What is the extended supply chain?
The extended supply chain is a clever way of describing everyone who contributes to a product. So if a company makes text books, then its extended supply chain would include the factories where the books are printed and bound, the company that sells the paper, the mill where that supplier buys their stock, and so on. It is important for a company to keep track of what is happening in its extended supply chain because a supplier or a supplier’s supplier could end up having an impact on you (as the old saying goes, a chain is only a strong as its weakest link). For example, a fire in a paper mill might cause the text book manufacturer’s paper supplier to run out of inventory. If the text book company knows what is happening in its extended supply chain it can find another paper vendor.
