When I became Editorial Director of World Trade some five years ago, my knowledge of the supply chain was largely theoretical. I cut my teeth in the field with the eminent supply chain consultancy PRTM (the inventors, among other things, of the SCORE process approach, which is now the professional standard). At World Trade I got to put my reporter’s journalist chops back to work and see things more as business folks—with a balance sheet to grow and a P&L to protect—themselves see them.

In that first year, as we began editorially to re-position World Trade into its current stature as the ‘authority for supply chain decision makers,’ I realized that the emergence of a new business model was underway. Lots of factors—technology, finance, communications, transportation, trade politics—are converging to create an historic paradigm shift in how manufacturing, retail (and before too long services as well) are transacted. Each issue of World Trade parses that story in multiple ways; for the sake of a catchy sound bite call it ‘the supply chain-centric global enterprise.’

Many of these changes are being driven structurally, at a macro level by impersonal market forces. But at the micro level the dynamic is considerably more human and personal. ‘The supply chain-centric global enterprise’ (and variations therein which, with few exceptions, is virtually all inclusive) is being shaped by individuals—corporate leaders, public figures, bankers, inventors, and academics.

So, we decided, let’s call attention once a year to this engaging spectrum of change agents—the people, places, things, companies and ideas that are leading the way forward. ‘Fifty’ seemed an appropriate number to honor but, as we went to press with that first list, we realized there were fifty-one. And thus began what has become an annual June publishing event, the tour d’horizon of transformers (some famous, some not so) who—in the opinion of our editors, contributing writers and editorial board—are re-drawing the supply chain map, the ‘Fabulous Fifty Plus One.’

Each year’s list has a slightly distinctive flavor. Some have emphasized technology and the IT platforms (proprietary, open) that enable managers to impose order on value chains and distribution systems so complex that they would otherwise by untenable. Some have emphasized transportation service providers, innovators in moving physical goods great spaces (or smaller spaces but ‘just in time’). 

This year our experts seemed to be disproportionately drawn to figures and institutions involved in what might be termed ‘transition management.’ Examples include U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who is the point-man on efforts to navigate through the credit crisis, Dell Computer which is adjusting its fabled ‘on demand’ supply chain to accommodate emerging markets, cloud computing, and the state of South Carolina for investing in the Port of Charleston to seize what it perceives to be a big East Coast shipping opportunity.

The yearly exercise of the Fabulous Fifty Plus One is among my personal favorites. It acts to underscore the remarkable energy that is percolating throughout the channels of the supply chain. Some of the names are tried-and-true, while others are newcomers whom I’d not heard of. But they all share the same vibrant creativity.

Indeed, what corporate finance was to the ‘90s’ in redrawing the business landscape, so may well be ‘supply chain’ for the current decade and beyond.