 Strategic supply chain management
3 Managing relationships in global supply chains
4 Global Sourcing
5 Global supply chain risk management
6 Performance measurement and incentive alignment in global supply chain management
7 Process mapping and analysis in global supply chain management
8 Demand management in global supply chains
9 Inventory Management and coordination in the global supply chain
10 Topics of logistics management in global supply chains
11 Reverse logistics and sustainability in global supply chain management