J. Sainsbury recently lost share in the market by failing with their supply chain. Wal-mart and Dell won in the market by getting theirs right. Smart supply chains can be decisive.

In the J Sainsbury debacle, there was nothing wrong with the strategy, except no one thought to check if the personnel in the company were capable of delivering such complex and sophisticated plan within such a short timeframe, and they are paying the price now. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example - it is happening every day.

Living Supply Chains is unique in looking beyond the systems and technology of your company, to developing the role of people and behaviour in placing customer-focused supply chains at the heart of their enterprise.

Based on John Gattorna's empirical research, Living Supply Chains shows you how to drive the design and management of your supply chains by starting with your customers and understanding their 'dominant buying behaviours'. In most cases, only 3 or 4 of these will be 'dominant' and should then be 'hardwired' into the organization's selling approaches, performance indicators and logistics operations.

With 'quick' diagnostics and guidelines executives can use to rapidly identify and close performance gaps, logistics and supply chain management can finally move from the hands of the functional specialists, to the executives. Analysts and shareholders alike have recognized that taking back control of this vital area of business will have the most fundamental impact on future share price performance.