"How CFOs, COOs Can Bury the Hatchet" published by CFO

Discovering the ways their metrics match up can help finance chiefs and supply-chain executives align their companies' spending choices.

Supply chain and finance are usually seen as separate and conflicting disciplines. In a retailing or manufacturing company, key performance indicators are typically set by the chief operating officer to maintain high customer-service levels by keeping inventories high. At the same time, the CFO pushes the company's supply-chain management to reduce inventory as much as possible to avoid the financial burden imposed by high working capital requirements. As a result, supply-chain and financial incentives become misaligned, and efforts to arrive at a compromise can be extremely frustrating for both disciplines. However, it is possible to bridge this divide.

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