1. The trading industry is a complex one that involves dealing with many different stakeholders while making strategic alliances with suppliers of raw materials, manufacturers and transporters. A porters 5 forces analysis reveals that the suppliers in this industry (including those that supply raw materials and those that manufacture) are highly fragmented and are high in number. As a result no single supplier firm commands a dominant market share in their respective product markets. Trading companies not only have more negotiation power on the bargaining table but also establish guidelines, which their suppliers must follow. As a result suppliers to this industry do not wield much bargaining power.
The buyers of the services rendered by this industry include large multi national corporations that outsource their supply chain management activities as it is outside their core competencies. Some customers are extremely large volume buyers and as a result have a large amount of influence on the price of these services. The cost of switching between traders is small and the process quick, therefore buyers that are price sensitive are very likely to switch to those traders who can supply the same goods for a lower price. But even though there are many traders in the industry, only a handful have distinguished themselves because of their large global sourcing and manufacturing networks, such companies can even charge a premium for their services as they deliver extremely high levels of value and quality. Thus although buyers in this industry are price sensitive, there is a constant struggle between value for money (quality, timely delivery, customer service) and low cost.
The trading industry lacks any significant barriers to entry t...
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... network allowing them to organize their functions as if they were different steps in the manufacturing process. Typically they will only use 30-70% of the supplier’s capacity thus allowing for flexibility and access to new suppliers. This also prevented suppliers from becoming completely dependant on Li & Fung. Even the contracts that Li & Fung entered into with these companies had a clearly defined exit strategy that gave Li & Fung enough power to drop a supplier without hassle if the need be. In order to improve suppliers’ performance Li & Fung provided them with feedback on their production quality and timeliness, those suppliers that were performing poorly were dropped and new ones were found to take their place. Li & Fung was a “smokeless factory” which did not own any manufacturing facilities but was deeply involved in their management and production processes.
W.C. Benton, Jr., 3rd Edition, “Purchasing and Supply Chain Management.” (2010). Text. 2.
Porters Five forces model is an analytical tool developed by Michael E. Porter in 1979 whilst he was studying at Harvard Business School. Understanding Ports Five Forces brings to light an industry’s current profitability and develops a framework for making educated calculations for anticipating and influencing the competition. Porter wished to create a universal framework which can be utilized in all industries such as the automobile and performing arts industries. The model has five key components which highlights a market’s competitive intensity and overall attractiveness. The strongest force or forces determine the profitability of the industry and form the basis for the strategies that are utilized by the company. The five components of the model are the degree of rivalry; the threat of new entry; the threat of new substitutes; buyer power and the supplier power. Porter describes the five forces as creating a significant framework for different industries such as the fierce rivalry and strong buyer power in the aircraft industry but with relatively benign threat of entry, threat of substitutes and supplier power. Porter envisioned the model to extend the knowledge of Industrial Organisation. The forces explain how a company organises itself in order to satisfy the needs of the consumers with both quantity and quality, while at the same time maintai...
The cooperative game theory comes in picture when more than two players in the supply chain come together and form alliances to harness maxim...
Suppliers must maintain good relations with the companies in the industry. This is low because there are multiyear service contracts and the delivery industry uses items such as vehicles, employee benefits, general goods and airline contracts associated with overhead of running business, but all contracts are rewarded through an RFP process. There are enough players in the market and had high fixed cost and thus have substantial buying power.
Dominant power is very tempting for the buyer since it provides some kind of control of quality and specifically drives price down. But, from my perspective, supply chain management is mostly all about cooperation in order to achieve success in every part of the channel and by this means get quality improvement and reduce costs throughout the supply chain so everybody is satisfied. The key here is definitely to establish long-term trusting and supportive relationships in which all members cooperate rather than dominate. For me it seems that interdependence box is better for such kind of relationships, where buyer and supplier are...
In the 1960s through the 1970s, companies realized strong engineering, design, and manufacturing functions were strong market strategy keys to create and capture customer loyalty. As the demand for new products rose in the 1980s, these market requirements were to increase their flexibility and responsiveness to adapt existing products and processes or to develop new ones in order to meet customer needs. As manufacturing improved in the 1990s, managers began noticing material and service inputs involving suppliers and their major impact on an organization’s ability to meet customer needs. As a result of these changes, organizations now find that it difficult to manage their own organizations. First, they must be involved in the management of their network of all upstream firms that provide directly or indirectly, as well as the network of downstream firms, which are responsible for delivery and market service of the product to the end customer.
The 5-Force Industry Analysis first introduced by Michel Porter, Harvard Business School professor, a quarter-century ago. This theory examines the suppliers, buyers, product substitutes, existing firms’ rivalry and new entrants in a firm’s product market.
This led to intensive rivalry. Bargaining Power of Customers: High bargaining power because of stiff competition, and a large number of suppliers offering similar products to choose from. Bargaining Power of Suppliers: Bargaining power of suppliers is
Bargaining power of suppliers analyzes how much power a business 's supplier has and how much control it has over the potential to raise its prices, which, in turn, would lower a business 's profitability. (Arline, 2015).
Rao, K., and Young, R. R. (1994) Global supply chains: Factors influencing outsourcing of logistics functions. International journal of physical distribution and logistics management. Vol. 24. No. 6.
Supply chain management has been defined as that process that involves the management of information, materials, and all the finances that are handled within and across the entire supply chain process (Christopher, 2016). The management is usually done through out the entire supply chain management from that moment when the suppliers are involved through all the manufacturing activities, different distribution activities, and the way that the products are served to the final product consumer (Turban, et al., 2002). The process also includes all the activities that different organizations offers to their customers as after sale services for purposes perfecting their services and products towards their highly valued customers (Christopher,
Quickly becoming apparent after only a few rounds of play was in the absence of coordinating direction the individual supply chain links immediately focused upon acting in their own best interests much more so than the organization as a whole. Whether the end use customer was satisfied became secondary to avoiding stock outages for the next link in the chain, or their specific “upstream customer”. The real world application of this example is that focus on the end use customer must be consistent and maintained throughout the process up to and including delivery. Undoubtedly internal customers, such as retailers to wholesalers and distributors to production, must be serviced along the way for the transaction to ultimately occur. However, unless an end use customer is involved no profit can be realized by anyone.
The bargaining power of L & T suppliers is high. Most L & T suppliers are organised making the company to be one of the largest engineering companies in Malaysia (and one of the top five private sector companies). Its diversity in engineering sector gives it a strategic position and bargaining power. Moreover, L & T faces reduction of prices by its competitors. For instance, increase in
Monczka, R. M., Handfield, R. B., Giunipero, L. C., & Patterson, J. L. (2016). Purchasing and Supply Chain Management. Cengage
In the 1980’s successful Japanese firms proved to be leaders in modern management techniques with strong relationships with suppliers, allowing them to produce products of a higher quality and a faster rate than their American and European counterparts. (Ehret, 2004) Their business model focused on economies of scope, as opposed to economies of scale. Industrial firms realised they needed to manage buyer-seller relationships in order to manage cross-functional and cross-organisational processes that would allow them to become more flexible.