Importance of Supply Chain Management in Global Business: A Case Study of Clarks Footwear

This report analyzes the supply chain network of Clarks Footwear, a heritage company in the UK retail industry. It discusses the importance of supply chain management in the global business context and highlights the company's sustainable supply chain, quality management, and customer relationship management strategies. The report also examines the challenges faced by the logistics and supply chain experts in distributing the company's flagship Desert Boots across the globe.

GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN
MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION
• The purpose of this following report is to measure the importance
of the supply chain network in the global business context.
• The supply chain management is considered to be one of the most
important issues for the firm performance. The chosen organization
for this report is the Clarks Footwear that is based in the United
Kingdom.
• They are considered to be one of the oldest and most trusted
international shoe manufacturers in the country. The headquarters
of this organization is situated at Somerset in England
(Clarks.co.uk 2018).
• The company operates in the retail industry and it is a heritage
company indeed.

SUPPLY NETWORK
• A significant part of the production process of Clarks is their supplier selection.
Supplier selection is also an integral plan of the cost optimization plan of the
production team of the company.
• Clarks shoes maintains a typically complex supply chain. The supply chain of
the company sprawls across continents, thereby making overseas sourcing or
making optimized inventory management.
• In the words of the chief executive of the company, Mike Shearwood, there is
an acute need to substantiate and supplement the supply chain of the
organisation.
• They have decide to manufacture one of their signature product that is desert
shoe of Clarks, by 300000 units per annum from an automated production unit
in the Somerset factory at UK.
• The approximate expected demand from the leading shoe manufacturing brand
of UK is 50 million pairs every year. As opined by Brandenburg et al. (2014),

QUALITY MANAGEMENT
• Quality management is also an important part of the supply chain
management of the organization.
• The technological innovations that the new supply partners of the
company are bringing with them are going to reduce the operational
cost of the company also.
• The new facility of the company in Somerset will include an
automated stitching facility also that would be called the Track line.
• According to Busse, Kach and Bode(2016), many of the high profile
companies like Adidas also use automated stitching facility in their
production process.
• Sportswear companies bring precision and calibre to their products by
means of this automated stitching facility (Wang & Cullinane, 2015).

LEAN PRODUCTION
• At the end of the useful lives of the foot wears of UK. The
products are disposed. As opined by Fahimnia, Sarkis and
Davarzani (2015), this disposal causes a big source of
environmental pollution form the harmful chemicals that are
used in tanning of leather.
• The organisation has a policy for collecting various used shoes
of their brand and utilizing these for manufacturing of other
products as cork bases or other padding covers.
• Besides the company is now using bio-plastic for making the
shoe bases, a material that goes in as an successful replacement
of the petrochemical plastic that have been used in the products
of the company for so many days.

SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN
• It is very important to denote the fact that supply chain
management will be very important for the company to distribute
their Desert Boots among the people within the UK since their
flagship Desert Boots will be manufactured in India and
Vietnam.
• It is a great challenge for the logistics and supply chain experts
to carry out this strenuous job of distributing the shoes across
their physical stores and delivering them through online orders
as well.
• They must look to build a sustainable supply chain management
for the company so they can build a proper supply chain across
their customer networks (Elliott 2012).

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
• Another very important aspect of the better profits and
sustainable supply chain management of Clarks Footwear
will be building the good customer relationship
management that will be effective for the development of
the brand reputation for the company (Stone 2012).
• They must provide the better connection with the customers
so the customers can be able to provide the feedback to
them. Clarks Footwear has always built up a proper global
platform so they can be able to provide the best customer
relations and ask to the customers for the improvement
process of the company (Kumar and Reinartz 2018.).

CONCLUSION
• This paper can be concluded by saying that the Desert Shoes are the iconic
products of the company and they would like to produce the things in United
Kingdom at their headquarters at their headquarters.
• Eventually it would require the proper supply chain network across the globe.
• This would help the company to achieve the sustainability indeed. The company
would look to build up a strong customer relationship that would be the key
thing for increasing the profits.
• The organization should always build a proper strategy in this context so they
fulfill the orders of the customers.
• The manufacturing of the products through the robot assisted mechanism can
increase the unemployment in the country and affect the social balance as well.
• It will be highly important for the company to capitalize on their heritage and
take proper steps to gain the interest of the customers.

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