Running head: Global Supply Chain Management and Logistics Problems and Challenges 1

Supply Chain Management and Logistics Assignment Example

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degree in supply chain management and logistic? Then you are familiar with challenges of

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effective global supply chain management assignments.

One of the emergent issues in supply chain management is the disruption caused by

COVID-19. Global businesses, small and large, are reeling from aftershocks of the pandemic.

Business leaders reckon that they need to ensure seamless supply chain management to gain

competitiveness over their rivals. This assignment seeks to critically evaluate the contemporary

problems and challenges facing global supply chain management and logistics in the present

world.

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Global Supply Chain Management and Logistics

Introduction

The modern business world is faster, volatile and dynamic more than any other time in

business history. The customer is controlling the current business, with signals of demand flying

into business from different channels which are continuously increasing. As such, a number of

unprecedented challenges are felt on the face of supply chain executives (Liaison, 2018). Firstly,

they should have prowess of managing supply chain systems that are highly complex, and at the

same time they should address the volatile nature of the current global business environment.

Supply chain executives and their bosses must understand that any disruptions in supply chain

will have an immediate impact on both the top and bottom line. Supply chain executives are also

facing the challenge of continuous demands of doing more with less; their supply chains are

expected to be nimble, more profitable and flexible. The present paper seeks to present a critical

evaluation of contemporary problems and challenges facing global supply chain management

and logistics. The paper will also highlight how these challenges can be overcome.

Supply chain executives are expected to do more by making their supply chain nimble,

more profitable and more flexible; they are also expected to be continuously resilient to the

increasing number of physical and digital security risks (Every Angle, 2018). At the same time,

pressure has been mounted on them to keep coming up with innovations so as to meet continuous

expectations and changing needs of customers, and to identify and give support to future

opportunities of growth. However, these set of complex requirements are essentially managed by
Global Supply Chain Management and Logistics Problems and Challenges 3

technology applied by supply chain leaders. Supply chain technology like planning and

optimization, ERP, warehouse management, and transportation support a vast majority of major

companies in most aspects of supply chain; hence providing rich data on operating the extended

supply chain (Liaison, 2018).

The first challenge facing global supply chain management and logistics is the visibility

and insight of supply chain (Every Angle, 2018). Leading companies are fully embracing

technology like drones, robotics, and other Sci-Fi blockbuster suitable for the cause to reinvent

processes of their supply chain and create new responsive levels and agility. On the other hand,

there are other companies that have been left fumbling behind in terms of technology; these

companies are simply in the dark, they are indeed lacking real visibility across value chain from

end-to-end. Companies that manage to achieve process transparency of supply chain have been

in time and time again shown how to outperform those companies relying on functional merits

that are lag based. The study that was done by Aberdeen Group affirmed that the people who are

considered best in class in supply chain visibility area, in the 96 percent of their time were able

to deliver their customers with perfect orders compared to 85 percent that was reflected by

people who are considerably average in class. Visibility brings about obvious benefits, but it is

hard to believe the finding that 52 percent of leaders of supply chain cite visibility as a point of

their greatest pain. The level of supply chain visibility should be increased so as to enable supply

chain leaders identify risks. According to Global Manufacturing Outlook Report by KPMG in

2016, suppliers can reduce supply chain risks by emphasizing greatly on cross-functional

management so as to achieve great collaboration and visibility. But the same report cites that

among the companies researched only 13 percent have fully achieved visibility in their supply

chain, hence the opportunity for improvement is in plenty Arunachalam et al., 2018).
Global Supply Chain Management and Logistics Problems and Challenges 4

The second challenge is that alignment is everything (Every Angle, 2018). Adrian

Gonzalez is the founder of logistics; he is encouraging organizations to put extra efforts in

breaking down functional silos of their supply chain and cites that most manufacturers are

seemingly confusing behavior of operation with collaboration; accepting communication instead

of participating in shared goals. Companies form part of large value network according to

Gonzalez; he is therefore advocating that each and every department of a company should be

held accountable for the success of a wider network objectives. The adage is either winning

together or losing together. Those that don’t will find units of business ostracizing themselves

unintentionally and prioritizing work in line with agendas of their departments (Arunachalam et

al., 2018). Open and honest communication is discouraged by this segregated approach, and

business units, as a result of this are forced to carry analysis in their specific verticals where they

belong and as a result this surfaces multiple versions of truth.

To make it worse, measures of success are distinct in every silo of an organization; each

silo has its own success measures and these success measures are often counter-intuitive to larger

goals’ success (Boström et al., 2015). Where one department is assessing or measuring itself

based on service and agility, other departments are focused on things such as reduction of costs,

reduction of overtime and working capital. Independently all these are good measures but it is

hard to achieve all these measures as a combination especially when there is no communication

between departments, and it is also hard to achieve all these measures if the departments lack

visibility of each other’s metrics, goals and actions. Manufacturers are facing serious quality

problems caused by poor communication (Silvestre et al., 2018). Poor communication also raises

costs of products and inhibits the ability of the company to compete favorably.
Global Supply Chain Management and Logistics Problems and Challenges 5

The third challenge is controlling the rising cost of transportation and its and

unpredictability (Every Angle, 2018). According to the research done by Boston Consulting

Group, 83 percent of leaders of supply chain consider transportation as the major priority.

Logistical costs on the other hand are expected to increase by about 14 percent. As demands of

consumers keep growing, there is need for organizations to broaden their portfolios so as to

appease green conscious buyers who are commercially savvy (Bala, 2014). This product is

continuously growing and setting implications to transport industry. Holding of stock was

associated with low costs before the turn of 21st century. Also low costs were associated with

transportation services before the turn of 21 st century. Low costs in these services encouraged

organizations to emphasize on fast and frequent delivery. However, innovations in supply chain

like the Amazon are using supply chain as a competitive advantage factor (Yawar & Seuring,

2018). They have employed new resources and technologies to create future-proof business

models by embracing risks and ignoring conventional wisdom.

Moving beyond firefighting is yet another challenge (Every Angle, 2018). Prevention is

better than cure in all walks of life; but seemingly this is a global antithesis of many business

cultures. Those who resolve critical business orders gallantly are praised often while those

businesses without any controversies are seemingly slipped under the radar. The obvious

example of this is supply chain; the success in supply chain world is measured by silence in the

modern world (Bala, 2014). Where the primary aim is not to be seen or heard, for supply chain

that is being noticed is usually for the wrong reasons. Almost no one notices when things go

well, and when things don’t go well everyone notices. The aim is to achieve effective invisibility.

The world is addictive and this is the worst part; those who are looking for recognition with little

deep thinking are instantly gratified, and it creates heroics on daily basis. Why simply react
Global Supply Chain Management and Logistics Problems and Challenges 6

instead of hard task of collaboration, calculating and planning. Daily firefighting is naturally

addictive and this means that an enormous effort is required to break free from it. As much as

forming habits is hard, breaking from them once they form is harder; especially those that make

a person have a good feeling (Yawar & Seuring, 2018). In firefighting the center of attention is

the fire and life will never be boring if there are multiple fires in a day. It enables one to rush in

solving today’s problem even though they had to sacrifice tomorrow’s plans and inventories so

as to achieve it.

In conclusion, isolated tools can not address business challenges. Business tools must be

converged with strong leadership, clear vision, freedom to innovate and should bear

collaboration ability across functional silos. For technology to breed success key players across

the extended supply chain should work off the same playbook otherwise technology will keep

serving a limited purpose.

References

Arunachalam, D., Kumar, N., & Kawalek, J. P. (2018). Understanding big data analytics

capabilities in supply chain management: Unravelling the issues, challenges and

implications for practice. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation

Review, 114, 416-436.

Bala, K. (2014). Supply chain management: Some issues and challenges-A

Review. International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, 4(2), 946-953.

Boström, M., Jönsson, A. M., Lockie, S., Mol, A. P., & Oosterveer, P. (2015). Sustainable and

responsible supply chain governance: challenges and opportunities. Journal of Cleaner

Production, 107, 1-7.

Every Angle., (2018). Challenges Facing the Modern Supply Chain. Retrieved from

http://everyangle.com/downloads/v2/five-painful-supply-chain-issues.pdf

Liaison., (18th September, 2018). Key Issues in Supply Chain Management and How to

Overcome them. Retrieved from https://liaison.opentext.com/blog/2017/09/18/key-

issues-supply-chain-management-overcome/

Silvestre, B. S., Monteiro, M. S., Viana, F. L. E., & de Sousa-Filho, J. M. (2018). Challenges for

sustainable supply chain management: When stakeholder collaboration becomes

conducive to corruption. Journal of cleaner production, 194, 766-776

Yawar, S. A., & Seuring, S. (2018). The role of supplier development in managing social and

societal issues in supply chains. Journal of cleaner production, 182, 227-237.