Strategic Management: Sourcing Strategies at Creative Technology Ltd

This report analyzes the strategic management practices of Creative Technology Limited, a global technology company based in Singapore. It highlights the company's competitive advantage through mergers and acquisitions, enabling control over information, communication, and sound technology markets. The report emphasizes the importance of strategic sourcing and sustainability in revenue generation and market leadership, particularly in mitigating supply chain disruptions and ensuring a consistent flow of production. It further contrasts Creative Technology Limited's strategic sourcing strategies with those of supermarket and retail companies, noting differences in inventory nature, sourcing markets, and unit costs. The analysis draws upon various sources to support its findings, providing a comprehensive overview of Creative Technology Limited's strategic approaches.

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Answer 3.
Part 1.
Creative Technology Limited is a global information, sound and communication
Technology Company base based in Singapore. The company has branch offices in the US,
Japan, Ireland and China. The company is listed on Singapore Stock Exchange and operates
under the leadership of Sim Wong Hoo in the capacity of its CEO.
The competitive dimension which Creative Technology Limited has over its competitors
is the aggressive use of the strategy of merger and acquisitions in offshore assets. The company
has acquired shares of various IT companies and sound technology companies situation in North
America and Europe. These acquisitions of shares of foreign companies allows Creative
Technology Limited to play significant role in deciding their business strategies (Creative.com,
2019). Thus, in other words, the company is able to control large portions of the information,
communication and sound technology of the North American and European markets.
Part 2.
The importance of strategic sourcing and sustainability in the business organisations lie in
revenue generation and gaining leadership position in the global market. Kotula et al. (2015)
mention clearly that strategic sourcing of raw materials and work-in-progress inventory enables
business organisations to mitigate or at least minimise disruptions in supply chains. The strategic
sourcing enables the business organisations are able to acquire supply on raw materials from the
suppliers located both the local market as well as foreign markets. This allows the company
acquire supplies from large number of suppliers at economies of scale, lowering transaction
costs borne to acquire each bulk of supply. Moreover, by having access to a large number of
suppliers, the company can terminate contracts with unprofitable suppliers and enter into
contracts with more profitable suppliers. This enables these companies to ensure uninterrupted
flow of production of finished products according to the client requirements. For example,
Creative Technology Limited is based in Singapore and present in several host countries like the
US and Ireland. Strategic sourcing of raw materials from suppliers located both within the
respective host markets and overseas. This enables the company to produce high quality
products. This allows the company to make the finished products available to consumers readily,
thus ensuring customer satisfaction and generation of high revenue as well as financial
sustainability. The high rate of customer satisfaction enables the company to acquire a huge base
of loyal customers which ratifies its gain market leadership. Thus, it can be inferred from the

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discussion that strategic sourcing and sustainability play important role in revenue generation
and global market leadership.
Figure 1. Sourcing design matrix
(Source: Dani, 2017)
Part 3.
The strategic sourcing strategies of Creative Technology Limited would differ from
companies operating in the supermarket or general retail stores in several aspects. The first point
of difference between the strategic sourcing strategies of Creative Technology Limited and
supermarket companies is that the company is its nature of inventory. The main inventory of
Creative technology consist of electronic parts. The main inventory of supermarkets and general
retail stores are finished products of other companies. The second point of difference between
the strategic sourcing of the two sets of companies is the sources of the inventory. The main
markets of sourcing of inventory of Creative Technology are largely global in nature consisting
of different technologically advanced markets like US and the UK. The main sourcing market of
the inventory of retail chains are mostly local in nature (Tse et al. 2016). The third point of
distinction between the sourcing of inventory of Creative Technology and retail companies is
that per unit value of the former is high whereas per unit costs of the inventory of the latter are
low.

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References:
Angst, C. M., Wowak, K. D., Handley, S. M., & Kelley, K. (2017). Antecedents of Information
Systems Sourcing Strategies in US Hospitals: A Longitudinal Study. MIS Quarterly, 41(4).
Creative.com. (2019). Retrieved from http://www.creative.com/
Dani, M. H. (2017). Study of Supplier Selection Process under Strategic Outsourcing
conditions (Doctoral dissertation, Goa University).
Kotula, M., Ho, W., Dey, P. K., & Lee, C. K. M. (2015). Strategic sourcing supplier selection
misalignment with critical success factors: Findings from multiple case studies in
Germany and the United Kingdom. International Journal of Production Economics, 166,
238-247.
Tse, Y. K., Zhang, M., Akhtar, P., & MacBryde, J. (2016). Embracing supply chain agility: an
investigation in the electronics industry. Supply Chain Management: An International
Journal, 21(1), 140-156.