CHAPTER 3 : STRATEGIC INITIATIVES FOR IMPLEMENTING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

 

STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

 

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

 

• It is involve the management of information flows
• To maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability
• Four basic components of SCM:

 

Supply Chain Strategy – the strategy for managing all the resources required to meet customer demand for all products and services.

 

Supply Chain Partners – the partners chosen to deliver finished products, raw materials, and services including pricing, delivery, and payment processes along the partner relationship monitoring metrics.

 

Supply Chain Operation – the schedule for production activities including testing, packaging, and preparation for delivery. Measurements for this component include productivity and quality.

 

Supply Chain Logistics – the product delivery processes and elements including orders, warehouses, carriers, defective product returns, and invoicing.

 

•  Dozens of steps are required to achieve and carry out each of the preceeding components. SCM software can enable an organization to generate efficiencies within these steps by automating and improving the information lows throughout and among different supply chain components.

 

 

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

 

• Involves managing all aspects of a customer’s relationship with an organization to increase customer loyalty and retention and an organization’s profitability.
• CRM can enable an organization to: 

1. Identify types of customers
2. Design individual customer marketing campaigns  
3. Treat each customer as an individual
4. Understand customer buying behaviors

 

 

BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING

 

• It is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises. The purpose of BPR is to make business process the best-in-class.
• Seven principles of Business Process Reengineering:
• Organize around comes, not tasks
• Identify all the organization’s processes and prioritize them in order of redesign urgency
• Integrate information processing work into real work that produces the information
• Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized
• Link parallel activities in the workflow instead of just integrating their results
• Put the decision point where the work is performed, and build control into the process
• A company can improve the way it travels the road by moving from foot to horse and then horse to car.
• Finding opportunity using BPR:

 

BPR looks at taking a different path, such as an airplane which ignore the road completely. Capture information once and at the source

 

 

ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING

 

integrates all departments and functions throughout an organization into a single IT system so that employees can make decisions by viewing enterprisewide information on all business operations.