Supply Chain Council to merge with APICS

Earlier this week, APICS and the Supply Chain Council announced that the boards of directors of both organizations have approved an agreement under which Supply Chain Council (SCC) will merge with APICS upon ratification by SCC member vote. Abe Eshkenazi will remain CEO of APICS and Joseph Francis, executive director of SCC, will serve as the executive director of the APICS Foundation. You can read more about the details of the merger in the news story by my colleague Jeff Berman.

The news release declared that the combination would create a global leader in supply chain, research, education and certification programs. Without question, The SCC SCOR model and SCOR Professional brands and the APICS CPIM and CSCP certifications are industry leaders. And while the press release itself was restrained, the subject line in the email sent to media organizations spoke a little more loudly: “APICS set to shake up supply chain industry.”

Without question, the merger comes at a time of transition for the four organizations that have traditionally served the various interests of the supply chain – back before they thought of themselves as supply chain organizations: APICS spoke to the needs of manufacturing and operations personnel; ISM served purchasing, CSCMP focused on logistics, and MHIA, the predecessor of MHI, represented the materials handling industry. Today, each of these organizations has branched out from their historical roots to position themselves as supply chain organizations. Hey, just this week I moderated a panel on investments in U.S. port infrastructure at the WERC conference. This is another way of saying that each is looking to increase its slice of the pie.

Eshkenazi agreed at least in part with that assessment when we spoke on Wednesday. “Supply chain seems like a mature market but it’s an evolving market,” he told me. “I think each organization is positioning itself for what the market wants today and for the future.” At the same time, he added, the names of organizations may change – Material Handling Industry of America may become simply MHI – but “regardless of what you call it, the DNA of an organization doesn’t change.”

What then is the DNA of APICS and SCC and why does it make sense to bring them together? As Eshkenazi sees it APICS has always been a content developer that provided educational materials, training and certifications for individuals that are recognized standards for the industry. “Organizations want to know that the training is aligned with their corporate strategy,” he told me. “That’s been our hallmark.” Meanwhile, SCC is known for providing innovative and timely research to the organizational level.

“We believe that if we combine them, you get both education and research from one source,” Eshkenazi said. “We can be a single source solution for organizations and individuals.”

At the same time, Eshkenazi sees opportunities for collaborating with some of the other organizations serving the supply chain. “We have collaborated with ISM and WERC and expect to do so going forward,” he said. “Instead of taking an inside out approach, we’ll look for ways to collaborate with other organizations. I think we have a better opportunity to collaborate than to compete.”