Supply chain competence affects your bottom-line in more direct ways than you might realize. In this book we reviewed the role of controlling cost of sales through supply chain competencies and its effect on the corporate financial statements.

The balancing act of maintaining a high level of service and low costs is becoming harder for supply chain managers as businesses try to meet the growing customer mantra of "more for less." This pressure comes at a time when business is becoming more global, supply chains are lengthening, and competition is on the rise.

Although this challenge is not new, the outlook is that it will intensify as a number of factors, economic, regulatory and market-driven become more acute. Consequently, supply chain performance will have increasingly significant impact on overall business success.