Question ; scm is indespensible in the age of globalisation...

Ans :- With the advent of the internet and other technologies, the improvement of transportation
infrastructures, and significant developments in trade, the world has gotten much, much smaller
in recent decades. In fact, globalization has affected most facets of our lives, including politics,
economics, education, health, employment, and culture. It is no surprise that globalization has
also greatly affected supply chain management (SCM).
The Benefits of a Globalized Supply Chain

Globalization has unlocked a plethora of new opportunities for supply chain management, from
expanded sourcing opportunities to expanded markets. These opportunities beget two larger
opportunities: the chance to save money and the chance to increase efficiency. Let’s take a closer
look:

1. Expanded sourcing opportunities. A world market offers businesses opportunities to secure a

diverse selection of workers, materials, and products. This larger selection of goods and services
often means the opportunity to select higher-quality or lower-cost options.

2. The opportunity to reach new customers in new markets. Just as globalization offers more
materials and laborers, it also offers new customers in new locations with new needs.

3.More room to grow. New technologies and a shrinking globe mean that it is easier for
companies to grow generally: to produce more, offer more, and sell more. Expanding borders
also means expanding businesses and corporations.

4. More opportunities to save money. Globalization’s biggest benefit is that increases options:
options for source materials, options for workers, and options for transportation. More options
mean more chances to save on spending and increase profits.

Example:-Consider the case of Star Bucks.

When Starbucks, an American global coffee bean company, was opening its stores around the
world, it outsourced many of its supply chain activities. But it did not focus on managing the
supply chain in the right manner. As a result, the operating expenses and the cost of running the
supply chain rose steeply.
In 2008, CEO of Star Bucks, Howard Schultz appointed Gibbons to run the company’s supply
chain. Gibbons analyzing the company’s supply chain found that about 60 to 70% of operating
expenses were due to the outsourcing agreements. He observed that outsourcing allowed the
company to spread globally but the cost associated with it escalated. Hence, he decided to
reorganize the supply chain. He devised a 4-step approach, which played a key role in the
company’s success. Now the company is operating successfully in more than 50 countries with
16,000 stores.

QUestion :- Relationship is a key to s.c success.how has the model of relationship

changed over the years??

Answer:- The term "relationships" covers a lot of ground in supply chain management. There are
strategic relationships, tactical relationships, transactional relationships, internal relationships,
and possibly more. There are also relationships among members of the supply chain community.
Let's look at those first.
Our supply chain universe can be seen as clustered around three "estates," roughly comparable
to the social divisions in pre-revolutionary France. We might, without stretching too far, term them
the First Estate—the academic community (or the "clergy"); the Second Estate—the consultants
and software developers (or the "nobility"); and the Third Estate—the working practitioners (or the
"commoners"), led then as now by the bourgeoisie of visible, leadingedge advocates. There is
also a kind of Fourth Estate (or the "press") in supply chain management, but the trade press
generally does not play the same watchdog role as its counterpart in the outside world.
For the moment, it's important to realize that relationships among the supply chain estates must
be maintained for balance. Too much power and influence in any one camp and you risk
undermining the effectiveness of your supply chain.
The principal means for bringing the estates together and leveraging their individual talents and
contributions lies in the field's professional organizations, including the Council of Supply Chain
Management Professionals (CSCMP) and the Warehousing Education and Research Council
(WERC). The personal networks built among leaders in the three estates at these groups' annual
gatherings continue to harness the synergistic potential of their collaborative strengths.
1.The governmental dichotomy
Relationships among businesses and all levels of government—federal, state and local—are
important as well. Governmental and regulatory bodies can provide restrictions and incentives,
regulations and freedom, and roadblocks and opportunities for individual companies. They also
provide venues for teaching and research, and they can help create the environments that
incubate consultancies and technology development.
2.Within the supply chain
Let's start with the working relationships between suppliers and customers, which some like to
call "partnerships." Calling business relationships "partnerships" doesn't make them so.
Furthermore, there are limits to how many partnerships any company can effectively maintain.
Certainly, you can't have partnerships with everyone in your supply chain, unless the chain
consists only of you and two others.
Still, it is important to maintain high-trust, highcommunication, mutually beneficial relationships
with key suppliers and customers, whether they're called partnerships or not. Granted, there are
some very successful mega-merchants that are able to dictate prices, terms, and processes to
their suppliers by threatening to pull their business.
3.Within the company
Before a company attempts to build good external relationships, it must first put its own house in
order. You can't really develop open communications with others if your organization is partitioned
itself.
Within the friendly confines of your own four walls, manufacturing and distribution need to do
more than communicate—they need to march in lockstep. Both functions need to be plugged into
what's going on with sales and marketing. Sourcing and procurement can't operate independently
of other supply chain functions. Senior management must include the supply chain organization
in the strategic information loop, while the supply chain organization must let the C-level officers
know what it can do to support strategies.

Question :-supply chain visibility is crutial in business. how will you make the s.c visible.

Ans:- Supply chain visibility (SCV) is the ability of parts, components or products in transit to be
tracked from the manufacturer to their final destination. The goal of SCV is to improve and
strengthen the supply chain by making data readily available to all stakeholders, including the
customer.
The goal of supply chain visibility is to:
1. Reduce business and supply chain risk
2. Improve lead times and performance
3. Identify shortage and quality problems along the supply chain

1. Processes – Processes need to become more collaborative, with data sharing and planning
being done across departments as well as between organizations. Coordination of sales
projections and the supply chain can assist in helping suppliers to anticipate future demand.
Organizations need to develop specific data requirements that can be shared between partners in
the supply chain to make demand planning possible.
Risk management also needs to be implemented to mitigate the potential of supply chain
interruptions.

2. Relationships – Information must be shared across processes not only within the organization,
but within the functional silos such as planning, sourcing, production, and delivery. It also across
requires information sharing between business functions and outside the enterprise, providing a
real end-to-end process view to all supply chain partners.
Collaboration is needed to foster a level of trust between tiers. Information has to be shared
across the supply chain in order to connect partners in the network and provide a real end-to-end
process view.

3. Technology – A major challenge in the sharing of information between tiers is the problem of
passing data between disparate information systems. How do you connect a company with an
enterprise-wide ERP system with a supplier who manages their business on a spreadsheet?
Innovations such as cloud computing, and data collection and analysis software are now making
supply chain control towers possible. Once a dataset is designed to give supply chain partners
the information they need for sensing and shaping supply chain demand, the data can be
communicated up and down the supply chain for analysis and planning.
The real time end-to-end data that the supply chain control tower provides enables companies to
manage demand signals more accurately to reduce inventory levels, answer customers’ requests
faster and more accurately, and smooth the effects of demand variation