Question

1.. Discuss situations in which each of these supply chains might be the appropriate choice for a firm:
-   international distribution systems
-   international suppliers
-   offshore manufacturing
-   fully integrated supply chain

2. Discuss a recent example of an unknown-unknown risk that proved damaging to a supply chain. (Hint - Coronavirus could be a good one to use.) Explain how each of these could have mitigated this risk:
- Investments in redundancy
- Increase velocity in sensing and responding
- Creating an adaptive supply chain community

3. Discuss one example each of a regional product and of a true global product. What it is about the product that makes it better suited to being regional? How about to being global?

Answer 1

1. Supply chain management in the global domain is the same as handling the domestic supply chain and is distributed across broad geographic areas. With few foreign suppliers, the foreign supply chain will run from the domestic business to the integrated global supply Chain.

A) International domestic-production export happens as small business wants to grow internationally to meet the global market. Business MM manufactures shoes in the domestic country and markets them through international distribution system in different countries.

B) The supply chains of foreign manufacturers are sufficient when the goods are too complex and require experience and resources to produce the different components. Example is aircraft production needs different suppliers from various countries to supply specific components.

(C) Production offshoring is done to reduce the high labor costs in labor intensive industries. Company NN subcontracts its shoes-making production units to numerous factories in different countries, hiring more than thirty thousand employees.

D) A fully integrated supply chain is essential for companies executing a versatile global supply chain strategy in a highly competitive atmosphere. Organizations which aim to move production from country to country in order to reduce risk or costs. Personal computer manufacturer is one good example.

2. Coronavirus is a great example of an unknown danger. His information and incident were both new to the general public and as a result it came as a surprise. The pandemic was abrupt and came out of the blue, pretty much. It is typically difficult to minimize such risk, naturally. We could however look at the options listed below.

a) Redundancy investment: The pandemic impacted supply chain in a way that shut down its borders and ports through separate sovereignties. It has influenced the global supply chain, and has also had a major effect on the local supply chain. Investment in infrastructure could have been achieved by increasing inventory rates. Therefore the local supply does not have to rely on the global supply. For instance, in the US the situation with PPE and masks. Don't have enough of them. If the hospitals had stored their stocks or had the policy of keeping large inventories, then the shortages would have been resolved to some extent.

b) Increase in sensing and reacting speed: The only solution that now seems to be able to contain the pandemic seems to be social distancing and locking up a area. Countries that reacted quickly by locking off the entire state did better. Countries in South-East Asia did decently well. At the other hand, the USA has been late in responding and has the largest number of deaths due to Coronavirus right now.

c) Creating an adaptive supply chain community: The problem with this mitigation strategy is that it is difficult to prepare for the occurrence when the danger is unknown-unknown. The concept of an adaptive supply chain can be different. We can use Amazon's Drone Delivery program as an example. This could be a logistics solution for the last mile distribution and thus could be classified as a part of the adaptive supply chain. However, in this lockout, sourcing, manufacturing and development have all taken a pounding and therefore it is almost difficult to build an efficient supply chain network in advance.

3. Regional items are TV sets, medical goods, pizza. These have to be adapted to the culture and taste and technology of destinations. For example: A pizza is completely different from a pizza in Italy in US, Israel or India. And it's tailored to various markets for the tastes.

Without much variation, for example: Apple I Phone or big electronic products, luxury cars like Ferrari, BMW and Benz, a truly global product is embraced everywhere.

Some of the factors that influence what makes a product successful are:

Brand recognition: Some products have built a common identity of consistency and desirability that they do not need to be tailored to regional and national tastes. This applies in particular to luxury brands such as Ray-ban sun glasses which sell the same design globally.

Cultural differences: Some products represent long-term practices and/or a certain regional taste established over time, and fall into the category of region. A lot of food items fall here, so it's even harder for these goods to get internationally recognized. For eg, Hyderabad Dum biryani is a favorite recipe to be widely accepted worldwide in India, or Kebobs in the Middle.

Standardization: One of the main criteria for being a global commodity is standardization. Market electronics and the production of computers are good examples of regular goods. The sophistication of these products demands worldwide standardization, which makes them multinational products.

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