As more organisations recognise the need to collaborate, a whole new culture is evolving. This is why collaboration has become such a familiar buzzword in the supply chain world. But true collaboration is not an easy state to arrive at. Boundaries of mistrust must be broken down and conflicting objectives must somehow be transformed into aligned goals.

In an ideal world, every agency involved in turning raw materials into goods, selling them, and distributing them to business customers or consumers would collaborate, thus maximising supply chain cost-effectiveness and reliability. As yet though, that degree of collaboration is more likely to be the exception than the rule.