Free Assignment on Introduction to Supply Chain

Running head: INTRODUCTION TO SUPPLY CHAIN
INTRODUCTION TO SUPPLY CHAIN
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1Introduction to Supply Chain
Executive Summary
Here the company CCS is provided with a proposal of outsourcing a new support desk at Cape
Town. This report contains the full analysis of how the proposal is beneficial or not and what
performance measures should be kept in mind.

2Introduction to Supply Chain
Table of Contents
1.1 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1.2 Analysis.....................................................................................................................................3
1.3 Recommendation.......................................................................................................................6
1.4 Benchmarking the Support Desk...............................................................................................7

3Introduction to Supply Chain
1.1 Introduction
It is important for every business to carefully analyze the situation and performance
criteria before adopting any new proposal. In this report a proper analysis related to total cost and
chosen five performance criteria is done which will help the business to decide whether to invest
in Cape Town’s proposal or not.
1.2 Analysis
There are many criteria which is used to measure and compare the performance of any
proposal. Here CCS is going to utilize few performance criteria to analyze whether the new
proposal of Cape Town is beneficial or not. The following are some selected performance
criteria:
 Quantity of work: if CCS opens an online support desk in Cape Town, South Africa then
it will be easier for the company to easily reach their South Africa’s customers without
any extra charge. More and more customers can be attended in one time (Demartini
2014).
 Timeliness of work: if more customer’s queries are solved at a time it will help the
business as well as the customers to save their time and be more productive.
 Total Cost Analysis: the main thing is the cost, it is noted after the total cost analysis that
if new online support desk is opened in Cape Town where the total cost will be
$3,256,000 per year whereas if they continue to tackle the customers of South Africa
from Ontario and east then their total cost will be $3,300,000 which is $44,000 more. It is
beneficial for the business to accept the new proposal.

4Introduction to Supply Chain
 Quality of work: if the customers of same area are served then the quality of their service
will automatically increase. The employees of Cape Town are more knowledgeable and
more familiar with the new technologies (Yadav and Sagar 2013).
 Use of resources: when a new support desk is developed in near town then it will be
easier to get local resources at a relatively lower rate than importing it from other country
or area.
Relative weighting is done for the chosen performance criteria where total value is
provided with a rating. Here “1” is considered to be low priority and “9” is considered to be high
priority.
Total value Value percent
Quantity of work 8 25
Timeliness 5 16
Total cost analysis 9 28
Quality of work 6 18
Use of resources 4 13
Total 32 1000
In the above table it is seen that each of the five criteria are ranked according to their
priority and usefulness in the supply chain. Then the value percentage is calculated. Quantity of
work has 25% of the total proposal importance because if more customers can be served then
only the purpose of this new proposal will be fulfilled. 16% is from timeliness of work because
operating from Ontario and east was equal to Cape Town. Less percentage is from use of

5Introduction to Supply Chain
resource because it is secondary for their business. Quality of work consists 18% and total cost
analysis has the maximum percentage that is 28% because this is the main criteria which every
organization keep in mind to save their money yearly (Arif-Uz-Zaman and Ahsan 2014).
Weighted Decision Matrix is developed on the basis of the chosen 5 criteria in the below table.
Support desk
Ontario and east Cape Town
Criteria Weightage Score Total Score Total
Use of resources 1 3 3 2 2
Timeliness of work 2 5 10 5 10
Quality of work 3 5 15 5 15
Quantity of work 4 3 12 4 16
Total cost analysis 5 2 10 5 25
total 50 68
Here in the support desk both the branch names are written and all the five chosen criteria
are placed according to the weightage. This weightage depends on the importance level for the
support desk and adopting the new portal. After this both the branches are scored according to
the importance of that specific criteria (Harbou 2017). It is clear from the total value that Cape
Town has ranked more than Ontario and east on the basis of serving the customers of South
Africa. Cape Town can clearly serve way better than Ontario and east because it is easier to
reach the customers of South Africa from Cape Town than Ontario. The local cultural believes

6Introduction to Supply Chain
and demands are also very familiar with the employee who will work there and hence it is
important to accept the proposal of setting up a new support desk in Cape Town. The main
element which is total cost is way cheaper than Ontario and east hence it will benefit the business
as well as the customers of CCS.
1.3 Recommendation
After analyzing and evaluating the weightage of both the ranches as per providing service
to the South African people, it can be clearly recommended that CCS (Concol Customer
Services) should accept the proposal for developing a new support desk at Cape Town. This will
be easier and convenient for the employees to reach their clients and provide fast service on any
critical situations. The total cost in Cape Town will be much lesser than what it costs in Ontario
and east. The employees of Cape Town will be more knowledgeable and practically attentive
employees. Attentive employees can serve a lot more to their customers and there will be an
increment in the customer satisfaction and increase in the retention of customers. Resources will
be provided from the local areas at a very lower rate than importing them from other countries.
This also reduces the cost of sales for the business and customers will get a low cost service from
them and CCS will also earn more profit at that time. In terms of quantity of work, it will be
beneficial to outsource new support desk at Cape Town because as the employees are efficient,
there will be fast delivery of services, cost will be low for the customers and all of these will help
to serve more and more customers at a time which will attract more customers due to their fast
customer support. So it is suggested that CCS should accept the proposal for outsourcing new
support desk (Phadermrod, Crowder and Wills 2019).

7Introduction to Supply Chain
1.4 Benchmarking the Support Desk
Criteria 1 2 3 4 5
Rate of
escalation
received
Response
speed
Improvement
in
satisfaction
Assess
customer
feedback
In the above table four different types of benchmark criteria are provided where the
business can rank each of the criteria as per the performance in Cape Town. From 1 to 5 the
manager can rank the criteria where 1 is for poor performance, 2 is for average performance, 3 is
for more than average performance, 4 is for good performance and 5 is for best performance.
This will act as a benchmark to set future strategies to improve any of the skill by the
organization. All the four criteria are quantifiable in nature and hence they can be included to
include the numbers in the annual report as well (Dey and Cheffi 2013). After a full analysis the
ranking is provided to the employee and when any employee gets a good ranking overall then

8Introduction to Supply Chain
they are provided with recognitions and rewards and if any employee is provided with poor
ranking overall then they will be provided extensive training to improve their efficiency because
here customer is the king. It is very important for the business to maintain their reputation and
efficiency for every customer and focus more towards quality plus quantity rather than just
quality or quantity.
Rate of escalation received measures the number of complaints received by their client
when they are served with their service. A lot of escalation can be a bad sign of poor service
provided and less number of escalation will result in quality services provided. No customers can
be fully satisfied hence it is a part of job of receiving some amount of escalations. However, it
has to be limited. Response speed would be the speed of attending their customers and
escalation. If any employee is responding fast to his/her clients then they are considered to be the
efficient employees (Melnyk et al. 2014). This speed has to maintain with the quality of the
service. Only quantity is not the main focus rather quantity plus quality should be aimed by
every employee. Improvement in satisfaction is measured with the help of feedback received
from each client. If more and more clients are providing good rating to the employee then the
employee is noted as efficient and if the number of poor rating is more than the employee have to
work on their skills of providing service and increasing the customer satisfaction rate (McDavid,
Huse and Hawthorn 2018). Assess customer feedback this is another indicator for measuring the
performance level of the employees. Here the response provided by the customers are analyzed
and it is measured whether the response is positive or negative. If a lot of negative response is
received by any employee when they need to work on their service providing skill and try to
improve their efficiency. When any employee receives a lot of positive responses then they are

9Introduction to Supply Chain
given recognitions and rewards. Because it is customer centric business and hence customer’s
satisfaction is the main thing which this business mainly focuses upon.
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Arif-Uz-Zaman, K. and Ahsan, A.N., 2014. Lean supply chain performance measurement.
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management.
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10Introduction to Supply Chain
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