Enterprises and supply chains are looking at establishing trust with customers that they will deliver as expected. That raises the issue when does a company cooperate, when does it compete, when does it collaborate. They wrote a letter to their suppliers that said if you try to compete with Home Depot by using a different channel, you could forget about selling to the retailer. But what's interesting here is that Home Depot has backed off on its direct to consumer Web strategy for a lot of products. It's all about offering something special.
Companies can be late but they had then better be right.
But as someone else once said, the supply chain is going to be as weak as its weakest link. And a lot of companies are the weak link in their supply chains. And the downfall of many is being the weak link in terms of information. Those companies aren't going to be around tomorrow. These companies have to determine how to strengthen this part of their link so they can remain part of the chain.