Ensuring the Flexibility and Continuity of Supplies in The B2B Market - Research Analysis

1 COMPARATIVE RESEARCH ANALYSIS
1.1 LITERATURE REVIEW (100 WORDS)
1.1.1 Ensuring the Flexibility and Continuity of Supplies in The B2B Market
(Research Article A)
To Provide Summary and to also answer the following:
 Did the author of the research article refer to other research articles?
 Theories or conclusions the author used from such other research articles, to support his own article
The discussion is based on how the supply flexibility issues affect the company performance. It also reflects the
dimensions of operations like the time, cost and quality. The focus is on how the mitigation of the supply or
demand disturbances result from the changes in the macro-environment and help in dealing with supply chain
risks.
The author has taken the reference from other articles as well where he discussed about the commonality, JIT
(Just-In-Time) purchasing etc. With this, the theories are mainly to deal with the internal and external risks for
sourcing facilities like the multiple sourcing, alternative transportation modes and internal collaboration with
integration to logistics.

1.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY (MARKET RESEARCH) (200 WORDS)
 Did the research comprise online surveys, face-to-face interviews or simply a review of other research
articles?
The in-depth interviews were conducted with reviewing the representatives of the manufacturing company who
operate in different sectors.
 Was the research qualitative versus quantitative? Sample size (number of data points) etc?
The research included the quantitative verification where the focus was mainly on conducting the interviews with
researched issue in more accuracy to determine supply flexibility and continuity. Sample size was 3 with different
managers in different manufacturing companies.
 Are the research methodologies very different for the different articles?
The research methodologies included the literature review and the interviews, whereas some of them also
included the clear check on the online surveys as well to understand the problems faced in the business.
 Why? What was the reason that the authors decided to use the same /different research methodologies?
For example:
To map the accuracy, the research is based on relationship with suppliers, and to make sure that there is a
flexibility and supply continuity in the business. The interview tool was effective enough to check on different
manufacturing companies who operate in B2B market.
 Was it because of the nature of the industry (e.g. Specialised industry), the size of industry, or sample size
of respondents (eg. Too small to get meaningful data from survey; so in-depth interviews were used)?
Yes, the in-depth interviews were important to check the views of different respondents in large and medium
manufacturing companies. The major criteria were to check whether there is a need for a mature approach with
operations in automotive, clothing etc.
 Was it because the author wanted more in-depth data from interviews (rather than online survey), with
more opportunities to ask more related questions if the respondents' answers trigger a follow-up
questions?
The author wanted to focus on the different operations in different sectors for both the domestic and foreign
markets. This would have only been possible through in-depth data.
 Or did the author prefer to obtain more “mass data” from a survey?
- Was it because of the time of research?
The data obtained by the author mainly focused on the ensuring of flexibility of supplies, its continuity with the
criteria set for the item, order value, location.