Detailed Report: Bentley Motors Supply Chain Challenges and Solutions

This report provides a detailed analysis of Bentley Motors' supply chain management, focusing on the challenges and opportunities within the luxury automotive industry. It begins with an introduction to Bentley Motors, its global presence, and its product offerings, followed by a review of relevant operations, logistics, and supply chain management theories, including value chain analysis. The report then examines the primary and support activities within Bentley's value chain, such as inbound and outbound logistics, operations, marketing and sales, services, and technological development. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to identifying the operational obstacles Bentley faces, particularly in the context of transitioning to electric vehicles and managing supply chain disruptions. These challenges include high battery costs, the need for specialized training, the impact of Brexit, dependence on specific suppliers, and a shortage of skilled supply chain professionals. The report concludes with recommendations for improving supply chain efficiency, such as lowering distribution costs, diversifying the workforce, and improving communication. The analysis highlights the importance of effective operations, logistics, and supply chain management for Bentley's continued growth and success, especially in the face of technological advancements and changing market demands.

Supply
chain

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Review of applicable operations logistics and supply chain management theories...................3
Application of proper operations management solutions for obstacles faced by the company..5
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................7
RECCOMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................7
........................................................................................................................................................8
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The automotive industry faces several barriers in functional area of operations and
logistics. Supply chain management is an important aspect of an organisation and deals with
effective management of every procedure involved in conversion of raw material into finished
goods or services. The organisation selected for this report is the British auto-mobile
manufacturing company Bentley Motors Limited which was founded in 1919 and has 4000
employees in their headquarters at Crewe, Cheshire. The organisation is present in 58 market
globally and produces luxury vehicles such as Continental GT along with SUV like Bentayga .
The company has been a symbol of elite society in the British culture for long time due to the
association of their cars with the British royal family and the fictional character of James bond
This report includes detailed description of applicable operations, logistics and supply chain
management theories along with discussion about barriers faced by the company in the area of
procedure of new goods development and management of employees in operations and supply
chain. Solutions and recommendations for removing such obstacles are also provided in this
report.
Review of applicable operations logistics and supply chain management theories
Value chain analysis of Bentley
The value chain analysis is an important theory which gives the company information
related to operations conducted by the company for building and delivering products to the
consumers and helps the company understand ways to gain competitive advantage by improving
efficiency across al the aspects of their operations.
Primary activities
Inbound logistics: This phase of the value chain analysis is concerned with acquiring
raw materials for production of goods. The raw material required to build luxury vehicles is
mostly comes from Europe and Germany. Every sheet of wood and leather is purchased from
best suppliers and checked for quality (Bozarth and Handfield, 2016) . Wood used in production
of vehicle comes from same tree to assure equality in pattern and colour of the interior.
Operations: The respective organisation builds more than 9000 vehicles annually with
aggregate construction of 26 continentals 5 Mulsannes and 31 Bentaygas daily. This lengthy
process of vehicle construction is attributed to the various checks and audits conducted by the
company in order to guarantee quality of each car (Brindley, 2017) . These checks include drive

test to eliminate delivery of below average products to the market. Involvement of expert
mechanics with years of experience in car manufacturing gives human element to production
stage and increases the premium image of their goods.
Outbound logistics: The luxury car producer uses both closed and open transport ways
for distribution of their vehicles across the globe. The company distributes their products
through shipping, roadways and air transportation in case of special orders (Giannakis and
Papadopoulos, 2016) . The company selects experienced transportation providers for distribution
of their larger and heavier vehicles to far of places. The company has currently recruited Ontime
Automotive for effective distribution of their luxury cars to US UK Russian and Japanese
markets. The company sells their cars through offline showrooms and online commercial sites
which are constructed in accordance with elite brand image of the company.
Marketing and sales: The organisation aims to maintain their brand value of premium
cars which is reflected in their promotional campaigns as the company does not indulge in
aggressive advertising strategies and aims the elite class as their target consumer. To interact
with their consumers the organisation has easily accessible website along with presence on
various social media platforms such as Facebook and twitter (Gupta, Kusi-Sarpong and Rezaei,
2020) . The organisation uses their 100 year old heritage and participates in various motor-sports
to increase the association of their cars with swift and fastest auto-mobiles. The organisation also
promotes their products through classic charterers in cinema such as James Bond by giving the
film franchise permission to use the products of the company as the vehicle for their titular
charechter.
Services: the organisation offers their customer numerous services such as customisation
of their car interior, fitting Bentley child safety seats upon special orders . The company gives
their clients maintenance services and encourages them to replace old or broken parts by
purchasing original parts from their dealerships stores instead of using duplicates to achieve
maximum satisfaction. Apart from this special equipments with employees who are experienced
with repairing Bentley vehicles are present at their stores which are able to repair the auto-
mobile with full expertise (Kshetri, 2018) . The company has constructed feedback channels in
the form of regional communication heads to understand the issues of the consumers and
improve their operations according to interests and expectations of the consumer.
Support activities

Technological development: The respective company is heavily depended on technology
for providing their consumers the fastest and accurately produced vehicles with no room for
mediocrity. The organisation uses special tools for building their world renowned engines which
are crafted by skilled mechanics (Li, 2020) . The organisation uses advanced CAD technology to
give special embroidery designs in their interiors upon request from the clients to customise their
interior.
Firm Infrastructure: The organisation has invested in reducing carbon emissions from their
factory by installing more than twenty thousand solar panels to lower their electricity
consumption. The company has introduced emery efficient ways such as cycling to travel to the
company premises in UK. This has further increased sustainability of the firm as more than 400
employees use cycles to reach their workplace. The various departments of the company which
manage the finance and legal aspects of the organisation ensures that the firm meet the demands
of the consumer and gain profits to accomplish their organisational objectives (Mangan and
Lalwani, 2016) .
All of these activities help the luxury car manufacturing company to achieve efficiency
throughout their supply chain. The combination of skilled workers with advanced technology has
allowed the company to maintain their position in the luxury car industry from 100 years and
expand their presence in the international market.
Application of proper operations management solutions for obstacles faced by the company
As the company aims to introduce electric vehicles in the market by 2025 and solely
offer electric and hybrid vehicles by the 2026 to change with increase in demands of electric
vehicles and mange their survival after the ban on the sale of freshly produced diesel and petrol
cars in Britain after the year 2030. despite their achievements in the field of technology the
organisation faces several challenges in the form of efficient supply chain management for
delivering quality electric vehicles into the market. For successful delivery of such products
along with customer satisfaction after receiving involves changes which address issues related to
charging of electric cars and easily accessible charging stations which can handle large quantity
of cars without any malfunction (Rajeev and et. al., 2017) . One of the other obstacle faced by
the company in effective production and delivery of this new product is in heavy cost related to
the electric battery needed for production of electric cars. The cost of this kind of battery is 20
times more than the engine and the assemblage of such cars requires labour investment as

training is needed for efficient production of electric vehicles. The company conducts audits of
their normal fuel powered vehicles but for this type 0of car the organisation is required to invest
in robotics and other advanced technology (Ravindran and Warsing 2016) . One other concern
related to supply chain barriers faced by the company for production of electric vehicles is the
impending Brexit deal which has increased the pressure on supply chain to become more
innovation based and come up with unique solutions to the increase in bureaucracy related to the
international distribution of products and electric vehicles which require the presence of
infrastructure hat is available for fuel powered cars for maintenance and recharging . Another
major obstacle present in front of the company during development of such products is that the
company builds their cars with custom made quality raw material which is available through
specific corporations (Kshetri, 2018) . This dependence on specific enterprises for purchasing
products effects the supply chain from the top and results in delay if the raw material is not
available to the employees at given time. The sale of electric cars is dependent on incentives and
does not have a high market even in the elite society due to the low speed of the product. The
lack of educationally qualified and skilled individuals in the area of supply chain management
has also a negative effect on the competency of the company in this field.
The company has fired more than quarter of their staff due to reduction the sales of their
cars as the world faces pandemic. This move negatively affects the quality of every operation
across their supply chains the company is internationally regarded for their skilled workers and
technicians. Usually the employees available in supply chain management of the company are
trained in other fields of management or come from entirely different fields such as engineering .
This impacts the level of quality as the workers gain the knowledge about this field from
experience and lack expertise (Brindley, 2017) . The company faces obstacles in the field of
management of employees responsible for conducting various activities arccos the supply chain.
The organisation lacks culturally diverse leaders at the to positions of the company specially in
th regional departments of the company such as the Middle east and China. This reduces
effective ordination between the management and foreign employees of the company as the
company is not able to understand cultural difference of their diverse employees. This has
negative impact on the efficiency of the supply chain as effective communication between the
headquarters and international subsidiaries is essential for international success. This is one of
the reasons behind the organisation's comparatively weaker performance in the east Asian and

south Asian markets from their European rivals such as BMW (Gupta, Kusi-Sarpong and Rezaei,
2020). Effective management of employees is further reduced by negative brand image of the
company in case of low pollution levels as the company is major polluter in the loop river canal.
This reduces employee engagement and association with brand of the company.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is determined that management of various activities related to
operations, logistics and overall supply chain of the company is essential factor in increasing the
growth rate of the company. Various economic and environmental affect the activities of the
supply chain and stop the organisation from effectively managing their employees. Effective
management of various operations is not possible without development and maintenance of
proper communication channels which connect all the departments and subsidiaries with each
other. The process of development and delivery of new products is also negatively affected by
weak management of operations. Leadership and technological advancements is required
introduction of new product or services to the public which are negatively impacted when supply
management approach used by the company is weak or inappropriate for the structure of the
company. The luxury car industry faces various barriers such as lack of technology and skilled
workers with expertise in the supply management field during launch and construction of new
commodity or supervision of workforce in al divisions of the company in a way which helps the
company attain their organisational objectives.
RECCOMENDATIONS
To increase efficiency across supply chain, the respective company needs to lower their
distribution costs by investing in recruiting other organisation for swift and low cost delivery of
their products. Apart from this the company needs to diversify their staff of their international
subsidiaries in order to compete with European and local luxury car brands in east Asia . This
will help the company understand social and cultural differences which will help the company
market their products in a way which attracts consumers of foreign locations. The company
should invest in using advance robotic and AI technology for inventory management and other
technical aspects in the production of their vehicles which are currently being completed
manually by the staff and their accuracy and overall investment in labour is decreased by usage
of such technology. In order to tackle environmental pollution allegations at the company, it

should invest in introducing channels which dispose waste in sustainable manner away from
any rivers or natural resources.

REFRENCES
Bozarth and Handfield, 2016. Introduction to operations and supply chain management.
Pearson.
Brindley, 2017. Supply chain risk. Taylor & Francis.
Giannakis and Papadopoulos, 2016. Supply chain sustainability: A risk management
approach. International Journal of Production Economics, 171.pp.455-470.
Gupta, Kusi-Sarpong and Rezaei, 2020. Barriers and overcoming strategies to supply chain
sustainability innovation. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 161. p.104819.
Kshetri, 2018. 1 Blockchain’s roles in meeting key supply chain management
objectives. International Journal of Information Management, 39. pp.80-89.
Li, 2020. Education supply chain in the era of Industry 4.0. Systems Research and Behavioral
Science, 37(4), pp.579-592.
Mangan and Lalwani, 2016. Global logistics and supply chain management. John Wiley &
Sons.
Rajeev and et. al., 2017. Evolution of sustainability in supply chain management: A literature
review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 162. pp.299-314.
Ravindran and Warsing 2016. Supply chain engineering: Models and applications. CRC Press.
Werner, 2000. Supply chain management. Wiesbaden: Gabler.