Choose a reliable pass.
The underhand exchange was used from 2001 and valued for consistency as well as speed.
LEGENDS, APPLIED. · EDITION 002
The Race
Is Won in
the Handoff.
Why supply-chain transformations fail between Commercial and Operations.
Japan’s Rio 2016 relay silver reveals a hard truth: end-to-end performance is often created—or lost—where one strong function hands responsibility to another.
47°N · POINT OF ALIGNMENT
Rio 2016 · Japan 4 × 100 m
LocationRio de Janeiro · Brazil22.9068° S · 43.1729° W
Date19 August 2016Men’s Olympic 4 × 100 m final
Story worldAthleticsJapan’s relay system
Business territoryCommercial ↔ OperationsCross-functional transformation
PrincipleEngineer the interfaceMomentum must survive ownership change
01 / 07
The Moment
Cambridge received the baton beside Bolt.
Japan had no legal sub-ten-second sprinter in its quartet. It entered the final with something different: an exchange system rehearsed until it could survive Olympic speed.
At the final exchange in Rio, Aska Cambridge received Japan’s baton at almost the same moment as Usain Bolt received Jamaica’s. The official race report records what followed: Bolt opened daylight within strides and anchored Jamaica to gold in 37.27 seconds.
Cambridge stayed clear of the rest. Japan finished in 37.60—an Asian record and the country’s first Olympic silver in the event. Canada followed in 37.64 after the United States, which crossed the line behind Japan, was disqualified for an exchange-zone infringement.
The surprise was not that Jamaica won. It was that Japan remained in the contest long enough to own silver. Associated Press and Reuters both emphasised the same contrast: none of Japan’s four finalists had broken ten seconds legally, yet their handovers were unusually precise.
The result did not make individual speed irrelevant. It made the interface visible. Four capable runners became a system whose delivered performance could not be predicted by inspecting each runner alone.
Gold · Jamaica37.27Bolt creates the separation on the anchor leg.
Silver · Japan37.60Asian record · four disciplined legs · three engineered exchanges.
Bronze · Canada37.64Promoted after the United States was disqualified.
02 / 07
Under the Surface
Strong functions can still produce a weak flow.
Most transformations improve the runners. Fewer redesign the point where Commercial momentum becomes an Operations commitment.
Commercial sees customers, promotions, launches and revenue opportunities first. Operations sees capacity, suppliers, inventory, sequencing and service risk. Both perspectives are necessary; neither is the whole race.
A transformation can strengthen each side and still fail between them. Commercial gains better analytics and responds faster. Operations automates planning and improves efficiency. Yet a late promotion, an unowned assumption or an ambiguous forecast still arrives like a baton outside the receiver’s usable reach.
The outgoing relay runner cannot wait for certainty. He accelerates before the baton arrives, using a mark, a cue and a practised expectation of where contact will occur. Operations faces the same structural tension: wait for perfect demand and respond too late; commit too early and build inventory against a signal that may disappear.
The business answer is not “work together more”. It is to define the exchange: what information must pass, what uncertainty may remain, when the receiver begins to act, who owns an exception and what happens when the signal changes after the agreed point.
That mechanism is consistent with the Harvard Business School working paper Cross-Functional Alignment in Supply Chain Planning. In a detailed Sales and Operations Planning case, Rogelio Oliva and Noel Watson distinguish information, procedure and alignment quality, and find evidence that alignment in executing the plan can matter more than information and procedure alone.
A meeting may host that alignment. It cannot substitute for it. If the decision package, timing and authority remain unclear, the meeting merely gathers two fast runners in the same room.
Commercial momentumDemand signalCustomer, promotion, launch, value and confidence.
The exchangeDecision packageDefinition, timing, assumptions, ownership and consequence.
Operational commitmentFeasible responseCapacity, inventory, service, alternatives and trade-offs.
Evidence screen · 2025–26
Better tools inside the parts do not guarantee faster decisions across the system.
Gartner2025 · n=265 + 75 interviews
4.11 h saved individually.
1.5 h at team level.
Individual GenAI gains did not translate into higher team output or quality.
Read the evidence
Harvard Business SchoolWorking Paper 07-001 · S&OP case
Information.
Procedure.
Alignment.
Execution alignment can matter more than information and procedure alone.
Read the case
IBM Institute for Business Value2026 · Unified ERP
Only 46% of organizations say their ERP enables effective cross-functional coordination.
Agentic AI exposes ERP fragmentation—and demands semantic alignment at scale.
Read the report
Accenture2025 · Autonomous supply chains
67% do not trust their data enough to use it effectively and derive value.
Autonomy needs integrated real-time data and multifunctional teams.
Read the research
The recurring signal
Capability inside a function is not the same as coordination across functions.
03 / 07
Read the Signal
Seventh by parts. Second as a system.
A published comparison of the finalists’ four individual 100-metre personal bests places Japan seventh of eight. The official final placed it second among valid finishers.
Paired ranking · parts versus delivered result
Parts versus system
The point is not that handoffs explain every tenth. It is that raw capability and delivered end-to-end performance can rank the same teams very differently.
Raw speed · sum of four 100m PBs
1JAM38.89→ 1 · 37.27
2USA39.12→ DQ
3TTO39.72→ DQ
4GBR40.17→ 5 · 37.98
5CAN40.30→ 3 · 37.64
6CHN40.37→ 4 · 37.90
7JPN40.38→ 2 · 37.60 · +5
8BRA40.74→ 6 · 38.41
Final result · valid finishers, then DQ
1JAM37.27
2JPN37.60
3CAN37.64
4CHN37.90
5GBR37.98
6BRA38.41
—USADQ
—TTODQ
How to read it. Raw-speed totals come from Christoph Roser’s published comparison of the eight Rio finalist quartets, using the four final runners’ legal individual 100m personal bests. Final order and times come from World Athletics. The United States and Trinidad and Tobago remain visible because their disqualifications are part of the mechanism. Relay times benefit from flying starts on legs two to four, running order and curve execution as well as exchanges; the display is a rank comparison, not a claim that baton technique alone created the difference.
The business signal is equally comparative. A transformation can contain the best forecasting engine, the best factory plan and highly capable teams, yet still lose value when assumptions, timing and decision ownership change hands. Function-level excellence does not reveal interface quality.
04 / 07
The Crossing
Japan designed the exchange before it knew the final quartet.
The operating standard came first. Selection, rehearsal and one final seven-centimetre adjustment made it executable under pressure.
Japan’s silver did not emerge from one inspired pass. World Athletics’ account of the programme traces its underhand—or up-sweep—exchange to 2001. The front runner receives at roughly waist level, with the method chosen partly because the federation considered it less prone to error.
When Shunji Karube took responsibility for sprint events in 2014, the federation analysed where exchanges should occur and refined the receiver’s posture. Relay candidates began training in March 2016, months before the final quartet and running order were fixed in July. The system was designed to survive different people.
Japan then ran 37.68 in its Rio heat, reclaiming the Asian record minutes after China had broken it. Success did not end the review. Karube moved the outgoing runners’ start marks by seven centimetres before the final. Japan improved by 0.08 seconds. The sequence supports disciplined adjustment; it does not prove that the seven-centimetre change alone caused every hundredth.
Exchange mechanism · underhand up-sweep
Use biomechanics.
Exchange point, receiver posture and usable reach became design variables rather than habits.
Train before selection.
Candidates practised different orders so the method did not depend on one fixed quartet.
Move the mark 7 cm.
The final tweak sat inside an established system; it did not replace it.
Choose the model
Underhand exchange enters Japan’s global relay system.
Refine the geometry
Karube reviews exchange points and receiver posture.
Practise before selection
Candidates rehearse multiple orders at training camps.
Use success as evidence
37.68 and an Asian record—then another review.
Adjust, then deliver
Seven centimetres; 37.60; Olympic silver.
05 / 07
The Practice
Build a handoff that can carry uncertainty.
The goal is not perfect agreement. It is a decision interface that lets both functions move while the signal is still changing.
01
Define the baton.
The decision packageDo not pass a sales number and call it demand. Include the customer or promotion, timing, value, confidence range, assumptions and consequence of being wrong. Operations should return feasible quantity, timing, constraint, alternative and trade-off in the same language.
02
Mark the exchange zone.
Decision timingSet the window in which a change can be absorbed normally, the point after which it carries an agreed cost and the threshold that triggers escalation. Without shared markers, Commercial can believe it communicated early while Operations experiences the same signal as late.
03
Agree the start cue.
Action under uncertaintySpecify what Operations may begin before demand is final: reserve flexible capacity, test a supplier option, delay a firm commitment or prepare an alternative. A confidence range should change the action, not merely decorate the forecast.
04
Rehearse the exceptions.
Operating capabilityRun a late promotion, a constrained line, a biased forecast and a launch delay before go-live. Research on collaborative S&OP shows that information sharing creates value only in the right operational context; the mechanism and response capacity matter.
05
Make the race shared.
Identity and incentivesCommercial cannot be rewarded only for volume while Operations is rewarded only for cost and inventory. Research on S&OP teams links a shared, superordinate identity with stronger integration. Different expertise can remain; the outcome must be common.
Measure the exchange—not only the runners.
DECISION LATENCYTime from a material signal to an owned, usable decision.
LATE CHANGE VALUEValue exposed by changes beyond the agreed window.
ASSUMPTION INTEGRITYMaterial assumptions changed without receiver acknowledgement.
EXCEPTION OWNERSHIPExceptions without an accountable owner, next action or due date.
A global survey of 568 experienced S&OP practitioners found that strategic alignment and information acquisition or processing were the strongest enabling mechanisms in its model, while overly formalised procedure could inhibit performance. The useful implication is not to avoid discipline. It is to design enough structure to coordinate action without turning the interface into bureaucracy.
06 / 07
The Boundary
A supply chain is not a relay lane.
The analogy is useful only if we keep its limits visible.
A relay has four runners, three exchanges, one visible finish and a fixed rulebook. A supply chain contains suppliers, customers, Finance, Procurement, IT, regulation and shocks that can change the baton while it is moving. Commercial and Operations also exchange information repeatedly, not once.
Nor does Rio prove that interface design alone causes business performance. Jamaica still won, individual speed still mattered, and the rank comparison also reflects flying starts, running order and curve execution. In business, market position, network design, product complexity and capital constraints remain decisive.
The defensible lesson is narrower: the quality of the parts does not reveal the quality of the system between them.
Momentum crosses ownership.
The receiver must act before every uncertainty has disappeared.
The baton is not stable.
Demand, constraints and value can change during the exchange.
Timing and cues can be designed.
Definitions, windows, triggers and recovery rules protect flow.
There is no single finish line.
A business balances service, cash, cost, growth and resilience continuously.
07 / 07
The Point of Alignment
Look at the centimetres where ownership changes.
The transformation is not complete when both functions are faster.
It is complete when momentum survives the handoff.
Ten years after Rio, Japan’s silver still changes how I read the race. The visible talent was on the track; the differentiator was hidden in the exchange. Before adding another forecast, dashboard or governance meeting, ask five sharper questions: what exactly is the baton, where is the zone, what starts the receiver, who owns the exception and how does the system recover when the pass is imperfect?
If Commercial and Operations cannot answer together, the race may already be losing speed between them.
Evidence & methodology
The source trail.
Open the sporting record, technical evidence and business research
Sporting record and contemporary reporting
- World Athletics — Rio 2016 men’s 4 × 100 m final result, 19 August 2016.
- World Athletics — men’s 4 × 100 m final report, 19 August 2016.
- World Athletics — men’s 4 × 100 m heats report, 18 August 2016.
- Associated Press via Sports Illustrated — “Japan wins relay silver, relying on technique and teamwork”, 21 August 2016.
- Reuters via Gulf Times — “Teamwork over speed for Japan’s silver medallists”, 20 August 2016.
- The Japan Times — Japan makes history by taking silver, 20 August 2016.
- World Athletics — men’s 100 m all-time toplist, used to verify the fastest finalists’ personal bests.
- Tokyo Forward — Ryota Yamagata interview, including his 10.05 Rio semi-final personal best.
Mechanism and business research
- World Athletics / SPIKES — “The World’s Best Exchange Rate”, 12 January 2017.
- Christoph Roser / Planet Lean — “Using lean problem solving at the Rio Olympics”, 13 November 2018.
- Harvard Business School — “Cross-Functional Alignment in Supply Chain Planning”, Working Paper 07-001.
- Oliva & Watson — “Cross-functional alignment in supply chain planning”, Journal of Operations Management, 2011.
- Goh & Eldridge — “Sales and Operations Planning: The effect of coordination mechanisms”, International Journal of Production Economics, 2019.
- Ambrose, Matthews & Rutherford — “Cross-functional teams and social identity theory”, Journal of Business Research, 2018.
- Kaipia et al. — “Information sharing for sales and operations planning”, Journal of Operations Management, 2017.
- Gartner — “Supply Chain GenAI Productivity Gains at Individual Level”, 5 February 2025.
- IBM Institute for Business Value — “Unified ERP for the agentic enterprise”, 8 May 2026.
- Accenture — “Making autonomous supply chains real”, 20 May 2025.
Visual methodology. The paired ranking uses the sum of the four final runners’ legal individual 100m personal bests in Christoph Roser’s published Rio comparison: JAM 38.89, USA 39.12, TTO 39.72, GBR 40.17, CAN 40.30, CHN 40.37, JPN 40.38 and BRA 40.74 seconds. The athlete-context note exposes the five fastest individual finalists and Japan’s quartet at the same 19 August 2016 cutoff; it is orientation, not a relay split model. Final times and validity come from World Athletics. USA and TTO are shown as disqualified rather than assigned a finishing rank. Because legs two to four use flying starts, the display compares relative order; it is not “time created by handoffs”. Technical claims about the Japanese exchange, training sequence and seven-centimetre adjustment are attributed to World Athletics / SPIKES. Industry findings remain attributed to their publishers and are treated as directional, while academic research supports the mechanism independently; the sporting story illustrates the mechanism but does not establish business causality.