What Is A Supply Chain Strategy?

Supply chain is the process of getting a product from point A to point B. With how advanced technology has become, there are more ways than ever to transport the product. The goal of a supply chain managers is to get the product into their hands. The mangers negotiate with the suppliers to purchase the raw materials. Then, they ship those materials as efficiently as possible through trucks, ships, and trains. Then finally, they do everything they can to make the product gets to the store on time so the consumer can enjoy the product. Why is this so important? Well, without it, we as the consumer wouldn’t enjoy that fresh produce that Kroger provide or the convenient drive thru pharmacy. Everything we own is because of a company’s supply chain, and without these supply

A supply chain is very important to an organization. It can and should show the relationship between suppliers, distributors, managers and consumers. This paper would detail how important suppliers and distributions are to an organization’s success. And how important a supply chain is within an organization and how managers can utilize the supply chain. It is important that companies such as Target Corporations utilize the supply chain and gain competitive advantages. Target is one of the world’s largest retail stores; the first Target was opened in 1962 in Roseville, Minnesota (Target.com). By the end of 1962 there were only four Target and they were all operated in Minnesota.

Supply chains represent the procurement, production and distribution activities of an organisation. Within a supply chain, these activities are viewed as linked and reliant on one another to produce the final outcome. It is believed that if one component of the chain fails, the whole chain is broken and product/service delivery goals will not be achieved.

Supply-chain management consists of developing a strategy to organize, control, and motivate the resources involved in the flow of services and materials within the supply chain. A supply chain strategy, an essential aspect of supply chain management, seeks to design a firm’s supply chain to meet the competitive priorities of the firm’s operations strategy.

What are the basic components of a supply chain? Most companies are utilizing a five supply chain components, in order to bring products to the marketplace. The five supply chain components are Suppliers, Manufacturers, Distributors, Retailers, and Consumers/Customers. Effective integration and management of supply chain components and processes is helping to cost reduction and improve customer service. Supply Chain integration also gives a new set of capabilities which helps to the company to increase revenue and

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.

According to Motiwalla (2011) “Supply chain management is the science of developing a strategy to organize, control, and motivate the resources involved in the flow of services and materials within the supply chain.” (P. 305). In fact, Zara’s strategy in the clothing retail business is to comprehend the customers needs, produce new fast styles of clothing, and market it for sale using efficient information systems to gather information, manage product, inventory and distribution. Likewise, Limited Brads strategy managed to consolidate their technology operations into a single shared service for all of its brands using chain technologies and processes to drive the speed to market requirements.

A supply chain is a system of people, activities, information, and resource involved in creating a product and moving it their customers. First is the strategic supply chain management. Best value supply chains strive to excel along four measures. Speed is the time duration from initiation to completion of the production and distribution process. Quality refers to the relative reliability of supply chain activities. Supply chains’ efforts at managing cost involve enhancing value by either reducing expenses or increasing customer benefits for the same cost level. Flexibility refers to a supply chain’s responsiveness to changes in customers’ needs. The second component of the strategic supply chain is agility, the supply chain’s relative capacity to act rapidly in response to dramatic change in supply and demand. Adaptability refers to a willingness and capacity to reshape supply chains when necessary. Lastly, alignment refers to creating consistency in the interest of all participants in a supply

Chopra, S and Meindl, P (2012). Supply Chain Managment; Strategy, Planning and Operation. 5th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.

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.

A supply chain involved a variety of stages. These supply chain stages includeSuppliers , Manufacturers, Distributors, Retailers and Customers or Consumers. Each stage in a supply chain is connected through the flow of products, information and funds. These flows often occur in both directions and may be managed by one of the stages or an

Supply chain has been one of the emerging and most important system of the business process. It is a system which combines all the business activities that needed to be designed, made, delivered and improved. Supply chain and logistics, together are a combined process

A supply chain is a network of retailers, distributors, transporters, storage facilities, and suppliers that participate in the production, delivery, and sale of a product to the consumer. Therefore, both companies focus on three key parts: which

Supply chain is one of the critical aspects that can make or break any company. The research will also concentrate on aspects of supply chain.

The strategic management of the supply chain does not consist of introducing innovations in order just to innovate. It is about creating a configuration that will make the strategic objectives progress. According to Slack et al. (2004, p.67) an « operations strategy concerns the pattern of strategic choices and actions that set the purpose, objectives and activities of operations ». According to Hayes (2005), efficient operations strategies need to be consistent and contribute to competitive advantage. The process of operations strategy covers the activities and dynamics of strategy elaboration and implementation (Swink and Way, 1995), whereas the content of operations strategy consists of the particular decisions regarding competitive priorities, objectives, and action plans that specify the operation 's strategic direction.Several authors gave their definition of operations strategy; four interrelated perspectives then emerged. The top-down approach is « what the business wants operations to do » and the bottom-up perspective represent « what day-to-day experience should do ». Top-down strategy can be distinguished from a bottom-up strategy in terms of two aspects: the initiative 's origin and the sequence of events amongst purposes, actions, and results. Top-down strategy is triggered by top management 's aims and manifests in the performance outcomes of stipulated actions. Bottom-up strategy is initiated by lower managers’ actions realizing their own interpretations