This article summarizes the key messages shared by Pierre Abou Hamad, Partner and Country Manager at Citwell US and expert in supply chain consulting, in his Forbes contribution “Kind Of Like A Restaurant, The Supply Chain That Tries To Do Everything Does Nothing Well.”
Through the example of a restaurant with an excessively long menu, Pierre explains why supply chain complexity can prevent organizations from delivering consistent quality.
A supply chain that tries to serve every product, every customer segment, every geography and every channel at the same level of performance can quickly become overwhelmed.
Constraint as a Prerequisite for Supply Chain Excellence
Pierre begins with the example of a certain kind of restaurant.
Its menu is 12 pages long and includes sushi, pasta, grilled meats, Thai curries, wood fired pizza and an extensive selection of desserts.
The ambition is clear, but so is the problem.
No kitchen can maintain genuine mastery across such a broad range of cuisines at the same time. The ingredients, techniques, quality requirements and supplier relationships conflict with one another.
What appears to offer abundance ultimately produces compromise and mediocrity across every category.
The best restaurants Pierre has experienced in Paris, Lyon, New York, Bucharest and smaller towns share one characteristic.
The chef has chosen to do one thing with complete commitment.
The menu is short because the chef understands that constraint is not a limitation. It is a prerequisite for excellence.
The same principle applies to supply chains.
1. Why a Supply Chain Cannot Serve Everything Equally
A supply chain that is expected to serve every product, every customer segment, every geography and every channel at the same level of performance is not ambitious.
It is overwhelmed.
Pierre has worked with organizations carrying 4,000 active stock keeping units where the top 200 products represented 85 percent of revenue.
The remaining 3,800 products existed for historical reasons.
Some originated from a customer request that became a permanent product line.
Others came from launches that never gained traction but were never formally retired.
Some were regional variants created for a single account that continued to affect the entire planning process.
This product portfolio complexity places a continuous burden on the supply chain.
2. The Hidden Cost of Supply Chain Complexity
Every product creates a cost.
- A demand forecast must be maintained.
- A supplier relationship must be managed.
- A warehouse location must be allocated.
- A production run must be scheduled.
This supply chain complexity is not free.
Its cost is simply less visible.
It is distributed across planning cycles, hidden in expediting costs and absorbed by teams that have become accustomed to managing a product portfolio that was never designed to be managed effectively.
3. Why SKU Rationalization Must Be Purposeful
Reducing the number of stock keeping units can strengthen a business over the long term, but it must be done purposefully.
Pierre describes SKU rationalization as a strategic act of editing.
It is the equivalent of a chef deciding what belongs on the menu and what does not.
A dish is not necessarily removed because the kitchen cannot prepare it.
It may be removed because preparing it well would compromise everything around it.
The same principle applies to product portfolio complexity.
The objective is not simply to reduce the number of products. It is to understand whether carrying a product compromises the supply chain’s ability to deliver quality across the rest of the portfolio.
4. How Product Portfolio Complexity Affects the Supply Chain
The supply chain implications of portfolio complexity are direct.
It creates longer planning cycles, higher safety stock requirements, more frequent production changeovers and greater supplier fragmentation.
It also causes planning teams to spend the majority of their cognitive energy managing the long tail of the portfolio instead of optimizing the core.
Every stock keeping unit added to the portfolio without another one leaving creates a small and invisible tax on the entire system.
When that tax is multiplied across hundreds of products with low demand velocity, the result is a supply chain that is structurally slower, more expensive and less reliable than its operational investment should produce.
5. The Right Question for Supply Chain Leaders
The right question for a supply chain leadership team is not whether the organization can serve a product.
A kitchen with enough staff and enough suppliers can technically produce almost anything.
The more important question is whether the organization should serve that product and what carrying it will cost the rest of the menu.
Portfolio decisions are supply chain decisions.
Every time a commercial team adds a product without assessing its impact on the supply chain, it is expanding the menu without informing the kitchen.
Eventually, the kitchen is no longer able to guarantee the quality of anything.
By intentionally limiting what the organization offers, the supply chain can deliver consistent quality that strengthens its reputation and supports the bottom line.
Supply Chain Excellence Requires Focus
Pierre’s restaurant analogy highlights a simple principle.
A supply chain cannot offer everything and still deliver quality consistently.
Supply chain excellence depends on deciding what belongs on the menu and committing to doing it well.
Pierre Abou Hamad is Partner and Country Manager at Citwell USA and an expert in supply chain consulting. His article “Five Lessons On Leading Through Supply Chain Volatility” was published on Forbes as a Forbes Business Council post and explores how leadership, governance and operating model design shape performance under pressure.