Customer Knowledge Management and Demand Fulfilment in Global Supply Chains

Many organisations, especially those with a global presence, continuously strive to improve their supply chain (SC) performance which directly relates to effectively satisfying customer demand. Croxton et al( in Taylor and Fearne, 2006) note that management of demand is increasingly recognised as a key issue in improving the efficiency of SC operations." Responding to global demand requires delivery of the right product in the right quantity at the right time. Satisfying those requirements is a complex task for these organisations. Vollmann et al (2004) suggest that this complexity encompasses forecasting demand, synchronising it with production, procurement, distribution, and co-ordinating all activities with manufacturing capacity. These suggestions may provide abstract answers to effective demand fulfilment but finding specific and appropriate ways to achieve this is a key challenge for today's global organisations especially when there are rapid changes in market demand. This paper focuses on the significance of managing customer knowledge in effective demand fulfilment within global SC's. In this context, the authors refer to the 'customer' as an individual or organisation who is involved in supply chain (e.g. a 1(st) tier supplier can be a customer to a raw material supplier). Based on an empirical study, this paper presents the challenges and avenues of effective demand fulfilment in global SC's by utilising customer knowledge. Firstly, the paper will provide a critical review of the extant literature on the role of customer knowledge in global SC management with specific emphasis on the way that this impacts on demand fulfilment. Secondly, it presents findings of an empirical study which was carried out to: 1) understand the role of customer knowledge management in demand fulfilment and 2) find avenues to utilise customer knowledge in effective demand fulfilment. This study constitutes ten in-depth case studies of large organisations with global SC operations.