Taking Care of Supply

A recurring theme for modern business is adaptability. The ability to exploit resources, skills and market position in new ways to increase returns on investment is paramount. Large companies in particular need to understand their internal and external supply chains to identify and evaluate new opportunities. BT has a history of developing and supplying all the services required by its end customers; but the world is changing rapidly, new types of player are emerging and BT now supplies its many services to many different types of customer — service providers, resellers and peers as well as end customers. There needs to be a way of understanding the implications of the different forms of customer/supplier relationship on the design and implementation of BT's systems.This paper presents a new set of patterns for businesses and their supply relationship. These patterns can be used to examine supply chains and the paper illustrates how these different supply relationships place different requirements on the operational support systems. Such patterns will be core to a flexible strategy within high performing, adaptable businesses.