CHAPTER 3 : STRATEGIC INITIATIVES FOR IMPLEMENTING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of an interconnected or interlinked between network, channel and node businesses involved in the provision of product and service packages required by the end customers in a supply chain. Supply chain management spans the movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption. It is also defined as the "design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronizing supply with demand and measuring performance globally.

SCM draws heavily from the areas of operations management, logistics, procurement, and information technology, and strives for an integrated approach.

The four components of supply chain management are : 

• Four basic components of supply chain management include :
• Supply chain strategy - strategy for managing all resources to meet customer demand
• Supply chain partner - partner throughout the supply chain that deliver finished finished products, raw materials and services.
• Supply chain operation - schedule for production activities
• Supply chain logistics - product delivery process 

What is Customer Relationship Management (CRM)?

Originally used specifically for computer-based methods of tracking customer interactions, the term now refers to the practice of efficiently managing all aspects of customer interaction and the use of purchase history and other data to develop targeted marketing offers. CRM includes the storing of customer information in a database (or data warehouse) and using the information in a way that improves the customer's "experience".  Ideally this information is integrated into operational processes. Other than that, CRM can enable an organization to identify types of customers, design individual customer marketing campaigns, treat each customer as an individual, understand customer buying behaviors

What is Business Process Reengineering (BPR) ?

Business process re-engineering is a business management strategy, originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and processes within an organization. BPR aimed to help organizations fundamentally rethink how they do their work in order to dramatically improve customer service, cut operational costs, and become world-class competitors. In the mid-1990s, as many as 60% of the Fortune 500 companies claimed to either have initiated reengineering efforts, or to have plans to do so.

BPR seeks to help companies radically restructure their organizations by focusing on the ground-up design of their business processes. According to Davenport (1990) a business process is a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined business outcome. Re-engineering emphasized a holistic focus on business objectives and how processes related to them, encouraging full-scale recreation of processes rather than iterative optimization of sub-processes.

Business process re-engineering is also known as business process redesign, business transformation, or business process change management

What is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) ?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is business management software that allows an organization to use a system of integrated applications to manage the business. ERP software integrates all facets of an operation, including product planning, development, manufacturing processes, sales and marketing.

Below are the example of ERP model :