Supply management is perhaps the only business function that provides its executives insight into all other business functions.  Careers in supply management offer the challenge of integrating all of the supply management activities into a smoothly operating system.  Supply management typically spends approximately 60 percent of the firm’s revenue.  Hence, good supply management greatly improves the firm’s productivity, profitability, and return on investment.  Students concentrating in fields such as marketing, operations, finance, and engineering will be benefit from understanding the supply management function and its interrelationships with their own functions.  In this course we will view the supply chain from the point of view of a general manager.