Supply Chain Management and Technology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Supply Chain Management and Technology - Essay Example Today with the down fall in economy and the increase in the costs the companies are planning to have a strong and an effective supply chain in their bottom line. The reason is that the implementation of a strong supply chain at the bottom will ensure that the cost is decreased along the production line and the management is effective. However these decreases in the costs and effective management will ensure that the efficiency of the firm gets increases and the profitability and the return on the investment increases. Implementation of Enterprise resource planning in an organization works best in conjunction with a supply chain management system. ERP systems involve a multitude of business activities, including customer service and production planning that are not a part of supply chains (de Burca, Fynes, & Marshall, 2005). The success of supply chain management system lies in the hands of the technology. It can be only successful with the implementation of web- based software and through proper communication. Before the internet the supply chain could not function appropriately the reason is that the collaboration with the other firms was less efficient. The process of feed backs, updates and other important business functions used to take a lot of time. The process of transferring knowledge was all done manually which took time. Collaboration with global partners used to be a challenge for the organizations. But with the introduction of internet and new communication technologies that include email, fax etc. the communication and knowledge and information transfer issue was completely resolved. One of the biggest advantages that the technology has offered to supply chain is the ease of collaboration no matter how distant the customer, the supplier or any other organization is. This helped in developing good relationships at both ends of the supply chain which includes the customers as well as the suppliers. The companies can now also remain updated with their competitors' activities. For example a supplier of consumer goods may be linked up through internet to one of the distributors. In this way whenever the inventory goes down the order will be placed automatically. in this way, the distributor never has to worry about running out of a product and disappointing customers and the supplier doesn't have to worry about maintaining a large inventory in expectation of demand. Systems have also been made to send out multiple requests at a single time. Collaborating this way makes better use of existing resources and paves the way for a larger profit margin on all sides of the eq uation (Chow, 2006). The Importance of Technology Technology today has made both outsourcing and off shoring much easier tasks than they were initially. In a very strong supply chain and a very elaborative business it is sometimes considered good to outsource certain business functions. This helps in saving upon a lot of costs at times. Technology today like internet and some systems have made the task of outsourcing much easier. For outsourcing a task