Supply Chain Integration:
1) What is your opinion on DORIAN's ANSWER to the question below? Be sure to support your response with evidence and provide your sources, at least informally.
DORIAN's ANSWER:
"Today's business environment is characterized by a faster technological development, shorter product life cycle, and more intense global competition. This new competitive landscape forces organizations to actively acquire new way to achieve competitive advantage since a firm competitive advantage is now more dependent on operating efficiency and productivity across functional areas of the organization. Global competitors operating in a global market almost always tend to have worldclass performance. Having the right product available in the right place at the right time enables the company to compete in this volatile market place. However the resources competencies required are often difficult to mobilize and retain by single company. Therefore, it is imperative for companies to cooperate and leverage complementary core resource competencies through partnership-based coordination (Resse, 2005)." Companies today must partner with the upstream and downstream of the supply chain management. Suppliers and buyers must feel they are part of the team. The company today must develop the "win win" model throughout the supply chain in order to become competitive in the global market. Finally, the companies that are willing to share and integrate all systems in the main supply chain tend to become more successful using the team concept.
Anatan, L., 2006. Agile-supply chain: Competing through competitive excellence, Sinergi, 8 (1),13-21. Retrieved from:
https://www.academia.edu/2579454/SUPPLY_CHAIN_INTEGRATION_AND_SUSTAINABLE_COMPETITIVE_ADVANTAGE_COMPETING_THROUGH_PARTNERSHIP-BASED_COORDINATION
QUESTION: Why is supply chain integration important to organizations?
2) What is your opinion on KELLY's ANSWER to the Question above? Be sure to support your response with evidence and provide your sources, at least informally.
KELLY's ANSWER:
Supply chain integration can make all the difference for an organization. Planning and forecasting today has become such a huge factor in the efficiency of many business practices. "Supply chains are generally complex and are characterized by numerous activities spread over multiple functions and organizations, which pose challenges to reach effective supply chain integration. Supply chain management is an interdisciplinary topic that addresses diverse fields: materials management, quality, industrial market, purchasing, logistics, inventory, procurement, production planning, intra- and inter- organizational relationships, policy making, etc. Collaboration between buyer and supplier or building of a relationship lies at the core of supply chain (Maleki, M., & Cruz-Machado, V., 2013)."
Considering how far we have come in the supply chain management field, integrating with other organizations makes for many more added benefits. These benefits include but are not limited to building partnerships, predictability in sourcing, and timely arrivals. An organization that relies on other suppliers and services would be at a great disadvantage if they did not participate in supply chain integration. From the beginning stages of integration the benefits will be worth the extra mile; being linked in with the businesses you rely on and securing those relationships will also benefit the organization in many ways.
Reference:
Maleki, M., & Cruz-Machado, V. (2013). A REVIEW ON SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION: VERTICAL AND FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE AND INTEGRATION MODELS. Economics & Management, 18(2), 340-350. doi:10.5755/j01.em.18.2.2968.