Who's the best at supply chain execution? According to AMR Research, Dell is at the top joined by Nokia, Procter & Gamble, IBM and Wal-Mart. In fact, Dell clearly outdistanced its nearest rival, causing AMR Research to call it "the defining DDSN business."

DDSN stands for demand-driven supply network. AMR Research says DDSN replaces the push model with a customer-centric pull model that manages demand proactively and uses optimization methods to deal with variability.

To arrive at its ratings, AMR Research evaluated supply chain metrics. It combined this with a high-level measurement of product innovation success. Since most of this data is not publicly available, AMR Research analysts developed the ratings based on "a combination of operation activities, public business results, and direct field research."