Business: It's Nature and Environment

A Newsletter from Harvard Business School Publishing and The MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics

As customers continually demand their shipments delivery to be cheaper and faster, all the logistics service corporations should focus on improving their services and customer responsiveness. The rivalry of existing competition is intense and low buyer switching cost only triggers it.

Table of Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................ 2 I. The development of global, European and national policies relating to sustainability. 2 1. Changing attitudes of public, politicians and businesses to the environment since 1945 .................................................................................................................................... 2 2. Brundtland definition of ‘sustainable development’ .................................................. 4 3. The international and UK policies to sustainable development since Earth Summit of 1992

(Bowersox, D.J., Closs, D.J., and Cooper, M.B. (2010). Supply Chain Logistics Management. (3rd Edition) New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY CRANFIELD SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT CRANFIELD CENTRE FOR LOGISTICS & SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT MSc THESIS

The variability of logistics performance is quite relevant. ALP has not been able to guarantee a reliable service to its customers in the last years. There seems to be a lack of organization when providing the service to the customers, in the sense of establishing priorities and

Since the business environment is one of the most controversial topics that has been widely and thoroughly debated, managers and executives in any organization are under constant pressure to develop better means to evaluate the environment surrounding the business. Consequently, several theories, trends, and environmental analysis models have appeared to ease this particularly sophisticated and rapidly varying process for businesses. A business can only operate profitably and efficiently in a healthy and positive environment. Environmental ambiguity can be caused by the lack of successful analysis of the environmental issues affecting the business. (Milliken, 1987).

Sustainability from a strategic business perspective is the potential for the long-term well-being of the natural environment, including all biological entities, as mutually beneficial interactions among nature and individuals, organizations, and business strategies. (O.C Ferrell, Fraedrich, Ferrell, 2015). Business sustainably is often defined as managing the triple bottom line – a process by which companies manage their financial, social and environmental risks, obligations and opportunities. These three impacts are sometimes referred to as profits, people and planet. (Business sustainability definition from financial times lexicon, no date). This essay will discuss the idea of sustainability being an important element within a businesses and its core strategies and the importance of it within different businesses. Secondly, this study will look at how different stakeholders are affected and influenced by sustainability as this could be seen as a catalyst to improving the environment as a whole and. Then this study will look at how businesses not focusing

The concept of logistics has evolved over time in response to factors such as changes in the business environment. Grunnet (1996, p.32) notes that the focus was inventories in the 1950s, distribution in the 1960s, production in the 1970s, purchasing/production/sales in the 1980s, and business process in the 1990s. Logistics can be defined as that part of the supply chain process that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption in order to meet customer’s requirements.

Over the past few decades, logistics activities have gained increasing strategic importance for almost every company all over the world. Fixed costs of production have increased, consumer demands have become more complex and are harder to predict, both in time and place. Technology is rapidly changing around the world every new day there is a new and advance technology and product life cycles have shortened while product range has increased. Now more than ever, companies are faced with the challenge of producing an increasingly large variety of products in a responsive manner while keeping materials and inventory to a minimum to fulfill the customer demand

In this part of the report I will explain the different type of market structures I will give advantages and disadvantages for all and how they have direct relationship with pricing and output decisions.

This is how much pressure suppliers can place on a business. If one supplier has a large enough impact to affect a company’s margins and volumes, then they hold substantial power. Here are a few reasons that suppliers might have power:

Forward logistics (or conventional logistics) is the regular distribution channel followed by the manufactures from time immemorial. Forward logistics concentrates on the products (goods or services) reaching the consumer end and deals with the line of flow from the manufacturer’s end to the consumer’s end. It deals with the very essence of Supply Chain Management and logistical activities of an organization. It has a significant impact on the primary operations carried out, which act as the basic revenue generating aspect of a business. In this logistical system, the flow is a “one-to-many” type and the forecasting or traceability is quite simple.

Some of the main concerns regarding business and the environment include the disposal of waste, the way things are packaged, the emission of carbon and following environmental laws. Because laws are different in every country, it is hard for the environment to maintain healthy as a whole. Businesses must make sure that they store waste securely, protect people from the air pollution they may emit, and reduce or completely eliminate fumes and smoke. In order to be successful in this endeavor, they need to focus their attention on the use of raw materials, their use of energy and the impact that the business has on employees and local consumers.

Coyle, J J, Bardi, E J and Langley, C J Jr (1988) The Management of Business Logistics West Publishing Company, St Paul, MN