From Mind to Market

From Mind to Market: Reinventing the Retail Supply Chain
By Roger D. Blackwell
Published in January 1999
272 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 1/5

After reading the preface and first two chapters, I decided not to finish this book. It had all of the hallmarks of books that I hate.

First, the book was written by a self described guru. It is a second person “cookbook” targeted to business owners.

Second, it reeks of institutionalism. It praises academia and large consulting firms. This is a bad sign, but not always fatal.

Most importantly, the book was written in 1999. This book might have been relevant 20 years ago, but is hopelessly out of date. There are many fields where you can learn a lot from old books; but industrial supply chains are not one of them. Many of the technologies described in the book’s first two chapters are hopelessly out of date.

Retail businesses barely even exist anymore post pandemic. This book is focused on saving an industry that died in the decades shortly after it was written. Most supply chain books that are pre Amazon are now useless.

Maybe in a few decades, it will have some value for supply chain historians to understand the 1980s and 1990s. But for people who want to learn about modern supply chains, I wouldn’t even bother picking it up.

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