Supply Chain Management: Overview and Case Studies

This document provides an overview of supply chain management and discusses its application in Indian pharmacy companies, Patanjali, and Akshaya Patra. It explores the challenges faced by these organizations and suggests solutions using the SCOR model. The document also highlights the unique supply chain strategies employed by Patanjali and the stages of the supply chain in Akshaya Patra. Case studies and technological advancements in supply chain management are also discussed.

Supply Chain Management
An overview
Student Details
5/26/2019

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Answer one
As the question suggested, the supply chain of Indian pharmacy based companies are
facing many problems. The problem is related to the scarcity of the medicines at the
hospital and retailers; quality of medicines is below standard and easy availability of
forged medicines. In order to remove the problems in Indian pharmacy, the supply chain
of these companies should be improved. This can be possible with the use of the SCOR
model.
Source: Supply Chain Operations Reference Model (E.N.Ntabe et al., 2015)
Supply Chain Operations Reference model is the official standard of Supply Chain
Council and used to manage supply chains. This model is a cluster of some activities
that focuses on the improvement of supply chains. This model can help Indian
pharmacy to improve its supply chain (E.N.Ntabe et al., 2015).
With the help of this supply chain, model the pharmacy companies can look into their
supply chains and make changes accordingly. According to SCOR model, the company
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should plan mainly three factors that are suppliers of the raw material of medicines,
customers for purchasing the finished products in this case medicines and the channels
it will going to use for these two activities (Jack, 2012). This model suggests that
pharmaceutical companies should choose from before only the source of ordering and
returning of raw materials from suppliers. This can help them in the selection of effective
and efficient suppliers, which does not involve forgery, and the quality of medicines can
be maintained. On the other hand, companies should also choose its way of delivering
manufactured medicines to customers and ultimate consumers and accepting returns
with the preparation of effective channels from before only (Min et al., 2011).
Source: Supply Chain Management for Pharmaceutical Companies (Jack, 2012)
This will help these pharmacy companies in removing the scarcity of medicines from the
market and getting their medicines easily available for the concerned hospital and other
customers. This can also reduce the forgery of medicines as the suppliers, the channel
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of supplying, customers and the company with proper evaluation of every step already
decides the channel of reach out to customers.
Answer Two
Patanjali is a company, which is established in India in recent years. It already has
gained a competitive advantage over other companies serving in this type of industry
(Sengar et al., 2017). The company focuses on producing herbal and ayurvedic
products for its consumers in order to provide a product without the use of harmful
substances in it. The supply chain used by the company for distribution of its products is
also unique (Blackburn et al., 2013).
The company uses the chain similar to supply chains of traditional ayurvedic companies
like Kottakal Arya Vaidya Sala and Arya Vaidya Sala. In the supply chain of this
ayurvedic sala, they sell their product from own shops at every 200 to 400 sq feet. It
makes their network vast. With this view, Patanjali used similar supply chain, without
giving their products to individual shopkeepers at starting the company focused on
establishing their own shops by giving franchises in all over India with every shop at
small distances between them (Kumar et al., 2014).
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Source: Pictograph showing the distribution Chain of Patanjali (Kumar et al., 2014)
The difference between the supply chain of those ayurvedic sales and Patanjali is that
they used actual physicians for distribution of their products to final consumers;
however, Patanjali uses actual businesspersons as retails in order to distribute their
products and achieving profits as well.
They have also started distributing their products with the help of local retail shops in
nearby markets and some mega-marts. This makes clear that the distribution channels
of Patanjali are consist of two-tier and three tiers, involving franchise and small retail
ultimately. In two-tier distribution type, the company uses direct franchise options, by
providing a license to businesspersons for selling of Patanjali products only through
Patanjali stores. On the other hand, in the three-tier type of distribution, the company
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sales its products through more than one agent in between the network, which transfers
the product to end consumers.
Answer Three
a. The stages of the supply chain of TAPF is divided into three parts, first is, the raw
material for the manufacturing of food is delivered to the main kitchen of Akshaya
Patra. This is done with the help of various local mandi suppliers, farmers and
delivering agents. The second stage is to deliver the cooked food to schools
(Mahadevan et al., 2013). This is a very crucial part as the food should be healthy
and should not be spoiled.
Source: Supply Chain Stages of TAPF (Akshaya Patra) (Mahadevan et al., 2013)
A perishable item needs to be delivered within some range of time. Therefore, for
this purpose, there are widely spread franchisees of Akshaya Patra in every city of
the country even in some small villages also (Bigliardi, 2013). The last stage is not
fixed at some time from Akshaya Patra the food is delivered to delivering agents and
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from them, it gets to schoolchildren for final consumption. This chain of agents is not
present in every Akshaya Patra unit, however in order to deliver food as fast as
possible the need of these agents is being generated nowadays.
b. It is already mentioned above that TAPF is a very big chain of supplying lunch to
millions of schoolchildren in an efficient and effective manner. In the previous
question, three stages of the supply chain of this organization are discussed,
however, the supply chain of the organization can become more productive and
smooth with the help of various technologies (Ardito & Messeni, 2019). Nowadays
many advanced technologies are taking place in the market. It can be related to
transportation, packaging, food production, delivery, etc. with the help of advanced
technologies in these areas the company accomplish its mission effectively. the
company recently also made a collaboration with Accenture company in order to
technologies its functions.
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