Logistics and Supply Chain Management for Cardinal Chocolates

This article discusses the supply chain management process for Cardinal Chocolates, a company that sources raw materials, manufactures chocolates, and distributes them through intermediaries to consumers. The article emphasizes the importance of cost leadership and quality control in maintaining competitiveness in the market.

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LOGISTICS AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
By (Name)
Name of the Class (Course)
Professor (Tutor)
The name of the School
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Introduction
A supply chain simply entails all the series of steps or levels that are involved from
getting a product into the hands of the customers from the initial conception that is the raw
materials (Ptak and Schragenheim 2016).
The whole supply chain begins with the supplier that is the businesses that furnish with
the raw materials. Cardinale Chocolates must have a reliable supply source of raw materials
whenever they require them. For the company to produce a quality product of chocolates, the
choice of raw materials should be of good quality. The vendors should also be loyal to the
company, not the ones that keep switching to other buyers of raw materials due to increase in
demand (Christopher 2016).
After the purchase of raw materials, the next supply chain by Cardinale Chocolates is
manufacturing. The process entails converting the raw materials into a consumable product
which in our case is the chocolates ready for sale. In this step, the company has to apply the cost
leadership which involves cost reduction on its production but keeping in mind the quality of the
product. By reducing the cost of production and maintaining quality will help the organization to
sell the chocolates produced at relatively cheaper prices to the buyers while on the other hand
giving them satisfaction due to the quality of the chocolates maintained. The strategy, after all, it
will help Cardinale Chocolates remain competitive in its market of operation (Aust 2015).
The final stage in the supply chain after manufacturing is distribution and marketing of
products. Cardinale Chocolates Company has to use different marketing strategies so as to
continue maintaining its market share. The marketing strategies may include for example
advertisement through media which includes media broadcasting that is the radio and television.

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Adverts can also be in form of newspapers and sales promotions through the road shows. After
marketing now distribution takes effect where it involves various intermediaries for example
wholesalers, distributors and the retailers.
Wholesalers can buy chocolates in large bulk from Cardinale Chocolates which helps
retailers in breaking of bulk where they can buy a quantity of their choice and who finally sells to
consumers. Distributors, on the other hand, will help Cardinale Chocolates Company in the
distribution of chocolates who buys them in bulk at cheaper prices and enjoys the profit from the
same (Jacobs, Chase and Lummus 2014).

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A DIAGRAM CAPTURING PHASES OF CARDINAL CHOCOLATES SUPPLY
CHAIN
Raw material producer.
Cardinal chocolates sources
their raw materials here from
the producer.
Raw material producer.
Cardinal chocolate company
Cardinal chocolate company who
are the manufacture or the
producer of the chocolates.
Cardinal chocolate company. Distributor
Wholesaler
Retailer
Consumers/customers

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There are two operations involved in the diagram which are upstream and downstream.
Upstream operations are those in where raw materials are flowing from their producer to the
cardinal chocolate company. Downstream operations are where the produced chocolates are
flowing from the producer company up to the final consumers of the chocolates.

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Reference
Aust, G., 2015. Vertical cooperative advertising and pricing decisions in a manufacturer-
retailer supply chain: A game-theoretic approach. In Vertical Cooperative
Advertising in Supply Chain Management (pp. 65-99). Springer, Cham.
Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Jacobs, F.R., Chase, R.B. and Lummus, R.R., 2014. Operations and supply chain
management (pp. 533-535). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Ptak, C.A. and Schragenheim, E., 2016. ERP: tools, techniques, and applications for
integrating the supply chain. Crc Press.