Supply Chain Management And Its Challenges For Global Companies
Customer Satisfaction: The Key to Success for Any Company
Discuss about the Supply In Shape NZ Company And Their Recommended Supply Chain Solution.
A company whether local, international or global has a responsibility of ensuring that it satisfies its clients and customers needs interns of selling them either products or services (Samuels & Sawers, 2017). This should be like an art so that they ensure at the end of the day, their products or services are acceptable, appreciated, helpful and recommendable to others (Singh, 2012). The success of any company is always determined by the customer’s satisfaction and so do its failure. Products and services provided should always be ensured it meets their immediate needs anytime and under any circumstance. Those attending to the customers should learn to be polite, gentle, understanding, patient and kind.
Supply chain management is the art of management of providing the right product, at the right time, ensuring that it is of the right quantity and quality and that it is in the right place and the right cost (“Supply issues with Insuman”, 2016). The right product suggesting that what is sold should be legal and healthy for human use, at the right time meaning the normal business hours unless the enterprise is working twenty four hours. The quantity should not be reduced but measured correctly or rather the service delivered at the right set time of completion (Wu & Jia, 2018). The quality of the products or services should be good since one cannot meet the customer’s needs if poor quality products are sold to them or poor quality services given. Not forgetting the place that the enterprise is located, it should be in a place where majority of customers can access for example where transportation is good in terms of roads and transport vessels. (Marsh, 2011)
Supply chain issues facing the shape NZ company it being a global company includes globalization. Globalization posts several crises to supply chain management that are a challenge to both enterprises and organizations (Panta, 2018). For a company that is all over the world or located in many countries, enterprises and companies always focuses on reducing the cost of supply chain therefore they tend to evacuate their manufacturing operations to countries with a bit low cost of labor, low taxation of products and low cost of transporting the raw materials. When suppliers are located in different part of the world, it complicates the supply chain process (Jeanpert & Paché, 2016). The enterprise or company will be required to share ideas on how to succeed in supply chain, how to equalize the difference despite the distance and the different time and location and finally how they could come together to enhance supply of their products concerning manufacturing of products, its storage and how the goods or services will effectively flow from the manufacturing point to the consumption point. This calls for appropriate demand management of either products or services. Focusing on how the products or services demanded by customers or clients can reach them on time and ensuring it’s sufficient always hence no problems of shortages that may create inconveniences. (Golicic & Sebastiao, 2011)
Supply Chain Management: The Art of Providing the Right Product at the Right Time
Difference in time in that globally, time is different for example one country can have a time difference of seven hours from another country. However, this should not be an excuse since the management should ensure any ordered goods or services are made available to customers, clients, wholesaler or retailers at the right time so as to meet the customer’s needs who would want to receive their products according to the company’s set time(“Supply issues: February 2014”, 2014). Coming up with a good order management that will always ensure no delays are experienced each time order has been made for products or services hence fulfilling the customer’s order at the right time.
The second supply issue is localization of the existing products. Different countries have different way of life and preferences and as companies struggle to change in the supply chain so as to fit in their products to a different culture and make it suitable for use in that particular country(Wu & Jia, 2018), they should be careful not to run at a risk of losing control, not focusing on the customer’s preferences and eventually improper management concerning bringing new systems that could be used in supply chain management (Dhingra & Singh, 2015). A good customer relationship management is ideal to deal with challenges of localization of products and services. After understanding the people’s preferences and what they value, it will be easy to set aside those products and ensure it is sufficient and available on time. (“Supply issues: February 2014”, 2014)
Fast changing consumer markets poses a great challenge to supply chain management. When so many products that serve the same purpose are produced by different companies, the preferred product by consumers will lower the value of other products of the same family (Panta, 2018). This will force the enterprise to keep the cost of manufacturing low since the trend always has a tendency of not lasting for so long. Innovation of new products makes it difficult to predict if in the near future the demand of those products will be high or low or if at all it can be accepted in the market so that the company or enterprise can find other ways to substitute such cases (Wu & Jia, 2018).In order to curb this challenge, it is appropriate for the enterprise to communicate their product development and commercialize it to their customers to keep them informed in advance.(“Supply issues: February 2014”, 2014). This will help them reschedule their programs before the due date hence avoiding confusion and loses.
Supply Chain Issues Facing Global Companies: Challenges and Solutions
The quality of products and services and the need for them to agree with how the consumers wish or would want them presented to them is another major issue in supply chain management (Golicic & Sebastiao, 2011). Customers will prefer high quality products and services. Enterprises and companies on the other hand should ensure that they meet with the consumers needs if they are to be of influence. Quality calls for compliance hence companies should ensure that they meet both local and international standards in terms of their products presentation that is how it is packed, branded, transported and handled as it moves from one geographical area to another (Samuels & Sawers, 2017). Ensuring a good customer service management by giving them quality goods and services is very important for the reputation of any enterprise. Quality may seem expensive to maintain but if taken into consideration, it stands out to be a unique feature that differentiate a company or enterprise from the other. Compliance also ensures that the company is in good terms with the government of that particular country hence they could freely trade there since they would have met the required set laws and standards. (Singh, 2012)
In order to solve these problems of communication between suppliers and consumers, there is need of a better data management and integration. Collection of facts about certain environment and knowing how people live around there, what products and services they use mostly and understanding their culture in general is very important factor to consider (“Supply issues: December 2013”, 2013). Data from all the suppliers and customers in different places should be keenly studied for example prices of products and services, cost of labor, rental contracts, cost of taxation of products among others. It is wise to listen to every party so as to know how to deal with certain issues so as to solve any emerging challenges (Panta, 2018). The enterprise should consider ideal data solution to enable overcome these supply chain challenges of inappropriateness between suppliers and consumers for example using Liaisons technology to help them predict the future so as to know when to add stock, manage inventions, acquisition of materials, and supply chain and what have you. (Wu & Jia, 2018)
Social media platforms also can be a good one in telling all about a product manufactured by the enterprise and its acceptance by customers and clients (Jeanpert & Paché, 2016). This can be achieved by reading reviews, comments and feedback from a wide range of individuals some of whom have used the company’s products and services (“Supply issues: December 2013”, 2013). Ensuring that the supply chain is flexible always and that it can be used for manufacturing other products and may also be used for projects in future is another way of curbing supply chain issues (Panta, 2018). Therefore, manufacturing flow management is put in toes by consumers to always be on the lookout.
Localization of Products: Understanding Different Cultures
A good customer relationship management ensures that they are given quality products and services by relating well with both employer and the employees (“Supply issues with Insuman”, 2016). Practicing courtesy, honesty and kindness in serving them makes them satisfied by the services given in that particular enterprise (Golicic & Sebastiao, 2011). This is achieved by providing the demanded products or service on time, fulfilling any orders by ensuring efficiency and sufficiency in supply and communicating any changes appropriately. If all these are considered, there will be few or no loses at all therefore high profit it therefore calls for a good returns management that will ensure all the above issues are curbed in turn as per the consumer requirement. (Marsh, 2011)
Conclusion
For a global company or enterprise that aims at having a good supply chain management that welcomes change at any given time, it is advisable that they put into consideration the customer’s needs, their culture, preferences, their takes in every matter whether verbally or through social media so that they can collect facts from different points of view and use it to come up with information that could help the supply chain processes greatly. Looking for ideal ways to localize their products and services to a different group of people and consider the customers taste is important aspect in supply chain management.
References
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