Beyond Four Walls: Tuned For CollaborationBeyond Four Walls: Tuned For Collaboration

IT execs and supply-chain experts urge companies to get their own houses in order before extending the supply chain to business partners. But once it's time to open the gates, strong leadership could make or break the venture.

In a recent survey Accenture conducted with the Stanford Forum on Supply Chain Management, respondents say that many of the imperatives to a successful extended supply chain revolve around leadership that's driven both by strategic thinking and seriousness about developing a skilled organization.

In the survey of 122 senior supply-chain executives, respondents say significant obstacles to achieving industry-leading capabilities are lack of executive skills and workforce training. Forty-three percent say a lack of core supply-chain management knowledge and skills is the greatest obstacle within their own organization, and 54% say lack of knowledge and skills is the greatest challenge within their partners' organizations.

Of the respondents, 42% view "a win-win" scenario for both organizations as the primary goal when extending supply-chain processes beyond a company's internal operations. One of the most significant obstacles to optimizing performance is conflicting priorities between a company and its trading partners, at 24%.

That could be because many companies fail to recognize some of the most important leadership skills necessary for creating and maintaining collaborative processes, says Al Delattre, a partner with Accenture's supply-chain services practice. According to the survey, only 10% rank the ability to build effective teams as the most important executive leadership skill, and no one ranks an ability to negotiate as the top executive skill.

"Those skills are so critical to forming effective business-to-business relationships and the ability to be a leader outside your four walls," Delattre says. "Where that leadership doesn't exist, you find broken business models."