Assignment # 1: What are the Basics of Supply Chain Management

Processes? And also discuss the Future of Supply Chain Management in

your country.

What is supply chain?

A. Supply chain management is the management of the flow of

goods and services and includes all processes that transform raw
materials into final products. It involves the active streamlining of
a business's supply-side activities to maximize customer value
and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

B. Supply chain management is the handling of the entire production flow of a good
or service — starting from the raw components all the way to delivering the final
product to the consumer. A company creates a network of suppliers (“links” in the
chain) that move the product along from the suppliers of raw materials to those
organizations that deal directly with users.

BASIC KEY POINTS OF ANY SCM:

 Supply chain management (SCM) is the centralized management of the

flow of goods and services and includes all processes that transform raw
materials into final products.
 By managing the supply chain, companies can cut excess costs and
deliver products to the consumer faster.
 Good supply chain management keeps companies out of the headlines
and away from expensive recalls and lawsuits. 
 The five most critical elements of SCM are developing a strategy,
sourcing raw materials, production, distribution, and returns.
 A supply chain manager is tasked with controlling and reducing costs and
avoiding supply shortages.

5 Parts of SCM
In SCM, the supply chain manager coordinates the logistics of all aspects of the
supply chain which consists of five parts:

 The plan or strategy

  The source (of raw materials or services)
 Manufacturing (focused on productivity and efficiency)
 Delivery and logistics
 The return system (for defective or unwanted products)

According to CIO,
there are five components of traditional supply chain
management systems:
Planning
Plan and manage all resources required to meet customer demand for a company’s
product or service. When the supply chain is established, determine metrics to measure
whether the supply chain is efficient, effective, delivers value to customers and meets
company goals.
Sourcing
Choose suppliers to provide the goods and services needed to create the product. Then,
establish processes to monitor and manage supplier relationships. Key processes include:
ordering, receiving, managing inventory and authorizing supplier payments.
Manufacturing
Organize the activities required to accept raw materials, manufacture the product, test for
quality, package for shipping and schedule for delivery.
Delivery and Logistics
Coordinate customer orders, schedule deliveries, dispatch loads, invoice customers and
receive payments.
Returning
Create a network or process to take back defective, excess or unwanted products.

Why is supply chain management important?

Effective supply chain management systems minimize cost, waste and time in the
production cycle. The industry standard has become a just-in-time supply chain where
retail sales automatically signal replenishment orders to manufacturers. Retail shelves can
then be restocked almost as quickly as product is sold. One way to further improve on
this process is to analyze the data from supply chain partners to see where further
improvements can be made.

A positive or negative impact on the supply chain resounds throughout the

business. There are two core areas to the impact: customer happiness and ROI.
Happy customer = happy business = higher performance

In January 2018, Tobin Moore from Optoro pointed out this striking statistic

at Retail’s Big Show: If a customer is happy with the way their return process was

handled, they’re 71 percent more likely to become a repeat customer.

A smooth return process means an effective supply chain, one that’s well

connected and involves communication along the chain. When the supply chain

meets or exceeds the expectations of the customer, it’s because of efficiencies.

The entire business benefits through higher-order rates, positive sentiment in the

customer’s mind, and lower cost-to-serve for the business.

Higher performance = more cost efficiency = higher pressure?

Higher performance is measured in terms of the efficiency of all processes and

people to move goods and services to market along the supply chain.

Increased supply chain efficiency can translate to pressure on the team and their

capabilities, as costs and budgets are held flat or reduced when they’re expected

to move the same or a greater volume of product at the same or a higher quality

level.

Improvements to profits for the business are measured via metrics like working

capital turnover or cash conversion performance; as business health improves,

profitable cash management and revenue conversion are the result. Flattening

the cost curve often becomes a challenge unless two factors are considered:
new capabilities (process and data) that drive faster, higher-quality decisions;

and using a tool that scales favorably for the value it delivers for the business.

Key features of effective supply chain management

The supply chain is the most obvious “face” of the business for customers and
consumers. The better and more effective a company’s supply chain management is, the
better it protects its business reputation and long-term sustainability.

IDC’s Simon Ellis in The Path to a Thinking Supply Chain¹ defines what is supply chain
management by identifying the five “Cs” of the effective supply chain management of
the future:

 Connected: Being able to access unstructured data from social media, structured data from
the Internet of Things (IoT) and more traditional data sets available through traditional ERP
and B2B integration tools.

 Collaborative: Improving collaboration with suppliers increasingly means the use of cloud-

based commerce networks to enable multi-enterprise collaboration and engagement.

 Cyber-aware: The supply chain must harden its systems and protect them from cyber-
intrusions and hacks, which should be an enterprise-wide concern.

 Cognitively enabled: The AI platform becomes the modern supply chain's control tower by
collating, coordinating and conducting decisions and actions across the chain. Most of the
supply chain is automated and self-learning.

 Comprehensive: Analytics capabilities must be scaled with data in real time. Insights will be
comprehensive and fast. Latency is unacceptable in the supply chain of the future.
Many supply chains have begun this process, with participation in cloud-based commerce
networks at an all-time high and major efforts underway to bolster analytics capabilities.
Explore supply chain management thought leadership articles 

FUTURE OF SUPPLY CHAIN IN PAKISTAN

there is a good future of supply chain in Pakistan. Although currently there are not
many organizations which are optimizing their operations based on solely on
respective supply chain manager guidance. Supply Chain Management is still a new
concept in Pakistan but lot of Multinationals have already adopted this strategy and
have supply chain management departments in their organisations. With the passage
of time SCM would get the strength and more and more businesses will adopt the
model, particularly FMCG businesses have to adopt SC model to have competitive
edge in a fast growing consumers market like Pakistan.

SCM is also very vital for agro industries. .to make it very efficient and secure. .since
Pakistan is an Agricultural country. .SCM has a big scope here.

As we know functions of Supply Chain management are there in all businesses. .It is
just that we have to connect them in a chain and manage the supply for fast
increasing population and a middle class. ..and due to continue down fall in the
exports, Pakistan wants to have investment in export oriented products or
industries. ..For that SCM is a must to have a competitive advantage in global market

It may, wouldn't be robust phenomenon but it has all the potential to grow. .in
Pakistan like all other developing countries

Evolution of supply chain management

While yesterday’s supply chains were focused on the availability, movement and cost of
physical assets, today’s supply chains are about the management of data, services and
products bundled into solutions. Modern supply chain management systems are about
much more than just where and when. Supply chain management affects product and
service quality, delivery, costs, customer experience and ultimately, profitability.

As recently as 2017, a typical supply chain accessed 50 times more data than just five
years earlier. However, less than a quarter of this data is being analyzed.  That means the
value of critical, time-sensitive data — such as information about weather, sudden labor
shortages, political unrest and microbursts in demand — can be lost.

Modern supply chains take advantage of massive amounts of data generated by the chain
process and are curated by analytical experts and data scientists. Future supply chain
leaders and the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems they manage will likely
focus on optimizing the usefulness of this data — analyzing it in real time with minimal
latency.

Assignment # 2: What are the Major Challenges in Supply

Chain Management Today? How can you overcome
them? https://www.skubana.com/blog/future-of-
supply-chain
The following are 2021’s biggest supply chain challenges faced
by product-based businesses from all over the globe.

1. Material scarcity

Insufficient inputs have been a concern since the pandemic

began, due to an abrupt rise in consumer demand like never
before. Even now, companies and suppliers alike are struggling
to meet this demand in the midst of limited availability for many
parts and materials. In speaking to growth stage brands in our
network, we’ve encountered everything from furniture
manufacturers facing foam shortages to bike manufacturers
losing payment terms due to maxed out component suppliers. In
fact, a recent survey conducted by the Institute for Supply
Management (ISM) revealed ‘record-long lead times, wide-scale
shortages of critical basic materials, rising commodities prices,
and difficulties in transporting products across industries.

In light of these scarce inputs, a brand’s ability to sustain its

growth is highly dependent on working capital to weather
downtime and ramp up for peak seasons. 

2. Increasing freight prices

Contrary to initial expectations, the need for container shipping

has increased considerably throughout the pandemic. With
worldwide lockdown measures inciting a surge in eCommerce
sales, the response has been a greater import demand for raw
materials and manufactured consumer goods (a large
percentage of which are moved in shipping containers). And
since this demand was much more substantial than anticipated,
it was met with insufficient shipping capacity and an
unprecedented shortage of empty or available containers. 
As it often does, this scarcity has led to a spike in pricing. In the
last year, freight rates from China to the West Coast
have jumped by 240%.

3. Difficult demand forecasting

Demand forecasting in the middle of a global pandemic has

added a new layer of complexity to many companies’ supply
chain management. The onset of COVID-19 essentially
shattered the forecasts for countless retailers and suppliers of
consumer goods/services, leaving them without a guide as to
how much inventory to stock or manufacture at any given time.
The challenge, then, has come from trying to improve predictions
for customer demand, while in many ways having to rely on gut
instinct rather than data-driven research. 

In this situation, supply chain managers are encouraged to

abandon their bias, pursue new data sets for forecast models,
and continually refine their results for the greatest accuracy.

4. Port congestion

Port congestion caused by the pandemic remains one of the top

challenges for the world’s supply chains, seeing as port owners,
carriers, and shippers are collectively still scrambling for a viable
solution to this problem. Congestion occurs whenever a ship
arrives at a port but cannot load (or unload) because that station
is already at capacity. Although the loading/unloading process
typically goes according to plan, labor shortages and social
distancing associated with the pandemic has notably steered
things off course, creating major bottlenecks at a number of busy
global docks.

Due to this congestion and the backlog it has created, a myriad

of companies are unable to get their goods out the door on time
— which means carriers are also unable to adhere to their
specified delivery commitments.

5. Changing consumer attitudes

Consumer attitudes and behaviors have changed in some big

ways during the pandemic, as well, like lowering the threshold for
delivery times and raising the requirements for a positive
customer experience. The challenge comes in having an agile
supply chain that can harness the power of automations to
optimize fulfillment and handle accelerated demand with ease.
An excellent example of this supply chain flexibility comes from a
multichannel order fulfillment services and inventory
management software.

“The pandemic drove eCommerce demand to an all-time high.

While a rise in order volume was a plus for merchants, new
infrastructural needs and supply chain disruptions were major
points of concern and the subsequent focus for our clients.
Strategically, one of our biggest takeaways was the relationship
management with customers through shared product
forecasting, a defensive tactic that served to prevent negative
experiences and maintain brand integrity.”

— Daniel Gdowski, VP of Marketing at ShipMonk

6. Digital transformation

When it comes to supply chain operations, digital

transformation and IoT can be a mixed blessing. Still, there are
several technologies with potential to enhance the way we
approach the traditional supply chain, including: artificial
intelligence, drones and robots, electric vehicles, and on-demand
delivery. But even though these systems/services are intended
to make ecommerce processes more efficient and cost-effective
in the long run, the challenge lies in implementing them across a
company’s existing supply chain.

Supply chain management (SCM) is the process by which supply chain

activities are managed to have an advantage over competitors as well as
maximize the value of our customers. It basically represents the efforts by
which the supply chain management  solutions help to develop and manage
supply chain activities in the most efficient way. When we talk about supply
chain management, we also pertain to product development, sourcing of
materias, production of quality goods and logistics. With an efficient SCM
Software you will be able to manage the flow of easily.

By knowing the activities involved in the scope of supply chain management,

we can also identify the possible challenges and provide solutions to them.

1.Quality Customer Service

The supply chain management is centralized on the needs of the customers. It

is about giving the right quantity and the right quality of the product for the right
amount of money. All this, in perfect timing and setting.

Solution: It might seem simply, but on the contrary, it isn’t. Customers have
different preferences and we have to always adjust to the customer’s needs.
Being able to provide customers unique solutions make a difference entirely.
Companies that actually excel in this field are the ones that make an effort to
learn and invest in new technologies.

2.Costing

Globally speaking, the costs of raw materials, energy and labor have increased
due to economical constraints. In order for operations to continue production
and provide customers with good quality items at affordable rates, adjustments
have to be made to keep operations running.
Solution: The best solution to this issue would be improving your cost control
by executing your plans efficiently through constant monitoring. Through efforts
in providing warehouse efficiency you would be able to do so.

3.Risk Management

Due to the constant change in the market, coming from a variety of sources
such as consumer demands, political agendas and global sourcing, would
cause major issues to the operations.

Solution: Always be prepared with a risk management plan, on how your

company will be able to overcome disruptions during the course of operations.
By hiring a logistics software development company  you would be able to
manage these issues effectively with less effort on your end. After all, logistics
management is vital to the entire operation.

4.Supplier Relationship

By creating a mutually sound and harmonious relationship with your partners

or suppliers, you will be able to provide your customers with products of high
standards in a timely manner. This also allows you to create opportunities for
improvement in terms of performance.

Solution: By building a strong working relationship with your supplier, you

would be able to work efficiently and come up with a better output in a short
period of time.

5.Qualified Personnel

Over the years, it has become a challenge to find talent interested and
passionate about this line of work. Personnel hired in this field must have an
understanding about the duties and responsibilities needed.

Solution: Since locating dedicated personnel to work for this field has become
increasing hard to find, their market value will start to rise. Hiring and
promoting through in-house staff would be the most affordable solution at this
point.

6.Unforeseen Delays

Procurement of materials and products may be easy, but the delivery may not
always be 100% on time, especially with time differences and a variety of
shipping time frames. When items are sourced from different countries, delays
like this are very common.
Solution: Always have buffer stocks. Through an efficient warehouse
management system you are able to know when you need to have certain
materials delivered as well as create a time cushion in terms of delivery to
make sure everything runs smoothly.

7.Fast-Changing Markets

With technological advancements changing our markets everyday, it is quite

difficult to stay in pace and adapt to the variety of innovations in the market.
But because the goal is to stay efficient in these changing times, companies
would have to be more flexible.

Solution: Change is inevitable. The way we adapt to change is definitely

something we need to manage by using logistics management software. We
are able to move with the flow and improve our output as a whole.

Assignment # 3: Write a Project report on Supply Chain

Management Process for any local business, firm,
company or multinational company.