Essay about E-Business And The Supply Chain

Success for many organizations depends on the firm’s ability to balance product and process changes while exceeding customer expectations for improved cost delivery and quality. In lieu of these issues firms have started to implement principles of supply chain management. Supply chain management mainly involves managing the flow of incoming materials, manufacturing operations, and downstream distribution has to be in alignment that is responsive to change in customer demands eliminating a surplus of inventory.

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.

A supply chain is a net work of firms. Thus, each firm in the chain should build its own supply chains to support the competitive priorities of its services or products. Two distinct designs used to competitive advantage are efficient supply chains and responsive supply chains. Efficient supply chains work best in environments where demand is highly predictable. The focus of the supply chain is on efficient flows of services and materials keeping inventories to a minimum. The firm’s competitive priorities are low-cost operations, consistent quality, and on-time delivery. Responsive supply chains designed to react quickly in order to hedge against uncertainties in demand. Work best when firms offer a great variety of services or products and demand predictability is low. Typical competitive priorities are development speed, fast delivery times, customization, variety, volume flexibility, and top quality. Tables below show the environments and design features that best suit each design.

Supply chain management is a practice that involves the planning, supervision, and implementation of strategies and controls to direct the movement of goods and services provided to customers. The intent of this essay is to incorporate a synopsis of existing literature and to provide the reader with a general understanding of how supply chain management correlates with the organizational design and structure of modern firms. The essay comprehensively reviews the components of supply chain management and their integration with functional areas within an organization. The information presented in this essay

Describe the insight generation process used at Ben & Jerry’s. What benefits did Ben & Jerry’s achieve from utilizing the process?

Logistics is one of the main functions within a company, and the supply chain is a complex and sometime fragile global endeavor dependent on a network of independent, yet interconnected, moving parts. It requires professional management. Supply chain professionals order the product, build it, move it, ship it, distribute it, and drive the coordination processes with marketing, sales, engineering, manufacturing, finance, and information technology. In short, they make any business effort seem effortless.

To start, Schroeder, R., Goldstein, S., and Rungtusanatham define supply chain as “the set of entities and relationships that cumulatively define materials and information flows both downstream toward the customer and upstream toward the very first supplier.” Schroeder, R., Goldstein, S., and Rungtusanatham goes on to identify supply chain management as “the design and management of seamless, value-added processes across organizational boundaries to meet the real needs of the end customer.” Organizations have to prepare themselves to the best of their ability in order to provide or their customers. Customers expect to receive the upmost service, regardless of the type of organization they make contact with.

Effective supply chain management can provide an important competitive advantage for a business marketer, resulting in improved communication and involvement among members of the chain, increased motivation, and decreased costs. Tracking the movement of and demand for components used to manufacture a product across a variety of potential and actual suppliers, provides insight and the ability to respond instantly to shortages, surpluses, and changes in market conditions. It seeks to optimize production, decrease manufacturing time, minimize inventory, streamline order fulfillment, and reduce cost.

E-commerce Explain what is meant by the term ‘E-commerce’. It is the conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. As most restrictively defined, electronic commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital communications. However EC also includes all inter-company and intra-company functions (such as marketing, finance, manufacturing, selling, and negotiation) that enable commerce and use electronic mail, EDI, file transfer, fax, video conferencing, workflow, or interaction with a remote computer. Electronic commerce also includes buying and selling over the Web, electronic funds transfer, smart cards, digital cash (e.g.

A supply chain is a series of integrated processes within and across a company that produce a product or service to meet the demands of a consumer (Krajewski, et. al., 2013). Every company has a specific supply chain design and this design is implemented to meet the company’s competitive priorities. Supply chain management refers to the coordination of the company’s processes with those of customers and suppliers to match the flow of services, materials, and information with customer demand. In today’s global market companies are choosing to outsource many of their processes in order to save time and money. While outsourcing and decentralizing many supply processes may seem to be more cost effective,

The class text states that Supply chain management is frequently divided into supply chain planning applications, supply chain execution applications, logistics management, and warehouse management. Often when companies fail at implementing an efficient supply chain because of the planning section, or inaccurate demand forecasts. The text states electronic data interchange is one of the earliest uses of information technology for supply chain management, Electronic data interchange is the use of the Internet for everyday business transactions. “In this era of information a firm’s supply chain should operate at speed of thought and this is possible only by enhanced e-speed communications and information sharing with their critical partners.” (4)

Supply chain management is a main process in all kinds of companies. That’s because an optimized supply chain results in lower costs and a faster production cycle.

Over the years, the competition landscape for most companies has shifted from the highest-quality, lowest priced product or best performing product to the ability to respond to market needs quickly and get the right product at the right time to the right customer. This has in turn forced organizations to compete with their supply chain. Understanding supply chain management and putting this knowledge into practice has become a mandate to improve supply chain relationships in the entire world.

Many complex and more diverse decisions confront supply chain managers on a regular basis: what would be more efficient to manufacture in-house or to outsource; what new channels to implement that it would benefit their customers and suppliers, or how all new technologies, platforms, and practices have to be aligned to enable real-time supply chains. Current information technology reduced outsourcing transaction costs drastically, enabled companies to an increased supervision and control over offsite work, and outsourcing services can deliver faster and more convenient, but technology alone is not the solution. If a company decides to embrace changes in business processes and business culture, those changes can support a long way toward delivering a better product for less money. Complex sphere of activities in many countries is not relevant anymore because a massive number of activities outsourced became commonplace, a new normal.

“The management of a network of relationships within a firm and between interdependent organizations and business units consisting of material suppliers, purchasing, production facilities, logistics, marketing, and related systems that facilitate the forward and reverse flow of materials, services, finances and information from the original producer to final customer with the benefits of adding value, maximizing profitability through efficiencies, and achieving customer satisfaction.”