Last week I attended the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals’ annual conference (CSCMP) here in Denver. I don’t always go every year because I’ve found in the past that while there are lots of great sessions and topics of discussion, they serve my inner supply chain geek, and not so much my inner retail geek.

This year was a lot different. Retailers and manufacturers were presenting on the same panels. Walmart talked about their eCommerce operations in Mexico. Target talked about their sourcing process – at a time when sourcing out of Asia, particularly for apparel, has its issues – as in, human rights issues. Macy’s presented on their RFID initiative in stores. And even Tesla had a retail story to tell, as they described some of their customer-facing initiatives ( “owner experience “) and the impact some of those strategies are having on supply chain.

Why was retail such a force at CSCMP this year? Have retailers finally awoken to the realities of supply chain management that most manufacturers have had to deal with on a daily basis? No, it wasn’t really about that. I mean, sure. Retailers are getting much more savvy about transportation in particular – a topic where retailers are learning they can have more control and gain more benefits as a result. And they are increasingly manufacturers themselves, even if that manufacturing is on a contract basis with third parties. Retailers are facing a lot of the same manufacturing issues that manufacturers are, no matter who owns the plant and equipment.

No, actually Tesla is most emblematic of the reason why we’re all going to hear about retail and supply chain a lot more over the next few years: because it’s all about the customer.

I’m probably going to get into trouble for taking a stand on this, but I don’t like the term “customer-centric supply chain ” – it’s like “demand-driven “. You kind of have to take a minute and really think about what it means to get what it is people are trying to convey. Yes, I get that “customer-centric ” and “supply chain ” are essentially a contradiction in terms. Supply chain is about moving products. Customer-centric is, duh, about customers.

Tesla turns that concept on its head. They focus on the services and activities that their customers are trying to achieve, and then turn to their supply chain to deliver it. “Supply chain “, in their case, modifies “customer-centric “, not the other way around. For example, they are in the process of building charging stations across the country. Their goal is to make it possible for a Tesla owner to drive coast-to-coast in the United States by stopping only at Tesla’s charging stations – a service that the company plans to offer to its customers for free for as long as they own a Tesla car.

That’s all fine and dandy to declare from an aspirational, marketing perspective. But in order to enable this capability, Tesla’s going to have to get into some retail locations pretty quickly. And to serve their desired service level of a quick charge – half the battery capacity charged in 20 minutes – they are rapidly on track to become the largest purchaser of batteries in the world, which in turn poses some significant supply chain challenges. This is customer service defining supply chain requirements. And that’s something much bigger than a customer-centric supply chain.

Macy’s, in its own way, echoed the sentiment shared by Tesla at the conference. When asked why they were pursuing RFID, the Macy’s executive basically said the company knew it needed to do ship from store, and the only way they could ensure inventory accuracy was by turning to RFID.

Inventory accuracy happens to have a lot of ancillary benefits, which the company is currently exploring, but in the meantime, Macy’s took a customer need – we want to be able to promise any available inventory to our customer no matter where she is, and no matter where the inventory may be – and in the end had to spend a significant effort educating their suppliers (a process still in flight) as to why it’s worth tagging every individual item. The answer, by the way, still is not that it will make the manufacturer’s life easier too, but that both retailer and manufacturer will sell more stuff. (And further side note, I was shocked by the lack of education about RFID in the room as evidenced by the questions many in the audience asked. I thought that topic was beat to death, but boy was I wrong.)

Customer need has not defined the retail supply chain in a long time. Store needs, efficiency needs, cost needs – these have defined the retail supply chain for decades.

But I think that’s about to change. Just don’t call it customer-centric supply chain.