The Supply Chain Management philosophy, which has been around for more than two decades, continuously stresses upon integration across the business network, with a win-win type of partnership, and without losing focus of the final consumer. However, there is lack of a clear step-by-step procedure to achieve this state. Demand Driven Supply Network (DDSN) is intended to fill this gap.

Patni's customer centric DDSN framework helps organizations to address the issue of integration in a structured manner. It incorporates the following three key elements in understanding what the Supply Chain Management philosophy has to offer:

Patni's approach to "integration" primarily focuses on four most important flows in the supply chain, namely: (1) Material Flow, (2) Information Flow (3) Financial Flow and (4) Product-Process Flow. RFID is an appropriate example of automated communication between a "process" and a "product" without manual intervention.

In a win-win type of partnership there exist rules about sharing risks and rewards along the supply chain, which gives visibility to the entire supply chain. Initiatives like CMI, VMI, SMI, and CPFR are part of this. Customer focus across the supply chain means that each and every partner in the supply chain listens to the final consumer carefully and he/she is in a position to analyze the effect of any decision in the supply chain on the committed customer service levels. "Consensus forecasting" and "multi-echelon inventory management" are examples of customer focus in the real sense.