Think about the role of supply chain management and logistic

Think about the role of supply chain management and logistics in business and what some of the challenges companies might face when designing their supply supply chain. List out some of the challenges that you think impact a companies decision making regarding supply chain design.

Solution

Five major challenges which are faced by major firms in supply chain management are as below:-

The products have to be delivered at the location of the customers and it will require different things in different locations. There cannot be a universal strategy as each market has its own specific plan of action.

If the firms are willing to have the proximity to the highest volume markets, then they have to pay the higher cost of real estate.

Ever since 1980 when the logistics operations were taken over by the retailers so that they can establish their own distribution centers. It will create a lot of management and operational problems when the firms have to manager millions of locations from where deliveries have to be made worldwide.

Establishing the new facilities requires a lot of funds but if the outdated, cookie-cutter facilities are carried by the firms, it will hamper the agility of the organization.

The firms can face a lot of issues in developing facilities where the infrastructure is not adequate.

Thus from above, it is clear that the supply chain strategies are quite important for the firms to achieve its business strategy. Different firms are trying to come up with the new and latest concept in their supply chain model so that the bottom line of business strategy can be accomplished.

With the latest innovation in the drone delivery facility adopted by Amazon, it has created a lot of pressure on the other service providers such as UPS and FedEx to respond to this technological advancement. In order to deal with the strategy of Amazon, the other competitors can develop their own drone delivery system which is, in fact, a quite demanding thing to do with the limited period of time.

In fact, in order to give a tough fight or to defeat this ploy of Amazon, UPS and FedEx can add some more innovative features in their delivery drone. UPS is looking and planning to facilitate the improved object direction in its new drone as it is not efficient for the drone to depend only on the GPS location for the delivery of the products as there can be some issues of GPS malfunctioning.

Apart from this, all these major delivery firms can come together and form a delivery alliance or joint ventures so that they can use the technology more effectively and economically. In fact, these companies can look for preferred delivery time for the customers while delivering the products through the drone. They can also focus on improving their service quality for conventional delivery and can add more features and services for the customers.