Businesses today are trying to link supply chain management with their overall business strategy. Strategic supply chain decisions have a long lasting effect on the business and include decisions governing different business units and overlapping of supply chain and industry structures. Businesses need to analyse how these structures are affected by the speed of change in the industry.

Decisions relating to acquiring market share and growth, entering new markets, deploying new processes for change, are policy level decisions which affect decision drivers down the line. Decisions relating to demand estimation, market segmentation, marketing strategy which includes selection of the right portfolio of products, their pricing and promotion, all form part of the business strategy.

Operational strategy includes reaching the target market, storage and logistics requirement, selection of the right IT framework, etc. All of these decision points have to be entwined with the supply chain strategy in order to achieve the objectives of the firm.