Descriptive Analytics is about describing the historical performance. By applying these techniques to the level of performance, information can be very specific to product, customer, channel, supplier and other key operational areas of focus. This will help validate data to be organized and be used in a repeatable process, in order to have confidence in the information and to make it actionable. This will help companies to evolve from “standard cost to serve” approach to “total cost to serve” approach thus identifying immediate cost and revenue opportunities and take confidant action to utilize them.
Prescriptive Analysis is about identification of optimum business outcomes by combining historical data, mathematical models, variables, business rules, constraints, anticipated customer requirements, machine-learning algorithms. It is also used when experimenting in the real world would be very expensive or overly risky, or require too much time. Many airline ticket pricing systems use this analytics to sort through complex combinations of travel factors, demand levels, Supply constraints and purchase timing to present potential passengers with prices designed to optimize profits at the same time maintaining the sales levels.
Predictive Analysis is about predicting the future, unknown events, failure points based on statistical techniques. Predictive analytics enable Demand Driven Value Networks (DDVNs) through segmentation, demand sensing and shaping, and profitable response. This will help to transform the SCM model that was earlier based on aggregate information, averages and generalized models into a customized response based on the basis of unique characteristics of customers, products or suppliers or any other supply partners....
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The Digital Supply Network is connected to the end consumer. As companies sell products, information can be shared across the supply chain, helping retailers and manufacturers keep an eye on inventory. And as customers seek information about products or services they buy, companies can have information more readily at their fingertips to reassure the socially responsible consumer about how something was made and the raw materials that were sourced.
Physical assets such as plant and equipment will remain central to manufacturing as of now but these can be intertwined in the Digital Supply Network, which is empowered by mobility solutions, the cloud, social media and analytics & big data.
Following are few of the complex areas where digital supply chains can provide astonishing result and help organization overcome the persistent challenges.
On many occasions, Apple Inc. has been voted to boast the most efficient supply chain in the world. By leveraging wealth and pure business strength, Apple has been able to construct a supply chain that is both efficient and highly profitable. While much of this supply chain construction has come from great investing and business decisions by Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, it has come at the cost of many factory workers’ well being overseas. Overall, the construction of the highly organized supply chain has given Apple a competitive advantage over the rest of the market.
The airline industry has long attempted to segment the air travel market in order to effectively target its constituents. The classic airline model consists of First Class, Business Class and Economy, and the demographics that make up the classes have both similarities and differences to the other classes. For instance there may be similarities between business class travellers on a particular flight, but they will not all be travelling for the same reason. An almost-universal characteristic of air travel is that customers do not fly for the sake of flying; the destination is the important element and the travel is a by-product, a means-to-an-end that involves the necessity of an aircraft that gets the customer from point A to point B. Because the reasons can differ greatly in the motivations for a customer wanting to fly, it can be difficult to divide the market into discrete segments, that is, there is always going to be overlap in the preferences and characteristics of any given segment. With that in mind, the commonalities that are shared between the clientele that make up the respective classes can easily withstand analysis.
Accommodating customer requirements in most supply chain arrangement requires a forecast to drive the process. (book page 133) When looking into the definition of forecasting which is projecting what is going to be sold (units, seats, rooms etc) it is also important to take into consideration where and when in order to reach the future goals. (book page 133) Since it is argued that effective supply chain and logistical capacity is an important competitive advantage. (Christopher 2005) Where maximizing the revenue is the key element in hospitality sector and for hotel industry there is an increased attention on effective demand management and forecasting for reservation systems. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207002000110)
The Global Manufacturing Revolution: Product-Process-Business Integration and Reconfigurable Systems, Yoram Koren, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. c 11/04/2010, ISBN: 0470583770, ISBN-13: 978047058377
A supply chain is a system through which organizations deliver their products and services to their customers. The network begins with the basic ingredients to start the chain of supply, which are the suppliers that supply raw materials, ingredients, and so on. From there, it will transfer the supplies to the manufacturer who builds, assembles, converts, or furnishes a product. The chain now needs to get the product to the consumer by transporting the finished product from the manufacturer through a warehouse or distribution center. An example is that Wal-Mart has a nearby distribution center where products are delivered there and then split up to be delivered to a retail Wal-Mart. “Wal-Mart will take responsibility for breaking down larger loads and delivering the product to other Wal-Mart stores” (Ehring 1).
2.Price: A price must be set to add value to the consumer but also add revenue to the airline. Cost is considered the most volatile areas in the airline industry today; deregulation has forced pricing to become the major competitive variable. Like any industry supply and demand control the pricing elements of the ai...
Understanding the changes in the market and the growth of e-commerce prompted the organization to invest heavily in its supply chain management forecasting and management system. The development of a network of distribution centers and Direct Fulfillment Centers to position the company to capitalize on the growing e-commerce market indicate a strong understanding of the need to adapt to changing market forces. The company spent over $300 million on new distribution center facilities in 2014 alone, and continues to expand to maintain efficiency in product movement (Cassidy,
Predictive Modeling: Utilization of the patterns discovered in the discovery step to forecast possible future conducts or behavior.
It is suggested for any organization to review, reassess any existing supply chain management or any delivery techniques, before developing a new supply chain method so that any exposure to high risk of failure is reduced. Somerset as a company taken advantage of outsourcing and transferred it product manufacturing to China leveraging low cost labor and raw material. The labor cost and other cheap material reduce Somerset overhead cost, but there is always the risk of not delivering product on time due to the foreign country political climate, change in tax and tariff and local
[8] Supply chain lessons for the new millenium: a case of Micromax informatics Integral Review –by Salma Ahmed, A Journal of Management-ISSN: 2278-6120, p-ISSN: 0974-8032, Volume 5, No. 2, Dec.-2012, pp 53-61) .
Supply chain management (SCM) is the management of the torrent of possessions and chattels. It has been demarcated as the "design, organization, execution, control, and checking of supply chain events with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, loading of raw materials, inventories of work in progress and completed goods from point of origin to point of consumption. It includes the movement and based on the worldwide logistics, coordinating supply with demand and measuring performance globally Codependent and interrelated obligations channels and businesses are complex nodes in the supply of products and services required by end customers in the supply chain. The concept of Supply Chain Management is based on two core ideas. The first is that practically every product that reaches an end user represents the cumulative effort of multiple organizations. These organizations are referred to collectively as the supply chain.
A supply chain is an arrangement of associations, individuals, exercises, data, and assets included in moving an item or administration from supplier to client. Supply chain exercises convert regular assets, crude materials, and parts into a completed item that is conveyed to the end client. In advanced supply chain frameworks, utilized items might re-enter the supply chain sometime or another where lingering quality is recyclable. Supply chains connect value chains. A common supply chain starts with the natural, organic, and political regulation of characteristic assets, emulated by the human extraction of crude material, and incorporates a few creation interfaces before proceeding onward to many layers of storage houses of steadily diminishing size and progressively remote geological areas, and at last arriving at the customer.
A supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products, and deliver the products to customers through a distribution system [1]. The basic objective of supply chain is to “optimize performance of the chain to add as much value as possible for the least cost possible.
Companies have transformed technology from a supporting tool into a strategic weapon.”(Davenport, 2006) In business research, technology has become an essential means that many organizations use in their daily operations. According to the article, Analytics is a major technological tool used. It is described as “the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis, explanatory and predictive models, and fact-based management to drive decisions and actions."(Davenport, 2006) Data is compiled to enhance business practices. When samples are taken, they are used to examine research and understand how to solve problems or why situations are as they are. Furthermore, in this article, Thomas Davenport discusses analytics from a business standpoint. He refers to organizations that have been successful in their usage of data and statistical analysis. In addition, he also discusses how data and statistics can be vital in the efforts to improve the operations of businesses.
These major supply chain components that have shaped Walmart’s success over recent years are their buyer bargaining power (one of Porter’s Five Forces), focus on the overall customer experience, and investments in emerging technologies along with the implementation of these technologies in their business plan. The third and final key trend in which all of the top 25 supply chain companies possess emerging digital business models. Over the past couple of years, Walmart has boosted its e-commerce operations and brought in a large portion of revenues from online sales (Aronow & Burkett, 2015, p. 20). Gartner Inc. describes Walmart as a “supply chain pioneer” that has continued its push into e-commerce and has expanded investment in multichannel drive-thru pick-up centers and a ‘click-and-collect’ grocery service offered at some of its stores (Aronow & Burkett, 2015, p. 20).