IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE that 10 years have passed since the first edition of CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly rolled off the printing presses. Our inaugural issue, in Quarter 2 of 2007, featured articles on the potential impact on supply chains of volatile, higher oil prices; benchmarking in lean supply chains; collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR); master data management; network optimization; and retail supply chain costs. Contributors to that first issue included such recognized thought leaders as the late Dr. Donald J. Bowersox of Michigan State University, the late Chuck Taylor of Awake! Consulting, and Robert Martichenko of LeanCor, to name just a few.
CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly is published through a joint venture between the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and AGiLE Business Media. This fruitful, decade-long partnership was designed to provide CSCMP members with fresh thinking about supply chain strategy in an in-depth yet accessible form. In many ways, our editorial content, both in print and online, reflects the same mission and mix of information that you'll find at CSCMP's annual conference, recently rebranded as CSCMP EDGE. We actively seek contributions with a point of view and an argument to make on topics both strategic and tactical. Our expert-contributed articles—from practitioners, academics, consultants, and providers of supply chain technology and services—include opinion pieces, "how-to" stories, trend analyses, case studies, and research results on a comprehensive range of supply chain topics. We also bring you interviews with supply chain thought leaders, research and other news, and updates on CSCMP's activities and offerings.
For us, as publishing professionals, much has changed since we launched Supply Chain Quarterly a decade ago. For example, in addition to five print magazines a year (four quarterly issues, plus our annual "State of Logistics" theme issue), online news and feature articles, electronic newsletters, videos, digital-only publications, webcasts, and even a trade show have become part of our daily work.
You, our readers, are also confronting change—and on a monumental scale. Supply chains are more complex and more global, and we're seeing almost daily advances in (and growing dependence on) supply chain technology. Meanwhile omnichannel commerce is disrupting retail supply chains worldwide, and risks of all types have increased and their consequences have grown. Those are just a few examples from a very long list of changes and challenges facing the supply chain. All of them seem to occur at ever-increasing speeds.
Despite the many changes that affect how we manage our supply chains, the topics in the Q2/2007 issue and those that followed continue to resonate and be meaningful today. But there are plenty of new frontiers to explore, and we expect to do just that in our next decade. We hope you'll come along for the ride.
P.S. We welcome readers' feedback. If you have some ideas for hot topics we should consider, or would like to share your thoughts on print and online publications, please contact me via e-mail using the link below.
