Understanding the Overall Business Strategy, Assessment of the Extended Supply Chain - Essay Example

Supply Chain Name Institution Course Date Supply chain Operational organisations can deliver strategic competence Supply Chain by: Understanding the overall business strategy The first important step that will enable supply chain managers to deliver strategic competence supply chain is to clearly understand the way in which the enterprise chooses to compete (Aitken, Christopher and Towill, 2002). Such a concept is very essential not only for obvious reasons with regard to working off “same play book,” but for the fact that it ensures that the supply chain operation can view itself as a proper customer facing entity with the responsibility of serving competitive goals of the business organisation and not just as an operational department. Supply chain competent strategy can be viewed as the enabler of the general business strategy. This is to mean that if the business strategy revolve around being a low cost provider then, the supply chain competent strategy opt to support this. The same way the development of a business strategy requires one to focus on the core competencies and means of differentiation, one should do the same when developing a supply chain strategy (Aitken, Christopher and Towill, 2002). The ability to strategically source parts at affordable price is able to support both business strategy and supply chain competent strategy if only one have the potential to do this effectively (Aitken, Christopher and Towill, 2002). Delivering strategic competence supply chain requires a business organisation to focus on the supply chain competencies and leverage or control what you do well (Conner, 2004). This can be done by focus entirely on a specific market segment where an organisation can gain supply chain efficiencies (Aitken, Christopher and Towill, 2002). In addition, the supply chain executives may differentiate the operation of an organisation by offering lower and affordable prices to customers and offering services that competitors are unable to do. Assessment of the extended supply chain Another important step needed to deliver strategic competence supply chain is to conduct a comprehensive and realistic assessment of potential capabilities that are available within an organisation and the extended supply chain. A supply chain manager should start by scrutinizing the organisation’s assets and analyse and evaluate how well they incorporate the strategy. For instance, old machinery and incongruent systems mean elevated operational costs not supportive of the intended low cost provider strategy (Conner, 2004). Therefore, a formal supply chain assessment carried out by a non-biased specifically outside party may assist managers in understanding the operational strengths and also the opportunities for improvement. The assessment should be carried out by an outside party with operational benchmarks in order to be able to gauge core competencies. Immediately the assessment is complete, it is necessary to assemble a team that can view recommendations, define risks, highlight opportunities and review requirements for implementation (Conner, 2004). At the end, if there is any disparity existing between supply chain competent strategy and the operational assets then, one has to make capital investments or even alter the strategy altogether. Develop an implementation plan From this crucial work comes the ‘go ahead’ supply chain competent strategy which is directly linked to the business strategy, very specific to enablers and metrics with well-defined implementation requirements (Conner, 2004). The development of any implementation plan includes tasks, functions, performance metrics and activities, and corresponding timeline. The development of an implementation plan requires one to establish sub-team to assisting the execution and also offer project management tasks and responsibility in an aim of resolving issues and also track status (Conner, 2004). Development Considerations Throughout the development process, all the supply chain partners should be included in an aim of delivering strategic competence supply chain (Conner, 2004. While it is not necessary to disclose all the details of the strategy, it is important to communicate the way to go about a business. One should seek mutual goals that different parties can execute on. One will not only step closer to achieving the supply chain strategy but will also learn more about the parties one is involved with in business (Conner, 2004). In addition, part of delivering strategic competence supply chain requires evaluating opportunities and chances to outsource areas not a core competency. If a party can do it at cheaper and affordable price, it is worth outsourcing in order to cut down costs and direct resources on the core competency the organisation does well. Performance management Execution of a strategic competence supply chain requires the application of good project governance and managing performance in order to increase the chances for success. Tracing performance give an organisation a chance to measure the success of realising the goals of strategic competence supply chain (Spekman, Spear and Kamauff, 2002). It allows individuals to understand their responsibilities, asks and contributing, and creating togetherness. Performance management is effective when people are rewarded fairly for their contribution and performance and there is regular reporting. Performance management should be used to communicate the expectations required in supply chain and the more the supply chain is involves; the more strategic competence supply chain is supported and reinforced (Spekman, Spear and Kamauff, 2002). Establishing good leadership For an organisation to deliver a strategic competence supply chain there should be a good leadership. Supply chain managers should have the knowledge skills and abilities required to institute effective performance (Spekman, Spear and Kamauff, 2002). World-class supply chain is that which is managed by effective leaders with the ability to motivate staff, and communicate clearly to clients and management. Based on the research done across supply chain across many industries have noted that the core these for good supply chain leadership include applying certainty to even the uncertain situations such as decision making and forecasting, balancing risk and profits using hard and soft skills, aligning tactics with organisational culture, maintain relationships with the supply chain partners and satisfying the competition stakeholders on a constant basis (Conner, 2003). Assess ability and identify gaps Organisational transformation requires the creation of a model that establishes the desired competency requirements and back up the assessment of the already existing competencies for supply chain organisations. This enables the determination of the organisational performance gaps and effective strategies for addressing them. In general supply chain competency revolves around a number of competencies such as supply chain management, supplier development to name a few (Spekman, Spear and Kamauff, 2002) . It thus very essential include the competencies extracted from the strategic domain like the change management and team building since a successful transformation need the supply chain professionals to be internal consultants, process experts and change agents. When authenticated against a business organisation’s mission, culture, vision and goals, the competency model represents the desired vision (Spekman, Spear and Kamauff, 2002). However, the model should first be tested for validity across the organisation and later on be presented to the management for approval before it is adapted. Once a competency model has been created and approved, an organisation is thus able to assess the existing supply chain organisations with regard to each competency reflected in the model (Spekman, Spear and Kamauff, 2002). The performance gap entails the differences between the desired level of proficiency and the supply chain organisation’s level of proficiency. Therefore to address this challenge, organisations should eliminate the gap in proficiency in some competency areas. The available competencies can be compared to the organisational performance in order to establish where individuals have the required competencies but face barriers that challenge them to succeed (Spekman, Spear and Kamauff, 2002). This will establish the areas where competencies and infrastructures of any company can be aligned with available transformational efforts in order to support supply chain professional’s future developments. Integrated business planning Involvement and dealing with cross-functional business organisational issues represents critical apart of supply chain management (Eastham, Sharples and Ball, 2007). It entails the integration of the organisational operations side with the demand side together with taking on the demand and supply integration frameworks like sales and operation planning. Moreover, supply chain professionals encourage the design collaboration programs with suppliers and customers and master problems that come with planning the supply chain operations (Eastham, Sharples and Ball, 2007). Integration of value chain implementation In order for the supply chain professionals to be viewed as fundamental to the success of any enterprise, they must aim at delivering outstanding vale and exceed the customers’ expectations (Lee and Whang, 2001). Many customers do not have any idea of what they want until the organisation exceeds their expectations. In order to achieve this, there should be an institution of end-to-end value chain design such a customer segmentation, optimization and supply chain design. This will be effective in delivering strategic competence supply chain. Linking supply chain strategic performance with organisational success Effective competent supply chain requires the combination of expertise in flow management and efficient knowledge in information and financial flow. Putting in mind such flows is very important in generating supply chain management that resound in boardroom and meetings (Lee and Whang, 2001). To sustain such a performance, supply chain managers are expected to design a metrics concept that is able to drive the right process, knowledge and behaviour that is able to deliver product availability at cheaper cost and at a working capital level (Lee and Whang, 2001). Generally, supply chains nowadays rely heavily on the competencies and industry knowledge in raising the performance of organisational operations. References Aitken, J., Christopher, M., & Towill, D. (2002). Understanding and exploiting agility and leanness. International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications, 5(1), 59−74. Conner, M. (2004). The supply chain's role in leveraging PLM. Supply Chain Management Review, 8(2), 36−43. Eastham J., Sharples L., Ball S. (2007). Food Supply Chain Management. The Business & Economics 1st edition. 137-177. Lee, H. L., & Whang, S. (2001, March/April). Demand chain excellence. Supply Chain Management Review, 41−46. Spekman, R., Spear, J., & Kamauff, J. (2002). Supply chain competency: Learning as a key component. Supply Chain Management, 7(1), 41−55. Read More