ABSTRACT
Companies are challenged daily to find new ways of reducing costs and increasing sales. Optimizing supply chains is one of the ways in which large savings have been observed. As the economy changes, as competition becomes more global, it’s no longer company vs. company, but supply chain vs. supply chain. This has brought a continuous evolution of the commercial relationships between the actors in the supply chain, ranging from original buyer-seller transactions with simple (anonymous) purchases to a wide range of relationships, vertical integration, partnership, strategic alliances, sub-contracting or outsourcing.
