Supply Chain Management: Importance, Barriers, and Solutions

This report summarizes the importance of supply chain management for organizations and discusses the barriers faced in its implementation. It also provides solutions to overcome these barriers. The report covers topics such as the control of product flow, benefits of supply chain management, examples of successful implementation, and barriers like lack of knowledge, trust, and system incompatibility. The solutions include proper training, upgrading systems, and investing in the correct areas.

Running head: Supply chain management: 0
Supply Chain Management
June 12
2019

Supply chain management: 1
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Supply chain management...............................................................................................................2
Barriers of Supply chain management.............................................................................................4
Solution to remove or minimize barriers in supply chain management..........................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

Supply chain management: 2
Introduction
This report summarize about the supply chain management and its importance for any
organization. The working concept of supply chain management is explained in brief its
examples. The research is conduct on two phenomenon related to supply chain management i.e.
barriers of supply chain management which affect the working efficiency of this process. In this
project the research is also conducted on the possible solution which can implement to minimize
the effect of barriers.
Supply chain management
The phenomenon which describes the control of flow of products or services, this service also
includes the process of transformation in which a raw material is converted into a product for the
distribution to customers is known as Supply chain management. In this method delivering of the
raw material to the company and make them available for the use of customer is controlled by
the supply chain management (Pettit, Croxton, and Fiksel, 2019). In this complete process the
pressure for the delivering the raw materials and its quality is not on the organization, it is all
outsourced by the third party companies. This helps company to reduce the cost of final product
and also it reach in limit of company fast.
Image Source: (Li, Holsapple, and Goldsby, 2019)

Supply chain management: 3
Importance of Supply chain management
Supply chain management plays important role for the satisfaction of customers and for
development of an organization. Some of the benefits of supply chain management are
mentioned below:
 It upgrades the customer service.
 By the help of Supply chain the financial condition boost up.
 It helps in reducing the production cost.
 This process helps to identify the satisfaction of customer.
By the help of supply chain management companies are able to reduce their cost on the
production (Michalski, montes, and Narasimhan, 2019). Manager of Supply chain communicate
with the logistics services and this process is consists of 5 different stages which are mentioned
below:
1. Strategy 2. Source of the Raw material 3. Production 4. Delivery 5. Return policy
The role of the supply chain manager is not only linked with the delivery and logistics service
but also have responsibility to provide suggestions related with quality and quantity of products
and their supply, to reduce the cost of product is also depend on the supply chain manager. If the
company will maintain the supply of goods in market then it will impact positively also it will
develop trust amongst customers (Saberi, Kouhizadeh, Sarkis, and Shen, 2019).
Examples of Supply chain management
One of the largest pharmacy company is united states of America ‘Walgreens Boots Alliance’
adapt the process of supply chain management in their operations and they obtained huge amount
of positive output also it impacts on the market value. In the year 2016 company implemented
technology of supply chain in their operation and they were able to collect the relevant data of
purchase history of customers which helps company to understand the demand of people. It also
helps company to deliver the medicines with in short time period with little waste which reduces
the production cost of company also increase in their productivity (Ardito, Petruzzelli, Panniello,
and Garavelli, 2019).

Supply chain management: 4
Barriers of Supply chain management
The barriers which were observed in supply chain management are mentioned below (Levering,
and Vos, 2019):
 Lack in knowledge of Information Technology ‘
 Lack in sharing of information
 Lack in trust
 Demand distortion
 System incompatibility
 Lack of knowledge
 Integration Cost
Lack in knowledge of Information Technology: Before implementing the technology in the
operation of organization there should be proper training has to be conducted
(Sridharan, ,Anilkumar, and Vishnu, 2019) because if it would be not done than it will lead to
failure of the implementation and instead of getting benefit the technology will impact in
negative way.
Lack in sharing information: After implementation of technology if supervisors not shares any
information about the technology to other employees (Vimal, Nishal, and Jayakrishna, 2019);
who will operate it than they have to face challenges to execute the software and tools.
Lack in Trust: Some company follows traditional aspects for growth and development of their
company they do not have trust on the technology and that is so why they do not implement in
their business process due to which employees over there have to face concerns related with the
record as they have to maintain the data manually.
Demand Distortion: Sometimes when due to lack in the collection of data related with the
customer demand is not available or get updated incorrectly than it affect the company in its
production of product (Lamba, Yadav, Barve, and Panda, 2019), either the product get less
manufactures in less quantity or may be too much which leads to wastage of the product and
company has to face loss.

Supply chain management: 5
Local Optimization: Although the companies are getting integrate their system with the
technologies in order to develop management system of the organization but on local scale
companies are not able to execute it hence the managers of other subsidiaries or headquarters are
not able to communicate due to which the actions cannot be taken and tasks get delayed which
impact on production of company.
Lack of Visibility: Some of the companies do not have a flawless supply chain management
system in process due to which managers of supply chain are not able to create complete data of
movement of raw material and process which is to be execute further. Supply chain is technology
which can be implement in system which is do not have any lack in visibility, because if there
would be no any proper visibility with data will available than the manager would not be able to
fulfill the demand of customers.
System Incompatibility: In some companies the system using in there operation are not
upgraded due to which the tools of the technology not work properly and it may give adverse
results to the company (Shi, Zhou, and Zhu, 2019).
Lack of Knowledge: The technology is new and not everyone have the proper knowledge about
the execution of tools which leads to incorrect performance of employee in operation (Andalib
Ardakani, and Soltanmohammadi, 2019).
Integration Cost: Technology of Supply chain management is high in implementation cost due
to which the company which have working on small scale and they not able to integrate the
technology with in their business (Costa, Denis Granja, Fregola, Picchi, and Portioli Staudacher,
2019).
Solution to remove or minimize barriers in supply chain management
There are few methods by which the barrier in supply chain implementation can be reduced.
Before implementing the technology the supervisors or the higher authority of the company
should be aware about the systems and devices of the company if they are not upgraded than the
implementation process will face trouble so the supervisors has to keep the data and analyze
them before implementation.

Supply chain management: 6
The proper training should be conduct to employees who will execute the tolls for the company
if there would be no knowledge of the software’s and tools than the employees will not be able to
work.
Supervisors of the company must be aware about the system and device are fulfilling the
requirement of the tools if the systems are not updated than it is the key responsibility of the
management to company and supervisors to upgrade the device with the requirement of the
technology so that all tools can work properly (Dyer, 2019).
Company where the traditional systems are follows employees of that company should have to
consult with their management to integrate the system with technology, they should have to
show and explain the challenges which are obtained while collection of any data.
The companies who have less revenue and working in the low budget they have to invest their
business and money in the correct area so that (Tura, Hanski, Ahola, Ståhle, Piiparinen, and
Valkokari, 2019) they can achieve their goals and can achieve good profit it will help them in
grow and to increase their revenue and thus they may invest the money for integration of the
supply chain management in their business.
Conclusion
In this report the discussion is made upon the supply chain and its importance for any
organization. It is the technology which is part of enterprise resource planning that helps to
collect the data relevant to business and operations, those data and statistics helps the company to
improve their working efficiency and to grow in the market with competition. The organization
can access the real time information of any task in their process and that can be access from
anywhere. The importance of this technology is that the work which employees had to perform
manually and that also not give the accurate details now can be performed without any hassle. It
reduces the cost of the company because fewer workers will require for operation. The
assignment also included with the barrier in the supply chain management as every technology
have some drawbacks or flaws which might impact on its results so by discussing the barriers
their remedies are also mentioned, in those remedies the solution is provided that how an
organization can overcome with barriers of the company. This technology is use to connect the

Supply chain management: 7
system with other tools of company which helps to work employees in better way which can
handle other operations of company such as HRM, finance, customer relationship management
etc. This technology provides a transparency in system to managers as they can easily track
records of customers and demand of customers can be fulfilled by analyzing the same. Supply
chain management help an organization in managing the finance, HRM, Customer relationship
management. Hence in last it is concluded that if knowledge about the technology is available
and people are skilled in the organization than this technology i.e. supply chain management will
leads organization to new heights.

Supply chain management: 8

Supply chain management: 9
References
Andalib Ardakani, D. and Soltanmohammadi, A., 2019. Investigating and analysing the factors
affecting the development of sustainable supply chain model in the industrial sectors. Corporate
Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(1), pp.199-212.
Ardito, L., Petruzzelli, A.M., Panniello, U. and Garavelli, A.C., 2019. Towards Industry 4.0:
Mapping digital technologies for supply chain management-marketing integration. Business
Process Management Journal, 25(2), pp.323-346.
Costa, F., Denis Granja, A., Fregola, A., Picchi, F. and Portioli Staudacher, A., 2019.
Understanding Relative Importance of Barriers to Improving the Customer–Supplier
Relationship within Construction Supply Chains Using DEMATEL Technique. Journal of
Management in Engineering, 35(3), p.04019002.
Dyer, J.A., 2019. Persuading Pacific Maritime Supply Chain Stakeholders to Prioritise Climate
Change Resilience. Handbook of Climate Change Resilience, pp.1-28.
Lamba, D., Yadav, D.K., Barve, A. and Panda, G., 2019. Prioritizing barriers in reverse logistics
of E-commerce supply chain using fuzzy-analytic hierarchy process. Electronic Commerce
Research, pp.1-23.
Levering, R. and Vos, B., 2019. Organizational Drivers and Barriers to Circular Supply Chain
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Li, X., Holsapple, C.W. and Goldsby, T.J., 2019. The structural impact of supply chain
management teams: Supply chain agility development in multidivisional firms. Management
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Michalski, M., Montes, J.L. and Narasimhan, R., 2019. Relational asymmetry, trust, and
innovation in supply chain management: a non-linear approach. The International Journal of
Logistics Management, 30(1), pp.303-328.

Supply chain management: 10
Pettit, T.J., Croxton, K.L. and Fiksel, J., 2019. The Evolution of Resilience in Supply Chain
Management: A Retrospective on Ensuring Supply Chain Resilience. Journal of Business
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Saberi, S., Kouhizadeh, M., Sarkis, J. and Shen, L., 2019. Blockchain technology and its
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