Effective Supply Chain Management: Principles, Processes, and Integration

Supply Chain
Management

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
Supply chain management refers to the process of handling the entire flow of goods and
services that start from procurement of raw material component till its final delivery to the
customers. The whole system helps to create the strong network and link the chain from
suppliers till final customers. It basically encompasses the systematic planning, functioning as
well as execution of the processes material to derive the best possible value and maximize the
interest of customer within the marketplace (Almeida Marodin and Saurin, 2015). This whole
process broadly include demand forecasting, proper management of inventory, warehouse and
logistics in order endeavours competitive advantage. For better understeering Kellogg's
company of USA has been selected that provide the healthy cereals in order to improve the diet
of people. This is world leading company in terms of manufacturing the breakfast and has
expanded its operations in the 19 countries and come with different brands like Corn Flakes,
Pringles, Special K and so on. This report cover topics like application of supply chain
management concept as well as principles. Determine the importance of effective supply chain
management and interrelationship between supply chain and other areas of an organization.
Further, recommend the improvement of supply chain management strategy.
TASK 1
P1: Demonstrate the supply chain concept, principle as well as processes
Supply chain management focuses on the activities like planning, purchasing, storage,
product assembly, processing and distribution in order to meet the requirement of target
customers. The systematic way to transform the raw material into processed good and offer the
services to the customers helps the company to gain competitive advantage. In context to the
Kellogg's company makes significant effort to prepare the right product based on market
research which is done to evaluate the needs of customer in competitive market. They mainly
focuses on the Just in time inventory management under which they they bind effective supplier
supply relationship for effective sourcing, design and development of product. This is the useful
technique that help to store the large inventories which can add up further cost on company
(Behera, 2015). Thus, it is time and cost effective method that is successfully used by the
Kellogg's company.
Principles of Supply chain management:

There are certain essential principle of SCM that help in effective handling and moving
of product to the ultimate consumer. This helps to establish the effective network for the better
performance of different processes. Hence, explanation of different principles for supply chain
management are demonstrated below:
Adapt supply chain to meet customer's need: The company segment the mass market
into small groups to understand the need of specific group. Oncer the company understand the
need of customer as or the changing preferences the supply chain function to align the need of
target market. For instance, the Kellogg's understood the significance of servicing the healthy
and tasty breakfast in order to link with the need of huge market.
Customize the logistics network: Once the segmentation is done the other step is to build
the logistics network so that irrespective of the large distances the product reaches to the target
market effectively (Christopher, 2016). Kellogg's employee in terms of logistics has done the
partnership with logistics specialist like TDG that can easily transport the manufactured cereals
or other products to the customer.
Conduct demand planning: On the basis of past sales and the data gained by supply
chain professionals helps to forecast the demand effectively in order to avoid the chances of
keeping the unnecessary stock. As Kellogg's operate in different parts of the country and gained
huge acceptance to it make special precaution to build effective relation with the professional so
that they get the vital details and carry out functioning by maintaining the balance between
demand and supply.
Develop effective IT skills: It is vital for different food companies like Kellogg's to
adopt technical skills and use specialised software in order to manage the customer base. Along
with that this can help them to manage the innovative product design, and carry out the
innovation effectively.
Stages of supply chain management processes:
There are different steps on the basis of which supply chain management process need to
function in a sequential manner. Explanation of different stages are defined below:
Customer relationship management: As per supply chain management this process
helps to plan out effective process under which data is accessed and maintain the interaction with
customer in order to develop effective relationship.