Supply Chain Management: A decisive competitive stake

As an inter-organizational approach and structure, the Supply Chain Management (SCM) emerges as a key competitive must. In the era of globalization of value chains, the rise of off-shoring and modular economy, acquiring a competitive advantage requires integration into global networks. This spares no nation, and advocates a sense of openness. However, this integration requires not only an appropriate level of maturity but a logistical supply chain maturity level. To enable the SCM to deploy its competitive advantages, a reinterpretation of the concept of competitiveness is necessary. Thus, it is important for some middle-income countries such as Morocco to integrate the philosophy of SCM and establish the infrastructure (technological and organizational) required for it to flourish.

The current context is marked by heightened competitive pressures where competitive positions are ephemeral and volatile and where competitors tend to use unpredictable and unconventional strategies (D'Aveni R.1998). The periods where you could maintain a competitive advantage for a long duration are over, the time where a company can enjoy the benefits allowed by a competitive edge is increasingly shortening (RR Wiggins, T. Rüefli, 2005).

This results in a constantly evolving competitive environment. We've gone from a concept of competitive market-based approach and promoting external inputs (PorterM. 1985) to another concept that emphasizes the paradigm of resources and skills and which insists on internal factors (Wemerfelt B. 1984). Besides their importance, these two approaches tend to make the relay network approach embodied by the Supply Chain Management, which states that the real competition is not between business against business, but rather between supply chain against supply chain (Christopher M . 1992).

The rapidity of technological change, globalization of value chains and the rise of offshoring and the economy have led to a modular change regarding issues requiring competitive integration into global networks, which spares no nation or company advocating the logic of openness to the world market.With openness and transparency in business activities becoming bywords in the wake of the globalization of markets, most firms have been dislodged from their positions by the usual local newcomers to the global economy.

The integration with global networks not only requires an appropriate level of maturity but also logistical expertise in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM). Thus, this approach is inevitable as a process that ensures competitive advantage (Christopher M.1993). As we approach the new inter-organizational philosophy, the SCM allows the emergence of new competitive challenges because it offers opportunities to add value to the customer more than any other business process (Williams LR et al, 1997).

However, the implementation of SCM requires a process of discovery. The literature on the subject tends to focus on international relations as the main vector involved in the deployment of SCM (SE Fawcett, GM Magnan, 2002; ZG Zacharia, NW Nix, RF Lusch 2009). Besides its importance, the inter-organizational collaboration would be difficult to establish wherein the organizational structures of different firms have undergone a mutation. This is reflected by the shift of the concept of function to the concept of business process (Poirier C., I. Walker, 2005; Jeston J., J. Nelis 2006).