Corporate Strategies and E-commerce in Supply Chain Management

This document discusses the impact of e-commerce on corporate strategies and supply chain management. It explores how companies can strengthen their supply chain through e-commerce platforms and the importance of proper analysis and planning for e-commerce site preparation. The document also includes a case study on Spotify's mission, vision, business model, internal and external environment, and digital strategic decisions. Another case study focuses on Wal-Mart's issues of shrinkage and its efforts to control theft through advanced monitoring systems.

E-COMMERCE

TABLE OF CONTENT
PART A.......................................................................................................................................................3
PART B.......................................................................................................................................................4
CASE 1....................................................................................................................................................4
CASE 2....................................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................8

PART A
1. Corporate strategies of any company are mainly among growth strategy, diversification
strategy and stability strategy. Organizations need to maintain a balance between these for
developing its corporate strategies and supply chain management. For instance, if a restaurant
X, decided to expand its business or select the strategy of corporate growth, then it need to
expand its supply chain management as well (Castillo, Vincent et al. 41). It will facilitate the
restaurant to accumulate desired raw materials timely.
2. The strategic planning process of any company is affected by the inclusion of internet and e-
commerce. All the business assessments carried out to analyze the external threats of
substitutes, new entrances etc. Internet and all e-commerce are supporting all the decision-
making processes, formulation and implementation of plans (Brdesee, Hani et al. 488).
Through e-commerce platforms all business transactions are getting supported with a higher
involvement of IT infrastructure. Through internet, it has become convenient for companies
to approach investors and other suppliers.
3. Companies’ supply chain can be strengthened by the inclusion of e-commerce platforms.
Numerous of business activities related to supply chain management can be enhanced by the
e- commerce as it is high cost effective and increase accuracy (Craig, Nathan et al. 468). The
supply chain can be streamlined by e-commerce platforms through strategic communication
with customers as well as suppliers, with reduction of geographical limits and operational
costs; any organization invests more to its supply chain to deliver real time services to its
customers.
4. For an e-commerce site preparation, there must be a proper alignment of analysis, research,
web designing and planning. The primary tasks which needs to be perform is the in-depth
analysis and strategic planning and selection of proper digital platforms. For example, any
clothing company needs to develop its e-commerce site for which strong analysis with
suitable research regarding the selection of web developers and web designers is highly
required. Similarly, the implementation of plan may become successful by selecting suitable
teams and proper conduction of analysis and researches (Turban, Efraim et al. 370).
5. Designing mobile web pages are more critical than traditional one. The developers need to
design mobile web page with extreme modulation to make it desktop or device friendly. To
facilitate users, the web page designers have to increase accessibility of the content through a

click (Abbey, James et al. 72). Mobile web pages are less likely to get crashed or hindered
with ample amount of advertisements. Traditional web pages have good space for handling
multiple windows which is comparatively difficult on a mobile web page.
PART B
CASE 1
a). The mission of “Spotify Company” is to give preferences to human creativity and to increase
the opportunities for artists to embrace and live their interest. It has a vision of increasing
customers’ experiences through the help of artistic and professional creators. Along with it,
the company’s vision has also laid emphasis on global cultural preferences to music lovers
(Wiegandt and David 180). In terms of company’s vision, Spotify has reached up to various
talent pools and has cooperated with different workforces of variant cultures.
The mission and vision of the company is being successfully aligned toward its priorities of
business expansion and providing significant opportunities to the music and art lovers. It is
being incorporating with a wide network of stakeholders, users and accessibility. The
company has increased its value proportion as per its vision and mission with the
development of highly customer-centric services. Therefore, the priorities of company have
been emphasized within its vision and mission statements.
b). Company’s principle business model incorporates a stream of about 35 million songs storing
it into the personal servers. It purchases the license from the artists, labels and other
stakeholders. Its model of business is dependent upon P2P network and all the songs and
audio files are saved in the format of Vorbis.
The revenue is sourced by two ways, one is by advertisements and other is by subscriptions.
Ample amount of revenue is generated by Spotify through premium subscriptions which were
priced at 14 dollars in year 2014 (Inupakutika, Devasena et al. 8). Different advertisements
played by its application that are audio, video, branded playlists etc. generate a considerable
amount of revenue to the company.

c). Spotify’s internal environment is getting affected by elements such as: The Dependency of
internet connectivity and technologies has made the internal environment of the company
considerably weak. All the business activities of Spotify rely only on the internet and other
sound technologies frameworks.
Involvement of computing systems has been increased in the business activities of company
which has developed the requirements of IT professionals. Moreover, high amount of capital
is needed for the procurement and management of such technologies.
Factors affecting the external environment of company are: Legal and political instabilities
within global markets and inclusion of governmental reforms to develop required license are
some concerning issue for external environment of Spotify. The legal requirements of
different countries and laying down the emphasis on legal terms and condition of third-party
applications and devices also need to be considered (Mulligan and Christina 236).
Due to increasing competition within international markets and the entrance of new
companies with more sophisticated and advanced technologies, the company is facing
considerable competition.
d). Regarding digital strategic decision, it is recommended for the Spotify Company to employ
advanced vendors and stakeholders as well as to cooperate with more IT partners. The digital
strategic decisions may be given to Spotify Company in terms of enhancing its digital and
content marketing which need to cover the social media platforms (Aversa, Paolo et al. 35).
Apart from this, the company may also launch some fully owned devices or hardware and it
can also opt to build its own operating system to reduce its dependency on companies like
Apple and Google.
Digital crises should also need to be managed by the company in terms of engaging
communities, educating them and various actions. Online and digital platforms must be
properly used to increase the brand recognition to a greater extent. Because of highly
developed an equipped IT infrastructure, the company may launch its own contents and
services and deliver it to the customers through suitable channels and mode in order to
cultivate a more competitive framework.

e). In terms of site design and structure, the company has laid all the possible elements to
facilitate its users. It has developed a user-friendly website displaying everything about the
services and products. All the information related to specifications and customization for the
packages, premiums and other significant details.
The page design is soothing and includes various attractive punch lines that significantly aim
to target the users in a positive way. Content of the website is highly approachable for its
customers as well as the new users. All the content is prepared to assess every possible query
of customers, artists and other vendors. The principle of easy connectivity and user interface
has reflected within its contents and web page design.
CASE 2
1). Wal-Mart is suffering from major business incidents of shrinkage and the main cause of this
issue is the existence of theft going on within its stores. Due to increasing level of thefts from
its stores which may be done through professionalized rings of thieves, manipulation in
inventory calculations and poor security measures. In last few years, the company has faced a
considerable loss of revenue due to theft.
The major cause is the shoplifting and poor management of inventory and other detailed
security functions. Wal-Mart has sufficiently laid down its emphasis on increasing its
security but the preventive measures have not proved to be sufficient to reduce this shrinkage
(Inupakutika, Devasena et al. 9). Driver of shoplifting and theft may have been increased due
to the increasing consumption of drugs among teenagers. Another root cause of shrinkage is
the lack of managerial functions by the managers of the company. Wal-Mart does not have
properly trained workers to combat with such business instances.
2). Wal-Mart has been paying attention and is becoming detail oriented to cope up with the
issues of shrinkage. Since last few years, the system of Wal-Mart has incorporated more
effective and efficient monitoring system to control the theft and drivers of shrinkage. With
the use of advanced digitalized systems to regulate all the procedures of monitoring.
Furthermore, Wal-Mart has also incorporated the usage of RFID tags to control the instances
of thefts within the stores. It has also increased the level of training for its employees and
workforce to control and prevent thieves and related activities. The company has also

increased the usage of business intelligence systems to manage inventory. Wal-Mart has
initiated to invest a large portion of its capitals to increase its technologies and have started to
develop in-house training functions for its employees (Fan, Tijun, et al. 122).
3). Wal-Mart can effectively build its monitoring system strong by the inclusion of advanced IT
infrastructure. Furthermore, internal environment of Wal-Mart needs to have a business
culture providing fully fault free services. Employees must be trained enough to regulate and
assess the instance of theft and other faulty situations by their own.
The company must develop a digital and technology-based asset protection program to pay
greater attention towards the calculative errors, missing goods, tracking the supplies. There
need to be an adequately equipped product monitoring system to control the problem of
shrinkage.

REFERENCES
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