Essay on Improvement of global supply chain

Gunasekaran (2008) identified number of strategies used by the companies for the global sourcing. The research identified progressive strategies about the global supply chain and improvement of supply chain as the solid foundation of global economic levels. Manu Ankrah, Chinyio & Proverbs (2015) identified key elements of supply chain in South Africa. The research determined inter-organizational interactions as an important source to boost the growth of supply chain management in manufacturing sectors of South Africa. Moipone, Chengedzai, and Roborale (1999) also worked on the supply chain dynamism, sharing of information, supply chain performance, and inter organizational relationship in the manufacturing sectors. The research determined impact of supply chain on the performance and information. The environment of firms is continuing to improve performance and supply chain. The research sought the relationship of supply chain dynamics with the impact on global market. The research results identified positive relationship between improved supply chain management and performance (Gunasekaran, et al., 2008). 

Busse, Meinlschmidt, and Foerstl (2017) have stated that the companies in these globalization market industry have been giving their effort in shaping truly global supply chains due to it has the capability to enable the companies to decrease their business costs. In fact, the companies could take benefit from lesser costs of production, and they could also outsource to the free capital from non-core business activities, as well as generating a huge scale of efficiencies. Global Supply Chain Management integrates the strategic plan on how a complete supply chain will perform its functions as a united one, with a purpose to generate a maximum customer service level, while at the same time perform as cost-efficient as conceivable. Other purposes integrate on growing the speediness of your products to be delivered to the customers, and also the flexibility in negotiating some deals with the customers in the business transactions (Busse, et al., 2017).

Harrington (2017) has assumed that at the time a company acquired an effective Supply Chain Management in their hand, then it is a big opportunity for that company to acquire an instant competitive advantage throughout their competitors in their market industry. This will definitely allow the companies to reduce their natural risks of purchasing the raw materials along with selling their products or services. In addition to this, the companies will be able to decrease overhead costs and waste by applying the systems of Supply Chain Management. Furthermore, the article also has explained that along with the growth of technology, there is an emerging of the effective global Supply Chain Management. The reason is due to there is a requirement of maintaining the satisfaction of customers by delivering the end products in timely manner. Likewise, the world which has been transferred into a digital world has triggered the digital transformation to be sweeping out over and done with the formation of supply chains in the most features of the global economy. Additionally, in further features of digitization, skill and talent have been considered as a crucial challenge. In fact, a current report has noted that a majority of managers in the global supply chain have been aware of the competent value provided by this digitalization, but still, many of them are still struggling with implementation and formatting the digital employees (Harrington, 2017).

Ivanov, Tsipoulanidis, and Schönberger (2017) have found that at the same time where the improved utilization of certain digital technologies which aim to improve the global Supply Chain Management has turned out as the main aspect that increased the need for extremely talented employees in the supply chain, further other aspects have also get improved. For instance, there is an increment in the term of costs for some raw materials and freight. This increment of prices has the capability to shape out the concerns to derive toward the leaders of global Supply Chain Management with alleviating the costs together with the possible disruptions to have appeared in supply chain. Likewise, this has been considered as the main of current new technologies handling and also the intensifying range of Supply Chain Management responsibilities. For this reason, the experts have suggested that there is a massive prominence being located on seeking for the talent who would not only have the skill to negotiate and improve the savings, instead, also has the capability to tackle down the increasing range of the Supply Chain Management itself(Ivanov, et al., 2017).

According to the report made by ILO (2016), the global Supply Chain Management in the market could be described as the distribution of products and services over the trans-national companies’ global system which has the main purpose to optimize the profit and also minimize the business waste. Fundamentally, the global Supply Chain Management is basically similar to the standard Supply Chain Management. However, the difference which has appeared is that, the global Supply Chain Management put more focus on the trans-national companies. There are six primary areas of concentration in the global Supply Chain Management which mentioned such as: the customer orientation, the management of logistics, the competitor orientation, the coordination of supply chain, the management of supply, as well as the management of business operations. Furthermore, the authors also have detailed that, in order to achieve the successful global supply chain, then it requires a complying with different international rules fixed by an assortment of non-governmental institutions (ilo.org, 2016).

Genovese, Acquaye, Figueroa, and Lenny Koh (2017) have suggested that along with the increment of globalization and the business practices of offshore outsourcing, the global Supply Chain Management has turned out to become a fundamental challenge for a number of companies. Same as traditional, the Supply Chain Management has the basic aspects behind the trend which are decreasing the obtaining costs, as well as reducing the potential risks associated with the purchasing activities performed by the companies. The huge difference was mentioned in this article as how the global Supply Chain Management integrates a company’s international interests along with the suppliers slightly than a simple local orientation. What’s more, due to the fact that the global Supply Chain Management typically engages a surplus of nations, it also typically arrives with a surplus of new problems that required to be managed appropriately (Genovese, et al., 2017).

The risen of global supply chain management has suggested by Kim and Chai (2017) as an essential subject in the global market industry. The authors also have separated the main characteristics of the global supply chain into three characteristics which are: a). the alliance of the global supply chain together with the new value creation in each topography, b). the substantial functions of global retailers along with the private standards within supply chain, and c). how the economic alterations have the capability to influence the market and also the supply chain regionalization.  The location has been considered as the main feature that should be considered by the supply chain managers at the time they need to establish certain strategies for their supply chain.  Further essentially, transforming supply chain into handling the global supply chain has been influencing the supply chain managers to consider many different aspects such as different cultures, exchange rates, economic environments, and many more. For this reason, any decision-making regarding the location’s facility is, indeed, a fundamental aspect since it is a risk-qualifying aspect in accordance with the interruption that appears for the supply chain within the global supply chain management (Kim & Chai, 2017).

Boström, et al. (2015) have purposed that the globalized supply chains powerfully format modern situations of both production and consumption. The international brand-owning companies in this industrialized world have been playing a critical role within the global supply chains. It has appeared that these international companies have been giving the focus on their business activities such as the design of product, brand management, and marketing, while at the same time, the low-skill manufacturing processes are outsourced to the countries which have low-income. The authors have also explained that there are some challenges to gain sustainable and reliable global supply chain along with the systems stem from the economic globalization and outsource processes of production. In simple words, the products to fill the daily consumption were initially generated in a country, and with the global supply chain, these products now produced in another country. At this point, there are six existing gaps discovered by the authors in this article such as: 1). The geographical gaps – the highly ‘globality’ of the global supply chains along with the network significations, 2). information and knowledge gaps – the new environmental distances have created by outsourcing results have created new requirements of reliable, verified, wide-range, and dependable information regarding the sustainability influences of products and along with the processes of production in the different supply chain links, 3). Communication gaps – there is a need for further collaboration and also proper communication whole over the supply chain to make sure for more sustainable and responsible perform 4). Compliance or implementation gaps – the global supply chain needs to make sure the perfect compliance which aligned with the string sustainability standards, principles, and also guidelines as well, 5). Power gaps – the global supply chains need to put more focus on the power interactions among the companies and networks, with a purpose to understand both successes and failures around sustainable expansion and responsibility, 6). Legitimacy or credibility gap – the arrangements made by the governance have been unsuccessful in the context of covering the geographical, forthcoming, informational, compliance, and power gaps. Additionally, the authors have also assumed that there is no single size that will fit all the required methods to be used in achieving sustainability in the global supply chains. Instead, both responsible and sustainable governance from all of aspects in the supply chains needs to be acknowledged that there are various parts in only a complicated puzzle. The authors have suggested that to address the six gaps mentioned, the international companies could use some tools which included eco-labels, the codes of conduct, the information systems of auditing procedures, product information systems, the guidelines for procurement, along with eco-branding.

However, due to these tools are not adequate enough, the global supply chain management needs to integrate the coalition and institution building on a broader scale. For instance, the improvement of comprehensive coalitions of multiple stakeholders, the flexibility to implement the arrangements of global governance toward social and environmental contexts of both production and consumption. Moreover, the global supply chain companies also need to perform effective monitoring and strengthen their business performance by providing proper pieces of training for the employees, in order to construct compliance capability. Additionally, the global supply chain management also needs to implement the integration of automatic learning, with a purpose to develop the arrangements of governance throughout the passage of time.  Thus, there is a necessity of a further broader view in observing social science in the terms of supply chains to make the international companies understand properly how the unsustainable business practices have been enduring and how to facilitate the more sustainable ones.  Hence, it is quite fundamental to understand positive and responsible business activities to handle the social, economic and environmental difficulties related with global supply chains (Boström, et al., 2015).