Supply Chain Management Essay

The supply chain management is considered as a management concept from past two decades as the customers are concerned about timely and safe delivery. The competitiveness has been increasing among the companies to deliver the products as quickly as possible to the customers all around the world. This has made the supply chain management as a vital tool for the management. This is also measured as a competitive parameter for the companies.

The author Remko van Hoek is Professor in Supply Chain Management at Cranfield School of Management, UK and Head of the Corporate Executive Board, Washington DC, USA. Keywords Internet, Supply chain management, Electronic commerce Abstract There is rapidly growing interest in e-businesses. Its impact on supply chains is currently covered in about 150 papers and articles and the number is growing at the speed of computing power. Unfortunately, most of the published work, in research and practice, is biased to e-commerce and sales and marketing. The supply chain dimension of e-business is largely neglected and managed poorly, while basic logistics mal-performance is currently hampering turnover and revenues of e-commerce applications severely. If basic operational performance is not even assured, more advanced approaches of e-business will not take off, simply because there is inadequate support for the concepts in the physical domaine. Very often virtual integration is applied in an operational manner and in segments of the supply chain only, as opposed to an alternative approach developed here, that of strategic and integral supply chain involvement. This research note calls for an effort to make the supply chain dimension of e-business a reality and suggests practical approaches (create an e-supply chain which is a supply chain that can fulfill orders and assure supply

Supply Chain Management (SCM) aims at integrating all corporate activities to improve relationships at all levels (internal operations, supplier networks, and distribution channel) to meet the competitive edge and satisfy the customer. In order to build an effective and complete business process that supports SCM, information among all business partners need to be shared. Information sharing through the Internet reduces the gap for business-to-business (B2B) commerce by enabling seamless integration with enterprise processes among partner corporations.

Managing the supply chain requires custom capabilities from eCommerce software. The more advanced and customized the software 's capabilities are, the better the customer 's experience will be. Few areas of business offer more ways for companies to build customer loyalty than fostering greater product visibility through intuitive software solutions that manage B2B warehousing and product supply chains.

A supply chain can be termed as a network of organizations that collaborate to share information and materials. Supply chain management is a way by which the companies can gain competitive advantage over their competitors by reducing their cost and lead time and at the same time increasing their efficiency by differentiating the processes and the links between the suppliers and the buyers (Klassen & Why bark, 1994). For doing so, using IT based systems is the need of the hour. With the ever growing demand and expectations from the customers along with dynamically changing market, the companies are turning to the successful deployment of IT to re-engineer their supply chain, so as to sustain and grow their business. (Poter, 1986). This is a great opportunity to incorporate IT into supply chain due to the increasing development in IT and communication that leads to integration of system architecture and Information technology (Balan, Vrat, & Kumar, Assessing the challenges and opportunities of global supply chain management, 2006). Moreover optimal information sharing using IT based systems has reduced the need for sharing of information within the organization (Balan, Vrat, & Kumar, Information distortion in a supply chain and its mitigation by using Soft Computing Approach, 2009). The recent advances have also made it possible for the companies to be flexible and be able to respond quickly to the changing demands and conditions of the market. (Lee, So, & Tang, 2000)

B2B and B2C are similar in the way they change the supply chain function. Manufacturers in the chain traditionally focused their attention on brand and product management; when dealing with B2B and B2Cs however, manufacturers must focus on building customer relationships, managing web-based information, and end-customer sales initiation (Malmberg, 2003). Likewise, in a traditional commercial role the distributor often focuses on inventory financing and reseller management, but in an e-commerce situation the distributor is also concerned with end-customer sales initiation, building customer relationships and assembly-to order processes (Malmberg, 203).

From the late Nineties, a raft of latest e-commerce technologies emerged that aimed to revolutionize operating practices, replace existing businesses and lead in the production of new business models (Sinha, I.2000; Barua et al.,2001). Following this growth in use of e-commerce in business-to-business markets, there has been important adoption of latest supply chain-related technology and applications by organizations globally. The procurement function has been notably stricken by this trend with a foretold growth in e-procurement applications covering each transactional shopping for and strategic sourcing activities (Croom S, 2000). A major contributor behind this development has been the evolution of the procurement function towards an additional strategic role in supporting both, company goals and supply chain objectives.

E-business also allows a supply chain to be more collaborative by sharing information such as forecasting and inventory planning. In this essay I will be talking about how this all works together.

The lack of technology in traditional systems does not provide very much coordination with the supply chain. As a result there is possible delay in delivery of products and services from the supplier to the customer. Additionally the unavailability or delayed delivery of customer information takes away from adding value to customers and may in turn decrease profitability and performance. “Advances in information technology have radically changed access to information and in turn the business landscape, so much so, that the current business era is frequently referred to as the information age.” (Jiambalvo 2007, p. 14). As technology continues to advanced companies are realizing that in order to keep up the pace in a competitive global market there is a need for change in the way they conduct business regarding suppliers and customers. Companies are moving towards systems such as Supply Chain Management and Customer Relationship Management Systems that are more efficient in processing information and fuel improved operation of the value chain and interactions with suppliers and

Supply chain management is currently an important aspect in Management Information System. So much technology and brainpower have been used to improve the performance. In this decade electronic data interchange has made the process flexible, automatic warehousing and rapid logistics. Every organizations are trying to make their supply chain management more accurate using quick response, efficient customer response, mass customization, lean and agile manufacturing. (Fisher, 1997)

The e-commerce in many industries added more pressure to the physical distributors and dealers of goods and services since it became more user friendly and convenient to order these goods and services online from various resources while comparing the prices at the same time.

Because of globalization, today where clients are looking up for partners rather than suppliers so that they can help them to become more competitive and win more business, e-business is becoming an important issue. E-business will help them in decrease in transaction costs as there will be efficiency in the approval process. Even the purchasing department will become more effective and at the same time it will help in strengthening the partnerships.

The aim is to develop an effective and efficient system of supply chain to enhance service delivery. This section will discuss the research design developed to explore the aim of this study. Firstly, a justification for the research design and a description of the research setting will be provided. Next, the data collection method including measures and the research instruments employed will be discussed. Finally the procedure employed for the analysis of data collected using the various research instruments will be provided.

Supply Chain Management (SCM) aims at integrating all corporate activities to improve relationships at all levels (internal operations, supplier networks, and distribution channel) to meet the competitive edge and satisfy the customer (Al-Mashari and Zairi 2000)[2]. In order to build an effective and complete business process that supports SCM, information among all business partners need to be shared. Information sharing through the Internet reduce the gap for business-to-business (B2B) commerce by enabling seamless integration with enterprise processes among partner corporations (Archer 2006)[3].

Today, most organizations are facing increasing challenges and opportunities to remain competitive, the organizations must adapt and improve their performance like reducing costs, rapid development of products and offering high quality products and services. With the continued evolution of supply chain management, customers are showing increased awareness about working effectively with suppliers and in achieving required performance and business results (Srivoravilai et.al, 2011).