Porter’s (1980) typology classified competitive strategy into overall cost leader-
ship, differentiation, and focus. The extant literature has also proposed several
typologies for supply chain strategy. In his seminal paper, Fisher (1997) identified
two types of supply chain strategies, the efficient supply chain, and the respon-
sive supply chain. The primary purpose of an efficient supply chain is to supply
predictable demand efficiently at lower cost, where a responsive supply chain em-
phasizes a quick response to unpredictable demand in order to reduce obsolescence
and stock outs. He contended that product characteristics, market requirements,
and sales predictability are pivotal to the adoption of a supply chain strategy.
Naylor, Naim, and Berry (1999) and Cigolini, Cozzi, and Perona (2004) subse-
quently extended the lean manufacturing paradigm to the supply chain environ-
ment. The term “efficient supply chain” was replaced with “lean supply chain”
in order to stress the features of leanness. Similarly, the term “agile” instead of
“responsive” was adopted to emphasize the overall goals of a supply chain in
responding to uncertain and changing environments.