Essay Supply Chain Management at World Co., Ltd

A. Analyze whether a Keiretsu network, a virtual company, a vertical integration, or a different supply chain strategy should be adopted.

As the business model addresses “how the company makes money in this business”, Louis Vuitton’s business model in Japan can be simply explained as selling products through directly owned and controlled stores. A good business model can guarantee the success of business. LV’s business model in Japan successfully drove it to the world’s largest market by strictly following the principles and benefiting from the external environment.

Reorders are placed at the time of review (T), and the safety stock that must be reordered is:

Transition: Now that let’s discuss how the fast fashion impacts and how it can be solved.

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

Retail super-giant Wal-Mart has fought its way to becoming the world's largest company. Much of their success can be attributed to providing a vast assortment of products at exceptional prices all under one roof. Wal-Mart began operations in 1964 and has since become the world leader in retail. Today, Wal-Mart is visited by 138 million customers per week at their 4,750 stores. Wal-Mart operates under four basic rules in order to satisfy such a large number of customers:

Finally, there are those costs that are common to both global and domestic sourcing. Direct labor and materials costs, lead-time costs, transportation costs and inventory costs are a part of both domestic and offshore sourcing. Transportation costs, inventory costs, and lead-time costs tend to be higher when sourcing globally. On the

The company that I'm going to discussed is Uniqlo Singapore. Since March 1949, Ogori Shōji , a Yamaguchi-based company that have only be operating a men's clothing shops, existed in Ube, Yamaguchi. In May 1984, they opened a unisex casual wear store in Fukuro-machi, Naka-ku and Hiroshima under the name "Unique Clothing Warehouse" It was then, as a contraction of "unique clothing" , the name "Uniqlo" was born. Uniqlo are well known for being high quality, innovative, functional and affordable. To keep such a high standards and reasonable prices, they design and manufacture every single item themselves and there is times where they collaborate with inspiring people like, "Pharrell William" , "Star Wars" and "Tezuka Osamu" etc. In September 1991, the name of the company was then changed to "Fast Retailing" and by April 1994,

The Spanish retail chain Zara has unique supply chain management practices that enable it to gain a competitive advantage over other fashion retailers in the industry. Zara’s rapid response time enables the firm to quickly respond to changing fashions while deliberately under producing products. This strategy, which is supported by competencies in logistic management, design and information systems, allows the company to maintain less inventory and higher profit margins and is a key factor to Zara’s success. The firm should continue to add value by seeking new opportunities to expand in the retail market and maintain their sustainable growth.

For partners of ASOS, they generally go through the same production process as ASOS own-branded dress. However, they receive the order from ASOS and its merchandisers instead of consumers. It is an important process for ASOS as understanding the product lifecycle and stock level, they can plan the introduction and withdrawal of product. Also price can be adjusted accordingly with which sales are introduced during the decline period (The Times 100, NA). However, this supply chain requires a high collaboration of functions across supply chain (Fernie, 2009). The reason why ASOS can eliminate the traditional functions of a retail store is due to its well-managed supply chain, effective stock keeping system and fast-going logistic system (Meadows, 2007).

An additional method Zara utilizes to ensure the right product is produced is to constantly monitoring the sells at every store in real time through the use of computers. Sells managers are the individuals that play out this strategy. When the clothing sells well or does not sell well, they can quickly let the designers know to swiftly create new designs (“Case 3-4. Continued Growth for Zara and Inditex”, 2013). However, the competition is changing their strategies in an attempt to successfully compete with Zara. The methods that Zara has implemented to ensure fast fashion is truly fast has pressured the competition into reducing their lead times on stocking their stores (Hayes & Jones, 2006).

In the 21st century, the fashion industry remains prominent as it continues to rise in an era of global trade. Developing in the late 19th and early 20th century, the fashion industry was on the rise with newer technologies that stimulated new manufacturing practices and further improved the growth of a soon to be “multibillion-dollar global enterprise” (Major). Fashion is a an art that conveys human expression through clothing, in which many individuals are willing to spend money on and experience whether upscale or simple. Therefore, parts of the fashion industry affect and influence the quantity and quality of clothing as shown by the many manufacturing processes of both the ready-to-wear and haute couture industries, the many types of commercial advertisements and media produced by the marketing branch, and by the profit margins of different companies within the fashion industry.

A common way of decreasing the amount of inventory a business holds on a daily basis is implementing a just-in-time inventory process. A Just-In-Time inventory system means that the business gets the materials for a product, as they are demanded. “The electronic data

Hugo Boss has become known as an industry trend setter for its high quality men’s and women’s fashion apparel, shoes, and accessories. Product leadership, intimate knowledge of their market and customers, and operational excellence are what distinguish the company from others in the luxury fashion goods industry. From an operational perspective, the variability that exists as a result of designing and manufacturing short run fashion products is high. This perpetual shifting of demands and preferences makes it difficult to maintain accurate industry forecasts that result in high risk actions as manufacturing products with no guarantee of sale leading to large scale inventory systems.

The world has become fascinated towards the fashion. The first thing need to be considered is Fashion; it can be behavior, implementing new ideas on clothing’s, hairstyle, decorations and so on which are automatically linked to our day to day activities. In today’s context, fast fashion has become a trend to a fashion industry patterns yet delivered utilizing less costly materials to guarantee a low cost tag. Many companies have been successful and unsuccessful to earn a trust from their customer. For the matter of success level it depends on how innovativeness they are and also applies the principle of supply chain and logistic management activities for the growth of their