Tehindo Tea Case Study

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Volume 7, Number 5, 2002, pp. 271 – 282;

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.

Mellat-Parast and Spillan (2014) defines supply chain management as the method of handling material and information moves from the beginning, through the organization, and to the end-user. This is a very important factor of organizational strategy.

Today’s world great organizations are emerging in inventing powerful resources for a competitive advantage. It is called supply chain management and it includes all integrated activates which introduce to market place and maintain customer satisfaction. This supply chain management drives from multi- disciplinary departments such as procuring, transportation, manufacturing products, customer services, distribution of product into integrated program. Successful management will be in coordination and integrated in all these activate in an unbroken chain process. It supports and interconnected to all the partners within the organization, where these partners are merchants, third party companies, transporters, third party companies and product providers.

All activities, functions, and facilities involved in producing and delivering a product or service from suppliers to customers (Russell & Taylor, 2014). The term Supply Chain Management varies across the academicians. Supply chain management is the integration of trading partners’ key business processes from initial raw material extraction to the final or end customer, including all intermediate processing, transportation and storage activities and final sale to the end product customer. (Wisner, Tan, & Leon, Supply Chain Management. A Balanced Approach, 2012)

A Supply Chain (SC) is an integrated process where involves various parties who are directly or indirectly working together to fulfil a customer’s demand. These parties can be manufacturers, suppliers, transporters, warehouses, distributers, retailers and end consumers. The functions of the SC cover a variety of areas, such as R&D, information flow, marketing, finance, distribution, operation, and customer services.

Founded in Taiwan in 2003, Chatime is ‘one of the fastest growing’ ‘bubble tea’ franchises. Since its launch into the Australian Market in 2009, Chatime has established over 45 stores. In Australia, Chatime’s marketing and location strategies; primarily focuses on Chinese Australians and positions its franchises in locations with ‘high concentrations of Asian residents’ Today Chatimes master franchisor Charley Zhao is concerned with expanding Chatimes franshises ‘beyond the traditional Asian suburbs’ and into the mainstream Australian market.

The Mighty Leaf Tea company was founded in 2000 by Jill Portman and Gary Shinner. The couple was inspired to enter the tea industry while shopping for engagement rings in 1990. The company is known for pioneering the whole leaf tea pouch, filled with whole tea leaves, herbs, and fruits. “The company 's goal is to bridge the gap between quality and experience of the whole leaf product with the convenience of a bag,” states co-founder Jill Portman (Wollman). Mighty Leaf Tea initially bloomed in the high-class market, becoming popular in high-end hotels, restaurants, and specialty food shops. In 2007, the company was faced with the decision of going mass market by selling its premium whole-leaf teas in supermarkets.

The makers of Honest Tea set up stands in 27 cities across the country with signs stating that each bottle of tea costs one dollar. They left the stands unmanned, but observed how people behaved, from a distance. The survey did not surprise, for the most part. Overall, 94% of people surveyed paid for the tea, which is slightly down from last year’s 95%. Honest Tea, a company that makes organic tea beverages has been conducting this not-so-scientific survey for six years

For supermarket and restaurant chains, the sale typically is made to the purchasing department/buying division of the retailer. These sales often involve a significant amount of field testing by the direct sales force, giving Tasteless a competitive advantage. Tasteless heavily advertises its products in trade magazines and attracts individual sales through advertising in media such as health care magazines. Individual clients include CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies, as well as individuals from coast-tocoast. Management’s objective is to establish Tasteless as the most recognized and respected tea brand in the U.S. market, eventually supplanting Lipton Tea as the market leader in tea brand recognition and tea sales in both the higher-end and lower-end tea markets. While Tasteless currently is experiencing some sharp growing pains, the good news is the growing interest in different types of non-traditional beverages, combined with increasingly health-conscious baby boomers and younger adults. These factors have tripled sales over the past five years ending December 31, 2008. At the same time, new local and regional competitors with a bevy of new products are offering fast delivery from local production centers and in some cases lower prices, challenging Tasteless for retail shelf space. Without this shelf space, especially in supermarkets, Tasteless’ tea products cannot be retailed on a volume basis. Tasteless has

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.

Supply Chain Management is the integrations of the flows of products and materials, services, information, and financials through the entire supply pipeline from the supplier’s

This article is about supply chain management (SCM). Its importance in the field of operation management. Supply chain management was discussed from the past three decades. This article tells about how supply chain management developed and how it will proceed in the future. The term “supply chain management” first appeared in the practitioner literature in 1982, which said that SCM is a way to manage resources and assets in a better way.

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.