Business-getting chain

The business-getting chain. The proactive work on a client s brief with creative and technical teams developed to deliver winning products to the marketplace. 

The fact that in present-day business supply chains rather than companies are competing with each other (Christopher 1992) highlights the importance of getting the right product, at the right time, and the right price to the customer as the key to... 

To continue its growth, SYSCO has begun over twenty-five Get Better Initiatives in all areas of its business, including sales, marketing, supply chain, safety, diversity, margins, employee retention, incentive compensation, and others. 

Pharmaceutical distributors, wholesalers, importers, exporters, all those involved in the distribution chain are key players that, maybe more than others, should improve their capacity to combat counterfeit medicines. It is through the distribution chain that counterfeit medicines reach patients. It is therefore essential that distributors, wholesalers, importers, exporters develop and effectively implement business practices that make the distribution chain as impermeable as possible to counterfeits and open to appropriate verification by national authorities. It is known that in many countries unauthorized trade is widespread and that it is difficult to get unauthorized traders to respect rules and regulations. Yet, if unauthorized trade is the result of many factors, local distributors and retail pharmacists may find themselves part of the problem (for having left important areas of the country without effective supply mechanisms)... 

Enter new parts of the value chain, typically downstream elements closer to the end consumer. Downstream players often add significant value to the product just before it gets to the end consumer. If specialty chemical companies can enter these parts of the value chain by leveraging their existing business models and core capabilities, they can capture a piece of this additional value. However, this proposition may prove difficult, since the downstream markets are often very different from chemical ones. They are, for example, extremely fragmented, and they have to cope with frequently changing consumer tastes. 

The real issue when dealing with the supply chain in this manner is that it is very easy to end up with unhealthy suppliers in the financial sense. What do you do if a supplier files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy How does this impact your business What happens if the supplier gets closed down or files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy ... 

As more and more companies are dealing with Asian countries, the supply chains become vulnerable to a ship sinking with your container on it. It may be insured to cover losses, but what happens to your production while the next container gets manufactured and shipped and travels to yoirr business ... 

Throughout the first three decades of supply chain leadership, the greatest advancements in business results were made by companies that could invest in process innovation holistically and cross-function-ally. As we get ready to run the race for Supply Chain 2020, we are at a juncture where process innovation is needed. There is more unknown than known. New data, new technologies, and market changes make process innovation an important element of readiness to run the race. 

On the other hand, the supply chain is also operational, because the end-to-end supply chain concept has to work in practice, and this is all about getting supply chain thinking and skill-sets into every level of management and supervision, and into execution in every business function, in every player in the value chain. The drive for change needs to come from the top senior management, and the leadership of change to convert supply chain thinking into operational practice, must be taken up as a boardroom responsibility. 

A supply chain is a set of dependent events. Each firm in the chain depends on the firms that precede it and deliver its required inputs. If one of the firms does not deliver the product required by another firm on time, the second firm will be late producing and delivering its product to its customers. If the final customer of the chain has the option of getting the product elsewhere, he may decide to do so. So, a delay by one firm in a supply chain can result in a loss of business for all of the members of the supply chain. 

However, as fundamental as this concept is and as intuitive as optimization of the supply chain is, many companies still attempt to maximize only that which they specifically control. They overlook the value of the global view. They concentrate only on what they can see in their local operation. The idea of real supply chain optimization is looked upon as something to be done, some objective for the future. Once we get our own act in order, we can move on to the supply chain issues is a common statement from business leaders in every industry. In some cases, when leaders do apply some effort toward supply chain optimization, it is only half-hearted and does not receive the attention or financial budget that it deserves. Those companies, even more so as the Internet makes global business operations a reality, are not only missing some opportunities, they are sealing their fate as noncompetitive businesses in the modern age. 

E-SCM has been a hot term for the past few years, but linking many business partners has been extremely difficult. Everyone from the raw material supplier to the ultimate seller in the chain must be able to get accurate information quickly and easily about orders, shipping, and customer responses to products and services. Business partners must decide which areas they will try to link first. Each partner then focuses on key internal groups that have the most to gain by adopting e-commerce. 

Accessibility ease of doing business. This covers the entire range of contact points between the customer and supply chain. How well are they staffed Are buying procedures user friendly Are responses prompt Will the organization be around when needed after the sale Are rebates easy to get ... 

Documentation is an art form. There are many methods and tools. This chapter describes a few that have proven useful, particularly in their application to multicompany supply chains. The tools can also be executed using standard business software or specialized graphics tools. An important warning is not to get bogged down in unnecessary documentation. A balance must be established based on business requirements. Elsewhere we discuss concepts and tools for application in processes. Applying these tools will certainly require that certain process elements be eaptured in the process documentation. 

Other costs such as transportation may or may not vary with the number of orders. For example, a transportation manager, measured by costs for transportation, will want to get the cheap rates that go with sending full tmcks, referred to as truckload quantities. The full truck is the equivalent of a batch for this manager, and his measure is likely to be total transportation cost or even total supply chain cost of which transport costs are a portion. This measure could have a negative effect on customer service because the full tmck constraint can reduce the frequency of delivery. So, a local optimum overrides a higher goal — and perhaps results in lost business. 

---