A provocative point is made right up front in this article in Purchasing Magazine. The article states that the company's supply chain comes to the attention of the CEO when great savings have been achieved or when the supply chain has caused a financial or marketplace disaster.
That seems to be stated so strongly. Theoretically and off the top of my head, I suppose negotiating a contract for materials that would cost more than a company could sell the finished items for could cause a company a financial disaster. Also, if the Purchasing Department caused some sort of lawsuit by engaging in illegal behavior either in the marketplace or through the internal behavior of individuals (HR issues), that would be another example of potential financial disaster. A failure in the supply could disrupt the company's delivery schedule exposing it to fines for breach of contract with its own customers.
What else? Unfortunately, there is no comment section for that particular article on the site. I would like to hear from some of the readers here what other examples they can think of in which the supply chain would be responsible for such dramatic negative examples.
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