MBA THESIS ON SUPPLY CHAIN MGMT, LONDON

Shaktiraj Jena MBA Information systems University Of Wales

LO�DO� COLLEGE OF BUSI�ESS

Affiliated By

U�IVERSITY OF WALES

A report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the

degree of MASTER OF BUSI�ESS ADMI�ISTRATIO� in

I�FORMATIO� SYSTEMS

April 2010

IMPACT OF I�FORMATIO� A�D COMMU�ICATIO�

TECH�OLOGY O� SUPPLY CHAI� MA�AGEME�T

I�

P C WORLD

BY

SHAKTI RAJ JE�A

US�: 0811866996842

U�DER THE SUPERVISO�

OF

Dr. GAJE�DRA� KA�DASAMY Ph.d

PROFESSOR

LCB, LO�DO�


Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................... 4

CHAPTER O�E ........................................................................................................................... 6

I�TRODUCTIO� .................................................................................................................... 6

CHAPTER TWO ........................................................................................................................ 10

LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................................... 10

The impact of ICT .................................................................................................................... 29

Internet based communication systems and supply chain management .................................. 31

Move to the market hypothesis ................................................................................................ 31

Move to middle hypothesis ...................................................................................................... 33

CHAPTER THREE ................................................................................................................... 37

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................... 37

Data Collection ....................................................................................................................... 41

Customers ............................................................................................................................... 41

Respondent 1: ........................................................................................................................... 41

Respondent 2: ........................................................................................................................... 42

Respondent 3: ........................................................................................................................... 43

Respondent 4: ........................................................................................................................... 44

Employees ................................................................................................................................ 45

Respondent 1: ........................................................................................................................... 45

Respondent 2: ........................................................................................................................... 46

Respondent 3: ........................................................................................................................... 47

Respondent 4: ........................................................................................................................... 48

CHAPTER FOUR ...................................................................................................................... 49

A�ALYSIS A�D FI�DI�GS ............................................................................................... 49

PC World Today ....................................................................................................................... 49

P C World and its Supply Chain Management Systems .......................................................... 50

Impact of ICT in P C World ..................................................................................................... 50

Impact on the Customer Services ............................................................................................. 51

The customers: ......................................................................................................................... 53

Suppliers: .................................................................................................................................. 54

The management: ..................................................................................................................... 54

Summary .................................................................................................................................. 55

CHAPTER FIVE ........................................................................................................................ 56

CO�CLUSIO� A�D RECOMME�DATIO�S ................................................................. 56

Supply Chain Collaboration ..................................................................................................... 57

Why supply chain software? .................................................................................................... 57

Increasing the Usability of RFID ............................................................................................. 58

Steps To Be Taken For A Better Real Time Ict ................................................................... 59

Summary .................................................................................................................................. 60

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 61


ABSTRACT

Many Regards to Dr Gajendran for his invaluable support throughout this project, and many

thanks for his supervision and dedication towards helping students. I also want to thank him for

the Idea about this topic on supply chain in PC World, and the feedbacks that he used to give me

for this interesting project.

I want to thank my Mother for her blessings and her emotional support without which my

dissertation wouldn’t be possible.

The college support has been very good and their timely feedback was very important and

helpful.

My sincere regards to all the other professors and lecturers who helped me in understanding

many other aspects of managements which were out of the scope of my course.

Lastly I am very thankful to the Institution for providing me with such a good study

environment and study material

Thank you.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In the research, I analyzed the concept of Supply Chain Management in detail and the

improvements the management of P C world can make with the pertinent use of Information

and Communication technology systems. In the introduction, the importance and objectives

of the study are explained in detail. The ethical issues involved in the study, project plans,

limitations of the study and the contributions which can be provided by the research are also

covered in the introduction part of research.

The main resources of my research are given and my courtesy to the authors of my resources

is conveyed in the theoretical review. This chapter covers an overall idea of the concepts of

SCM and the impact of ICT systems in it. The characteristics, activities, scope, and

problems of Supply Chain Management are explained in detail. The customer Relation

Management and its relation with supply chain management are the other content of this

chapter. The culture and attitude which is essential for the proper management of supply

chain in an organization with the help of the best literatures available is also given in this

section. In this part, slight information on importance of implementation of information and

communication technology is given as it is a part of culture where supply chain management

has its own significance. The supply chain control is the other important feature explained

here. Various theories based on the views of different authors of the literatures on supply

chain management are explicated in detail. Hereafter the sustainability of supply chain is

studied and then the major developments happened through the eras such as creation era,

integration era, globalization era, specialization era and second face of specialization era are

thoroughly researched as part of these studies. I tried to go with the important components

of supply chain management thereafter. The global supply chain and the customers of the

supply chain are the next area of concern in the research.

The research follows with the concept of Information and Communication Technology and

its impact on the system of supply chain management in an organization in detail. The

supply chain management is highly influenced by the internet based communication systems

in this modern era and different views of that are given in the literature review.

The third chapter involves the details of methods adopted for research. Both qualitative and

quantitative methods are adopted in the research. Different ways adopted in qualitative

methods such as participant observation, interviews, group meetings and historic research


are explained in the first part of this chapter. Second part of this chapter describes about the

quantitative analysis which I have done for the research.

In the fourth chapter, the whole analysis and findings of the research are explained. It

includes the story of P C World till date and the operations of P C World. The supply chain

management systems of the P C World are explained thereafter in the research. Different

kind of information and communication technology systems used in P C World and its

impact in the functioning of SCM and customer services in P C World is explicated in this

section.

The research concludes with the suggestions and recommendations for the improvements in

P C World to accomplish the goals and objectives of the organization. These

recommendations will guide the management to improve the quality and productivity of the

organization.


CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

I am undertaking a study on the current Supply Chain Management Systems at PC World,

United Kingdom. The study covers the processes in the organization, the value chain in the firm

and its analysis. I made an analysis of the ambiguities in the processes of the system and put

forth recommendations needed for the improvements in future. Relationship Management at the

value chain, the customer services in the organization, its impact, Information and

Communication Technologies (ICT) was given concentration in the studies.

Objectives of the Study:

There are multiple objectives for my studies of research. Mainly the supply chain system in PC

World is analysed in detail. Improvements for the development of the system of supply chain in

future is also aimed in my research as it has its own significance for a purchase led kind of

business. Information and Communication Technology systems in PC World and Supplier

Relationship Management in the work place are given importance as the secondary objective of

the studies. An analytic thinking over the improvement of customer satisfaction with use of

value chain has done as another objective of this research.

Why is this study important?

The economic crisis of 2009 was the most severe one after the Great Depression of 1929. The

much expected GDP growth had not happened in the third quarter of 2009 and the growth was

0.3 in the last quarter of the year (statistics.gov, 2010). Most of other European countries have

shown modest growth rates, UK is still in search of positive triggers. We have seen six

consecutive quarters of negative growth and the crisis has affected the economy very

dangerously. 5.7 per cent of the market capitalization has been wiped out in UK in the last 18

months. These numbers look worst when the economy faced inflation in the same time period.

The doldrums in the job market and the virtually frozen consumer spending have affected many


industries in the country (guardian, 2010). Still we are not at all survived from the crisis and

waiting for much horrific double dip recession. So the organizations which have better operating

systems only can survive in market. The organizations who serve an improved customer service

will be benefited in this situation. So the organizations are trying to improve the satisfaction of

customers, reduce costs and improve their profitability. Companies are in search of synergies

and positive triggers with restructuring and reorganizing their strategies and operations. The

Information and Communication Technology systems come across a lot of developments in this

period. This is the real opportunity for the companies to come up in the market with ideal

strategies and improvements in the operations. My research will be a benefit for the companies

which are eagerly in search of ways to improve their efficiency as it is done in the wake of these

tough situations.

Theoretical Framework

I would be guided on mostly by the studies of Geoff Walsham, Professor in University of

Cambridge. The series of publications of his works by University of Cambridge are well

respected in this area of study. “Globalization and ICT: Working across culture” by Geoff

Walsham would be the primary theoretical resources of my research. These works shows lights

on the significance of Information and Communication Technology in the present status of the

economies.

Another resource for my studies is "Supply chain management: more than a new name for

logistics", by M. C. Lambert and D. M. Pagh. These works are published in IJLM (International

Journal of Logistics Management). They formed a primary thought for the subject of my

proposed study.

“Introduction to e-supply chain management: engaging technology to build market winning

business partnership” by David Frederick Ross inspired me to work with the advanced methods

of improvements for supply chain management systems and its operations.

Problem of Research:

The problem of the proposed research is insufficiencies and the opportunities of improvements

for the improvements in the system of supply chain in PC World. Suggestions are made to

improve the efficiency and productivity of the PC World as a part of this research. The research

would be done concentrating on 3 dimensions. Implementation of Information and

Communication Technology in the operations, customer satisfaction and Supplier Relationship

Management are the three main points where the concentration has been given in this study.


The main questions raised for the purpose of this research are listed below:

• How is the organisation of Supply Chain at P C World?

• How is the value chain organized in P C World?

• What role does the ICT system have in value chain?

• How does the ERP system work in P C World and what is the impact of it on value

chain?

• How does P C World manage the supplier relations of it?

• In what way P C World manage the relations with its key suppliers?

• How does the supply chain affect the satisfaction of customers?

• What improvements can be made in P C World?

• How can the proposed changes be implemented in P C World?

• How will this change improve the efficiency of business?

Ethical Issues

In conducting this study, I would be guided by the Guidelines set out in the British Educational

Research Association (BERA) 2004 ethical issues for Educational research. The guidelines state

that the researches are wholly responsible to their sponsors, the research community and

participants of the research. The guidelines states that all research work must be conducted at

the highest levels of honesty. Research findings are to be published without falsifying and

misstating the work done. The guidelines set out the responsibilities of the researcher to

participants of the research, sponsors of the research and the research community. (BERA,

supply chain management is vital to provide the services and products to the consumers. It

seems that the impression on the management of supply chain system may be indirectly

affiliated with the issues of the behaviour of the surrounding consumer toward asserting and

otherwise driving the satisfaction of customer. According to a number of publications, the role

of management of supply chain is a significant factor in boosting the success of an organization.

On a different perspective, the behaviour of consumer is also crucial element towards the

viability of an organization. Qualitatively, basic researches have been done in concern with the

connection between the satisfaction of customer and the consumer behaviour, in attempting to

know the clear differentiation of each topic towards assuring the satisfaction of customers. This

study tries to disclose the importance of the issues connected in relation to the satisfaction of

customer. It is anticipated that the growing roles of the management of supply chain and

behaviour of consumer in organizations are capable of improving the performance of

organizations and its operations.


Limitations

I would be attempting the research in a much comprehensive way as possible, following

limitations may be underlying in the research

• Time Constraints: A detailed and exhaustive study was not allowed by my course

semester as few significant areas are there where I was forced to leave out. However,

most of the significant disciplines would be covered in the research.

• Security Issues: a supply chain in an organization, information on ERP and key supplier

contracts are very sensitive kind of company information and it would be too tough to

reproduce them. So I foresee myself as not being capable of publishing a few of my

findings. The support of management which I had secured beforehand for the research

would allow me to bring most of the findings out in the studies.

• Financial Constraints: Some suppliers of the organization are located overseas. So it

would not be feasible for me to cover all major suppliers of the organization financially.

Thus the major suppliers who have their physical operations in UK are confined in my

research.

Contributions of the research

A dynamic and innovative concept of Supply Chain Management systems are anticipated as my

study is chiefly a research led exercise. Fast growing systems of ICT in Supply Chain and

management of Supplier Relationship would be invaluable resources academically. Different

paths would be shown for P C World to strengthen their existing not so good supply chain,

consolidate their supplier relations and to construe its customers’ needs in the research as a

sense of business, for increasing the efficiency of processes and profitability of business.

Project Plan of Research

The proposed work for research would be conducted within a period of ninety days. The studies

for research have being got worked since mid December and would be finished by March. The

first month of my studies has been utilized for background studies and literature review. Over

the next two months, twenty hours a day would be allocated for my work of research. The SCM

systems and various practices in the work place, the Information and Communication

Technology systems used, will be analysed in the actual company locations. Structured

questionnaires would be prepared for the empirical studies of my research and to interview the

customers of P C World and the suppliers of it. The last month of research would be used to

analyse the findings and data, bring up recommendations for the improvements of supply chain

and to get it slimmer and efficient, and to report the entire studies of research.


CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature Review

Other than the theoretical resources we discussed above, the following resources are also added

to the knowledge related to this study. “Transition to B2B e-Market place enabled supply chain:

Readiness Assessment and Success Factors” by Movahedi B., Lavassani, M K, Kumar V would

be the principal resource material of the research. A great gamut of management of supply

chain, role of information technology and recent development in the area of supply chain

management, and numerous case studies are discussed in the book. This book allowed me to

grasp a clear picture on the subject of research. “Knowledge management systems: information

and communication technologies” by Ronald Maier provided more detailed technical aspects for

the research. The latest developments and happenings in the field of research are updated with

the Journal of Supply Chain Management and Journal of E Commerce.

Supply Chain Management

Supply Chain Management is effective management by planning, implementing and controlling

the activities in the supply chain system in an organization. Activities from warehousing the

inventory to movement of products to the consumer are controlled and co-ordinated by the

supply chain management.

“Supply Chain Management encompasses the planning and management of all activities

involved in sourcing, procurement, conversion, and logistics management activities, it includes

coordination, cooperation and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers,

intermediaries, third-party service providers, and customers” - APA (American Professional

Association).

Thus a non managed and static supply chain Can cause a severe Bull Whip effect on the supply

chain of a company


Characteristics of Supply Chains

• The management of supply and demand in and across the companies are integrated by

supply chains

• It coordinates the network of business operations which provide the products and

services.

• The logistics and supply chain management are distinguished by some researchers. At

the same time some of them consider them as similar terms.

• The management of supply chain can be used as a software also

• A study on supply chain event management allows knowing how the system of supply

chain is coordinated in an organization and how resolutions are produced for the

problems that occur during the effectuation of supply chain in an organization.

Problems of Supply Chain Management

The management of supply chain should cover the following problems,

Distribution of Network Configuration: the location, number, facilities of production, suppliers’

network mission, warehouses, centres of distribution, customers and cross docks.

Strategy of distribution: questions of control of operation (shared, centralised or decentralised);

Scheme of delivery such as pool point shipping, direct shipment, cross docking, closed loop

shipping, and direct store delivery; transportation modes, e.g., automotive carriers which

includes the truckloads, railroad, parcel, LTL, intermodal transport which includes trailer on

flat car(TOFC) and container on flat cars(COFC), airfreight, ocean freight, strategies of


replenishments and control of transportation( e.g., private vehicles, owner operated carriers,

contract carrier or common carrier).

Tradeoffs and activities of logistics: the activities above said should be organized well to

accomplish the total cost of logistics. The total cost may be increased by tradeoffs if one of the

processes is optimised, such as a full truck load.

The rates (FTL) are less expensive than shipments of truckload (LTL shipments) on expense per

palette basis. However, if a product of a full truckload is ordered to lessen the costs of

transportation, there will be a growth in holding costs of inventory by which eventually might

cause an increase in the Gross cost of the Logistics. So it is better to opt a systematic approach

while planning the activities of logistics. Thus these are one of the most vital things to be kept in

mind for an effective Supply chain.

Information: This integrates the business processes by sharing information which are valuable

including forecasts, Logistics, demand-management, inventory-management, potential-

collaboration, etc.

Management of Inventory: location and quantity of inventory involving the raw material,

finished goods and work in progress.

Cash-Flow: Arrangement of methodologies and terms of payment for fund exchange across

various stages of supply chain.

Supply Chain Execution: This is a bidirectional process which deals with the proper flow of the

information, cash, material and other entities across the supply chain

Activities involved in SCM

SCM is an approach which is Bi directional, the first including the management of raw-material

movements into a firm, the SCM is pretty much dynamic in nature since it includes all the

process staring from the collection of raw material, transformation of this raw material into

useful goods, and then movement of these goods to the outlets to reach the customers. The

firms endeavour in concentrating the important competencies and becoming more malliable,

their capability lessens in the possession of sources of raw materials including the channels of

distribution.

The logistics part of the supply chain is increasingly being outsourced to different companies

who are now concentrating on their core competencies. The organisation can now improve their

internal channels and leave the rest of the chain to other specialists. It is extremely important

part of the supply chain since a speedy logistics can only link the company supply chain to the

exits which is the final goal. This is greatly driven by the zeal to achieve a better interaction


with the customers and their relationship can remain healthy by improving the supply chain

since it connects directly the organisation with them.

Various models have been aimed to understand the processes which manage the movements of

material within functional and organizational margins.

SCOR is an SCM model encouraged by the council of supply chain. Other model is the supply

chain management model promoted by the Global Supply Chain Forum. A SCM model

projected by the GSCF (Global Supply Chain Forum) demonstrates that the activities in a

supply chain can be characterized as strategic, operational and tactical activities.

Strategic Activities

The optimization of strategies of an organization like number of warehouses,

locations, centres of distributions, locations and facilities of warehouses etc are

included in strategic activities.

Strategic activities include the communication network creation among the supply

chain members and it must develop an improvement in the activities of supply chain

such as shipping, docking, transport, and logistics etc.

The organization of designing of the products and development are included in

strategic activities of an organization and the strategic activities must integrate the

new and existing products into the supply chain.

It should support all the activities in supply chain.

All the activities of supply chain must be integrated with overall activities of the

organization by the strategic activities.

Tactical Activities

It includes decisions concerning to purchase of inventory and contracts.

It includes decisions pertained to production such as the location, schedule, contracts,

plans and definition of processes of production etc.

Decision making in relation with the quality, transport, quantity, location, and use of

inventory.

The strategy formulation in concern with freight like the transport frequency, the cost,

routes, contracts and logistics etc are included

It involves the best process benchmarking in the industry throughout its operations.


Operational Activities

It includes decisions and activities in relation with day to day activities connected to

production and planning at each levels of supply chain.

It involves forecasts of production facilities and necessities in supply chain in every

instant.

It involves forecasting and planning of Demand and converting the overall demand

into supply and share it with every the members of the supply chain. Forecasting,

coordinating and planning the demand forecast of each and every customer and share

bode with all suppliers.

Inward operations, such as movement and transport of goods and stocks in the

supply chain.

It involves operational decisions and planning from ingestion of inventory to the

current of finished goods in the chain of supply.

It includes the promises of orders, accounting for all processes in the supply chain

from suppliers to consumers or end users.

Scope of Supply Chain Management

To stand in the global arena, companies rely on effective networks of supply chain

According to Peter Drucker, business networking concept covers beyond the conventional

enterprise limitations and broadens to coordinate the all the business processes within the value

chain which includes all the companies related to it.

Outsourcing of Information Technology has enabled the organizations to be processed in such a

way that each partner of business concentrates in the few significant areas in which he is

specialized.

This inter organizational network is the innovative trend which enables achieving complex

activies. Structure of network is not a hierarchical structure or a market structure.

It is ambiguous of what kind of performance level impact that various supply network structures

could have on organization, and little is known about the conditions of coordination and

tradeoffs that may subsist among the whole players. Conventionally, organisations within the

supply chain network focuses on the various’ incoming and outgoing process, with little matter

of concern for the internal management of the firm working on other individual players.

Therefore, an internal management choice control structure is known to make a major impact on

performance of local companies (Mintzberg, 1979).


There have been large changes in environment of business which has contributed to the supply

chain networks’ developments. Primarily, as a result of globalization and with the increase of

big multi-national companies, strategic alliances, joint ventures and business partnerships, have

found to be making important factors of success, following the earlier practices of “Just in

Time”, “Agile Manufacturing” and “Lean Management”. Secondly, changes of technology, in

particular the remarkable decrease in the outlay of ICT, which is a predominant element of

expenses of operation, have caused a change in the supply chain network (Coase, 1998).

The exceptional transformation towards activities of integration from managing functions of

individuals with processes of key supply chain in place could be the first significant step in

establishing a successful supply network. For example; the department of purchasing places

orders as necessities become appropriate only, when Department of Marketing responding to

consumer demands and convey the same with all the distributors and retailers across to go with

the demand of customers. The overall integration process leverages the whole shared

information among partners of supply chain of an organization towards its advantage.

The key to Successful consolidation of Supply chain business process is by employing the

collaborative work across suppliers and buyers, common systems along with the shared

information and joint product development.

In 2000, the Lambert and Cooper expressed their view as the whole as “The continuous

information flows in the integrated supply chain process supports an organization to achieve

best product flows”. Despite such expression, there subsists an opinion among organizations

and networks of management, that product channelling cannot be optimised without the

implantation of the process access to respective businesses.

The supply chain significant processes by Lambert (2004) are listed below:

Customer relationship management

Management customer service, management of demand, fulfilment of orders, management of

flow of manufacturing, management of returns, management of supplier relationship,

management of returns, development of a product and commercialization, management of

returns are the processes explained by Lambert as significant in supply chain. Procurement,

outsourcing and partnerships, measurement of performance and physical distribution are the

other significant keys in supply chain according to Lambert. Some of the important processes

are explained below.


1. Management of customer service process

As the information of customer is the basic source for service of customers, the important aspect

of Customer relationship Management is between the organization and its customers. This real-

time information makes customers cognisant on various details such as product availability,

product information, probable delivery dates through multiple interfaces of information about

the company's operations of production and distribution.

Steps to build an efficient relationship with customers:

• Establish goals which are commonly rewarding between organization and customers

• Customize and invest efforts to preserve customer resonance and support always

• create positive outlook with customers in the organization

b) Process of procurement

In laying good strategic plans for process of procurement, the interests, opinions and support of

the suppliers is very important; because their confidence in the plans lay foundation for newly

build manufacturing flow management and it is the same in case of a development of a new

product.

When activities are global and far reach across, the companies need to accommodate processes

to manage and source them accordingly. For achieving success in creating the preferred product,

it is significant to have mutually beneficial relationship, cut down times cycles in design and

development of the new product play very important role.

Communication systems can be boosted by deploying tools like Internet connectivity and

electronic data interchange (EDI), of the purchasing function of a firm to drive activities.

These powerful systems of communication streamlines a lot of processes in managing,

obtaining and tracking information about products and materials and products, which supports

organization in dealing with issues successfully; supply sources, inbound transportation

negotiation phases, resource plans, order placement, delivery status, storage capabilities,

handling and quality assurance. Also, it actuates the organizations to handle the responsibility

and to organize commitment with suppliers over supply continuity, delivery scheduling,

misrepresentation, and research support studies in creating new product and sources of

programs.


c) Development of new product and commercialization

This helps organizations to reduce time cycles of development of product with aspects of

customers, suppliers so as to capture markets better by being competitive, innovations of

products, and scope to be ahead of competitors in exceeding expectations of customers.

Following points are suggested by Lambert and Cooper to Managers of product Development

and Commercialization:

Abreast management of customer relationship with real needs of customers by making right

choice of suppliers and materials in line with procurement, and by developing practices in

evolving different potential production technologies to improve manufacturing flows in

integrating them with best flows of supply chain of product-Market contexts.

d) Manufacturing flow management process

The earlier forecast mechanism and its whole information and details help in a great way in

designing better flexible manufacturing process procedures and supply efficiencies with

channels of distribution.

Thus mass customized and Flexible processes to market changes, operating processes to order

processes on just-in-time (JIT) basis of band sizes and reduce the time cycles of process of

manufacturing flow with improved efficiency in responding to demands of customer. So the

organization can easily develop efficiencies in work stream lining operations, planning,

scheduling, and inventory transportation, and scales the elasticity across geographies in meeting

production and distribution assemblies.

e) Physical distribution

In the context of physical distribution, the consumer standout as the final end of marketing

channel movement for any finished product or service, in continuous offers with the availability

of the product or service in each channel of distribution. Also, the space time of customer

service is of high value consolidation in the process of extending its customers like

manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers.

f) Outsourcing and partnerships

The basis of the concept of outsourcing by organizations has changed from typical procurement

of materials to employing different channels and sources to hand over the services too, thus

concentrating on areas of value chain and the advantages of it.

This trend is well comprehended in logistics domain, where organizations have picked and

create partnerships with transportation leaders, warehousing and control of inventory to measure

in the control collective partners and suppliers networks. This strategy allows the organizations


to monitor effectively over performance issues of supplier and managerial command on the

logistics partners on a daily basis.

g) Measurement of performance

The organization draws the best of profits and ascendances the market share is a direct result of

integration process of supplier and customer. It helps organizations to frame emphasis for

management of performance setting about competencies in logistics with the capabilities of

supplier and invests in long- term goals of customer relationships for advantages in the

competitive environment. The researchers along with A. T. Kearney Consultants noted that

firms equipped with broader measurements of performance have delivered consistent results and

below are some analysed internal measures for any organization:

• Cost

• Quality

• Customer Service

• Levels of Productivity

• Asset measurement

The major and significant integration elements of SCM are

� Standardization

� Postponement

� Customization

The integration and management elements of SCM:

To construe the level of management and integration of business process is a calculation of

function of number and level with drifts of low and high and the link of added constituents

(Ellram and Cooper, 1990; Houlihan, 1985).The third component of the four square circulation

model displays the components of supply chain management.

Application of the percept is in amalgamation of more components of management or increasing

level of each component can enhance the level of integration of any process of business.

Lambert and Cooper in 2000, proposed the below listed components, in balancing concept of

the literature on engineering of business process, buyer-supplier relationships and attract the

management attention to different possible components of SCM. Planning and control, structure

of organization, work structure, Structure of product flow facilities, structure of organization,

structure of product flow facilities, information flow facility structure, risk and reward structure,

methods of management and structure of power and leadership are the components (Lambert

and Cooper).


Culture and attitude:

A close look on the literature which is available will provide us more information about what

produces the best structure with clear details on branches and components for a process of

business related to customers and suppliers.

Bowersox and Closs expressed their view that “Great heights of joint achievement can be

represented by the synergies exchanged mutually in establishing the cooperation” (Bowersox

and Closs, 1996).

The chief participant is acute to achieve responsibilities of ownership of stocks or in accepting

the risk of finance along with other components of primary level (Bowersox and Closs, 1996).

The Secondary participant is more specialized, who is keen to perform services which are

essential for primary participants, along with constituting channel relationships, inclusive of

components of secondary level. The Third level channel participants includes the branches and

components of the participants of primary and secondary level channel.

Literature of The Lambert and Cooper do not help us to understand the specialized primary and

secondary level components of the supply chain comprehensively (Bowersox & Closs, 1996).

This expresses about the emphasis which is absent in understanding how these different

components should be considered, structured and analysed to lay an effectively integrated chain

of supply.

Reviewing the literature by Baziotopoulos to bring out components of supply chain and some

significant suggestions of the study are listed below:

Benchmarking, Customer service management and order fulfilment comprises the top priorities

for both the components of primary and secondary level.

The primary and secondary level components for Product Data Management (PDM) are;

development of product, commercialization customer satisfaction, profit margins, market share

and stakeholders ROI respectively.

The primary and secondary level components for enterprise resource planning (ERP), are;

physical distribution, manufacturing support, procurement, management of warehouse,

management of material, planning of manufacturing, personnel management, and postponement

or order management respectively.

The primary level components of logistics must be linked with facility of information flow

through internal structure of organization for measurement of performance.

Variant, direction, decision and measurement of policy level constitutes the four aspects of the

components of secondary level and in particular, total cost analysis , asset management and

customer profitability analysis , are carefully analysed.


The outsourcing constitutes of the management methods, and the objectives of strategy for

specific initiatives in significant areas of information technology, capabilities of manufacture

and operations as primary level components and logistics as component of secondary level.

The conceptions of reverse logistics are well known as "Aftermarket Customer Services", where

on any given time, the budgets of Warranty Reserve or Service Logistics allow withdrawing

money. The whole process of Reverse logistics is aspired to generate a purpose in recovering

value or pertinent authorization of information by planning, implementing, monitoring and

controlling the capable and valuable of inbound flow with storage of secondary goods.

Significant Changes from the Traditional Concept of Supply Chain Management:

� Cut down life cycles of product.

� Shorter cycles of product change-over

� Scope for increased rate of new product development

� Pint sized cycles of production process cycles.

� Zero- defect integration of productivity and Quality.

� Total Quality Management (TQM).

� Possession of strategic resources like process technology and Equipment.

� Adaptable Manufacturing Systems (FMS)

� Rising importance for practices of project management.

� Embracing changes of technology over needs of information and automation.

� Deploying Computer Aided Design (CAD), and Manufacturing (CAM).

� Depart employees’ strategic training on Technology work inputs, accountability and

performance.

There is a drastic development in the use of information and communications technology

(ICT) in logistics and management of supply chain. ICT is today being used in many

organisations in a broad range and areas of operations. It has provided new ways to store,

process, exchange and distribute information both within companies and with customers and

suppliers in the supply chain. ICT used to exchange information in the supply chain is often

named inter organisational ICT or inter organisational information systems (IOIS).In supply

chain management, ICT has especially been recognised as an enabler for information

sharing which companies in the supply chain can use for eliminating the so called bullwhip-

effect (Lee et al., 1997). Information-sharing is also a key component in many of the recent

automatic replenishment programs (ARP) (Daugherty et al., 1999). Initiatives such as

vendor managed inventory (VMI) and forecasting and replenishment , collaborative

planning are based on an increased level of automation in both the flow of physical materials


and goods and the flow of information between companies to improve the efficiency in the

entire supply chain. In a operations management perspective, companies seek to further

improve the efficiency in the supply chain by sharing information related to matching

demand and supply such as short- and long-term production planning, demand forecasting

and materials and capacity planning. Information that can be relevant to share between

customers and suppliers typically includes point-of-sales data, forecasts and inventory

levels. There is a significant amount of research demonstrating a positive impact of ICT in

the supply chain. As companies seek to develop the supply chain efficiency through

increased integration, ICT can be considered as a key enabler for supply chain management

through its ability to support information sharing and shortening information processing

time. Supply chain integration can however be expressed in a wide range of dimensions such

as integration of processes, information, organisations and systems (Bowersox et al., 1999;

Mouritsen, et al., 2003). Similarly, the impact of ICT can be demonstrated in terms of for

instance changes in relationships, inter organisational changes and performance (Wilson and

Vlosky, 1998). The many dimensions in which supply chain integration can be expressed

and the wide variation of factors in which the impact of ICT can be defined in terms of

integration indicates that previous researches have been limited to studying a few

dimensions and variables relationships at a time. The aspect of how to control and

coordinate the activity between the companies in the supply chain, and how ICT affects the

level of control integration in the supply chain is a poorly developed area. We propose in

this paper a research model for further research exploring the impact of ICT on integration

in supply chain control. The model is primarily based on theory within supply chain

integration and the impact of ICT. It also incorporates the supply chain control perspective,

which defines the scope of application of the model. In contrast with previous research, this

model does not intend to limited to a few pre-defined dimensions or variables for

investigation but can be used to examine situations involving any type of integration

dimension and influencing factor.


Supply Chain Control

The supply chain control is a very important process which allows an organisation to plan,

implement and control the entire supply chain process. The control process consists of six views

towards an organisation operations, with each view having various attributes to it

The views are on the aspects of resources, materials involved, information flow, business

process, organisation and controlling of the processes. And these views are aggregated to show

the overall control perspective of a company.

We have taken two examples of control and planning to explain the relationship of the supply

chain and its relevance in supply chain. We will see firstly, (Vollman, 2005) MPC standing for

manufacturing planning and control (MPC) system and then we will see the materials and

capacity planning perspective (Mattsson and Jonsson, 2003).

The MPC framework basically means Manufacturing planning and control

Consisting of the front end, engine and back end.


• Front end phase of the framework considers all the actions and related operations towards the

establishment of the company’s overall planning and controlling. The aspects of Managing

Demand, sales and operations planning (SOP), resource plan and master production scheduling

(MPS) etc are taken into consideration.

The demand is subjected to the customers trend, hence this management allows to forecast the

demand depending on customer’s choice.

• The engine phase deals with the capacity of production and the resources available based on

the MPS. Material requirement planning (MRP) determines the time and quantity constraints for

the components and other parts required for the manufacturing of the products.

• The back end phase plans the orders and provides them to the factories and vendors for the

carrying out of material and capacity procedure. Finally a detailed array and control of

scheduling the activities at shop floor and vendor management is met.

The planning outline is analogous to the MPC framework. The only difference being the overall

center of attention on planning mostly. In MPC both planning and measurement are held

important but in Planning framework the material and capacity planning are performed. In the

material perspective, planning deals with decisions regarding the deliveries in terms of product

types, quantities and timing while in a capacity perspective, decisions regarding the capacity

needed to produce required quantities and what capacity is available are dealt with. The

planning framework is based on four levels:


• The sales and operations planning (SOP) deals with the overall planning of the sales and

production. Future demand are forecasted at an operational level and the sales are analysed for

taking decisions regarding purchasing and utilisation of resources and other decisions on the

current operations.

• The master planning process uses the information provided by the customers purchase orders

to make the forecast, since customer orders are specific and vary in product types and depends

whether products manufactured are required to stock or to orders. Master planning deals with

the establishment of sales and production planning showing quantity and the type of various

products which will be produced in a specified time.

• The order planning executes the plans which have been defined on a strategic and tactical

level. The Material flow is controlled based on the operational level within a defined production

and distribution structure.

• Workshop planning demands the superior levels to establish the production orders which are

then planned in detailed and executed. This planning balances the available production capacity

with the current order and operations capacity needs.

With the obvious need of these frameworks in the overall division of the available frameworks,

time dimension is the most valued in both the cases


Theories of SCM

Presently there is a break in the available literature on the studies of supply chain management,

as there is no support of theory on explanation of existence and the limits of the management of

supply chain. Authors like Lavassani (2008) have attempted to furnish theoretical foundations

for various areas associated to supply chain by applying organizational theories. Such theories

include, knowledge based view, resource based view, strategic choice theory, and transaction

cost analysis, agency theory, network perspective, institutional theory, network perspective and

systems theory.

Supply Chain Sustainability

Supply chain sustainability is an issue of business which affect the supply chain of an

organization or network of logistics and is often measured by comparison with the ratings of

SECH. SECH ratings are determined as social, cultural, health and ethical footprints. Customers

have got more known about the impact of environment of their purchases and organizations’

SECH ratings and across the nongovernmental organizations, are making the schedules for

conversions to locally produced goods and anti-sweat shop labour that support independent

businesses. As supply chains often account for more than 75% of an organization’s carbon

footprint, many companies are exploring how such organization can reduce this and hence

improve their rating of SECH.

Developments in Supply Chain Management

Six significant movements can be discovered in the introduction of studies on supply chain

management; creation, integration and globalization (Lavassani, 2008) Specialization phases 1,

2 and SCM 2.0

1. Creation Era

The term of “supply chain management” was coined first by an industry consultant in U.S in the

early years of 1980s. The idea of supply chain management was of great significance long

before in the starting stage of 20th century however, particularly with the introduction of

assembly line. The features of this age of supply chain management include the necessity for

large scale changes, downsizing and reengineering determined by programs of cost reduction

and far-flung attention to the management practice in Japan.


2. Integration Era

This era of studies on supply chain management was spotlight with the growth of systems of

Electronic Data Interchange in the 1960s and grown through the 1990s by the evolution of

Enterprise Resource Planning systems. This era has extended its development into the twenty

first century with the development of collaborative systems based on internet. This supply chain

evolution era is characterised by increasing the addition of value and reductions of cost through

integration.

3. Globalization Era

The next movement of development of supply chain management is the era of globalization.

This era can be characterised by attention provided to global systems of relations with suppliers

and the elaboration of supply chain over the boundaries of nations and even into other

continents. Though the application of global sources in the organizations’ supply chains can be

hounded back various decades such as of the industry of oil, an appreciable number of

organizations began to incorporate global sources into their main business. This era is featured

by the globalization of the supply chain management in firms with an objective of improving

their competitive advantage, cost reductions and value adding with the help of global sourcing.

4. Specialization Era- Phase One

Industries started to concentrate on “core competencies” and used a specialisation model.

Organizations abandoned integration in vertical manner, sold off operations which are noncore

and outsourced those activities to other organizations. This altered the needs of management by

continuing the supply chain well outside the walls of the organization and management

distribution all around the specialised partnerships of supply chain.

This conversion also re- concentrated the basic perspectives of every separate organization.

OEMs have become the brand owners that required good visibility to their supply base. The

total supply chain had to be controlled by them from above rather than from within.

The manufactures of contract had to bring off bills of goods with different schemes part

numbering from various OEMs and support customer calls for the visibility of work in process

and vendor managed inventory. The specialisation model produces networks of manufacture

and distribution composed of various individual supply chains particular to products, customers

and suppliers who work along to design, manufacture, and market, distribute, service and sell a

product. The group of partners may change in accordance with a given market, channel, or

region, leading in a proliferation of environments of trading partner, each with its own peculiar

features and demands


5. Specialisation Era- phase 2

The supply chain specialization started in the 1980s with origin of warehouse management,

transportation brokerages and non asset based carriers and has full blown beyond logistics and

transporting into the facets of planning of supply, execution, collaboration and management of

performance. The forces of market could demand alterations from logistics providers, suppliers,

customers, locations and from these various specialised participants as elements of networks of

supply chain. This unevenness has important effects on infrastructure of supply chain, from the

layers of foundation of managing and establishing the electronic communication among the

partners of trade to more complex needs including the constellation of the activities and flows of

work which are crucial to the network management itself.

Specialization of supply chain modifies organizations to develop their overall competences in

the similar way which outsourced distribution and manufacturing has executed; it helps them to

concentrate on their core competencies and set up networks of particular, partners who are best

in class to contribute to the whole value chain itself, thus by increasing the expertise of supply

chain without improving and maintaining a whole complex and unique competence in house is

the main reason why the specialization of supply chain is acquiring popularity.

Hosting of outsourced technology for solutions of supply chain introduced in the late 1990s and

has accepted primarily in collaboration and transportation categories. This has developed from

the model of application service provider from about 1998 through 2003 to the on demand

model from about 2003 to 2006 to the software as a service model presently in concentration

today.

The Management Components of SCM

The components of SCM are third component of the framework of four squire circulation. The

level of management and integration of a business process link is a purpose of number and level

ranges from high to low, of elements added to the link. Eventually, addition of more

management elements or altering the level of each element can increase the integration level of

the process link of the business. The researches on reengineering of business process,

relationships of supplier and buyer, and supply chain management suggest different components

which should receive the attention of management while managing the relationships of supply

chain. Lambert and Cooper (2000) gave the importance of concepts of planning and control,

product-flow-facility structure, importance of structure in work, methods of managing,

organizational structure, the structure of leadership, risk and rewarding structure and

information-flow-facility structure.


A detailed analysis gives the effect and the relationship between all the business processes and

examines the impact on the roles of the business processes, it broadly explains the relationship

of the customers with the suppliers and the effect each other have, this forms a vicious cycle in

which both parties tend to depend heavily on each other’s action.

Bowersox and Closs elucidate that the strain on carrying out of a group work denote the synergy

which leads to the highest level of joint undertakings (Bowersox and Closs, 1996).

A participant in primary level channel is a business which is leaving to participate in the

ownership responsibility of inventory or assume other expressions of risks of finance, thus

including the components of primary level (Bowersox and Closs, 1996).

A business is said to be an expert contestant in a of secondary level which takes part in channel

dealings by presenting diverse important services to the participants which lie in the main level.

The global supply chain management has got its own issues to solve which include,

• Different currencies and valuations in different countries

• Different protocols of trading

• Different tax laws

• Lack of transparency of cost and profit

Customers of a supply chain

Supplier and organization are seen as two important peers who depend on each other for a

healthy growth. Supplier produces and supplies goods to the organisation who tell the suppliers

of their requirements. So to meet each other’s needs they need to operate very closely and

should know about each other’s constraints, because the customers needs can be met only from

each other support. These two peers of the supply chain have their own internal and external

customers. Organizations, governments, etc constitute the external suppliers of the suppliers

who buy goods from them and their employees are the internal suppliers. For meeting the

demands of the external customers internal customers must be satisfied as we can see what can

happen if the supplier does not meet the needs of its employees, which may be appropriate

training or rewarding or culture, there may be a sense of dissatisfaction and can lead to

deterioration in the quality of work achieved and henceforth the External customers who depend

and feed the supplier won’t be happy about it if the goods received is not upto the standard.

If the organisation starts selling inferior quality of products without knowing that the suppliers

are giving the goods of low grade can result in dissatisfaction in the customers who might

conclude not to buy the goods from that organisation anymore so this will result in theloss for

the organisation leading to the loss of the suppliers, so it is evident that the dissatisfaction of the

internal customers which are the employees resulted in the failure of the whole organisation .


Whereas, a good supply chain relationship will result in the growth of both the external

customers and the employees, this will help in the growth of both the parties. Hence we can

conclude that SCM model is successful only when other management issues are properly

addressed.

The impact of ICT

ICT stands for Information and communication management which is the backbone of almost

all the management systems. It can-not be thought of running an organisation without an ICT.

For us ICT is a mode of communication but for an organisation such as PC World it means

more and is utmost imperative to have a good and a modern ICT as the possibilities are vast. If

we think as how the organisations used to run in the past we can very well see how things have

changed drastically over past years due to the changing trends.

IT as an entertainment:

It is seen and its apparent that the gaming sector is one of the biggest industries in the world

with billions of dollars worths of profit. There is an ever increasing rivalry between the

organisations like Electronic Arts and Activision which are trying to replace the top place, the

devices like X-Box and Play station have revolutionised the approach to games and the arena

has changed from 2d to 3d graphics. Television will be a thing of past as the companies like

Youtube will be offering the video streaming live on TV’s thus giving a wide range of options

for the customers, people can watch youtube on their mobile phones, ps3’s etc and thus the

demand will eventually move from a plain television to youtube television on a mobile.

ICT as a service:

Internet is such a boom for mankind as it connects the world literally from anywhere. A

company like Wall-mart couldn’t have become such a company like it is today as the vision

would be myopic, they would have never be possible to maintain their organisation across the

borders.

E-bay is such a hit, because it offers a marketplace which is completely online and the

customers can sit in ease and buy and sell their goods. Thus it is very convenient and has

changed the very perspective of business.


ICT in management:

ICT has played a very vital role in today’s business arena. PC world is today relied on its

Software systems so heavily that the company would come to a grinding halt without it. It

allows people to buy things online on the internet and on the other hand provides the managers

with vital information on how the things are to be done by showing the sales statistics and the

other important facts which provides a very good insight in the position of the company and

thus there is a very little room of mistake in the forecasting.

ICT thus has changed the way things were done by allowing us to do things better and quicker,

as they are lot better and they have a very deep impact on us.

Supply chain operations can be improved by improving the Five aspects of Operations

management which are Speed, Cost, Dependability, Quality and Flexibility

Prices Low, Margins are high

Short Timing Delivery Delivery is reliable

Properties As-per the Specification A good range of products

Cost

Speed Dependability

Quality Flexibility


ICT Can improve these properties with a highly accurate and quick service, thus is considered

as a bridge between all the nodes of management in a company, It is the bridge between the

customers and the organisation. It provides better control and planning, it provides better

response, provides the fastest way to share information as EDI(Electronic Data Interchange).

The ICT is thus the most important invention of the 21st century.

Internet based communication systems and supply chain management

Move to the market hypothesis

The chief argument of this hypothesis says that reduction in the costs of transaction with the use

of new communication technology would change overall mechanisms of governance from either

hierarchical or cooperative relationships to a market system which is decentralised. Malone,

Yates and Benjamin (1987) had done a research and it is regarded as the basis of the debate on

the technology of communication and mechanisms of governance under the TCA paradigm.

There has not been any important explication of the move to market claim as it itself appears

self evident. Wigand and Benjamin (1995) defined a number of pre requisites for the electronic

market like high connection rate, high bandwidth connection, cheap and fast computer

capability, and absence of market access favouritism. Picot, Bortenlaenger and Roehrl (1997)

appended that fully fledged transactions in electronic market need changes in market organizers

like price discovery institutions, transparency institutions, access institutions and settlement

institutions. The most prominent weakness of the move to market hypothesis consists in the

assumption that a reduction on costs of transaction would adopt the introduction of internet.

Malone and his co workers identified major transaction course sources to be asset specificity,

coordination costs, product description and complexity. Their prediction was that the new

communication technology will reduce all these costs. The position of these scholars on this

issue was again affirmed later (Malone, Yates and Benjamin, 1989). The same problem can be

observed in the argument of Picot (1997). Picot and his co-workers believed that asset

specificity reduction was one of the basic changes leading towards the market. Their argument

was the acceptance of the tends of internet to accelerate knowledge diffusion and so reduce the

goods specificity, which prefers the market as a mechanism of coordination. These scholars

could have experienced more credit for their arguments in both the cases, if they had watched

the specificity of asset more closely. Transaction of specific asset bears on the assets which

cannot be deployed again to alternative purposes without significant sacrifice of productive


value (Williamson, 1991). As the advocates of this hypothesis specified, some of them are

anticipated to lose their specificity of transaction to a significant degree with a wide acceptance

of the internet in supply chain management. Communication technology itself is one type of

specific asset transaction. Network of inter organizational communication were believed

transaction specific assets before the introduction of internet. Internet is likely to make other

closed networks of communication highly, disuse eventually, though there were some delays.

Another class included the services and products for which the production depends to a great

extent on specialized skills and knowledge. The transaction specificity will be lost by these

assets because of drastically grown information transferability and duplicability. Temporal

specificity is type of specificity in which timely reactivity by on site human assets is significant

(Williamson, 1991) will also be reduced to a great extent by fast and accurate exchange of

information. Since the heavy dependence on information is common in all these assets, they

may be called information based specific assets jointly. Other than these, most of transaction

specific assets are based on more physical capitals however. The five transaction specific assets

out of six identified by Williamson are considered as not to be specific assets which are

information based. Site specificity cites to a condition in which stations which are successive are

situated in near proximity to each other to economise on transportation and inventory expenses.

Human asset specificity includes both experienced sales staff and skilled labour in a peculiar

product or area of service accomplished personal connections. Discrete investments are

dedicated assets made for a peculiar consumer in plants for general purpose and brand name

capital cites to investment made to brand products exclusively or services together with a

partner of transaction. These types of assets are not likely to be affected by internet in any vital

way. This hypothesis was only acceptable partially. The researchers appeared to have been

known the problems in the scholars’ arguments. Paradoxical to the chief theses somewhat,

Malone(1987) allowed room for electronic hierarchies and fully organized inter organizational

relationships Wigand and Benjamin (1995) too mentioned briefly that low specificity of asset

and easiness of description are needed for goods to be tradable in markets of electronics and it

makes the overall process simple and easy.


Move to middle hypothesis

The main idea of the move to middle hypothesis was the new technology of communication

would call organizations into a middle base from both the end (decentralised or hierarchy

market). According to this concept, close organized inter dependent organization would be

commanding mechanisms of governance in supply chain management. Other than the move to

market hypothesis, there were however a number of various reasons for backing the same

diagnosis. Various organizational and economic theories were employed in some cases.

Business networks are the base of one of furcates of move to middle hypothesis. Though every

sub unit of the network of business is highly incorporated dynamic relationship, a network could

be differentiated from a relationship which is dynamic as groups of connected relationship

moving above the dyad (Anderson, Johanson and Hkansson, 1994). Johnston and Lawrence

(1988) debated that partnerships which are value adding groups of small scale companies which

shares information freely emerged rapidly and eventually would become much prevalent mode

of coordination of organization. The idea of network was arisen further by a number of other

researchers. Steinfield (1995) anticipated that organizations would be using the networks of

inter organization to construct close relationships with their partners of trade than to use spot

markets. Nouwens and Bouwman(1995) also debated that the new technology of

communication would get rid of the conventional dichotomy between hierarchy and market and

finally lead to the growth of organization of network, a group of firm which are independent that

organize to carry off the flow of services and products in the value chain. Another concept has

originated from the observation that with the wide acceptance of new technology of

communication, the supplier basis for the organizations in many industries lessened rather

increased, in contradiction to what had been anticipated by Malone (1987). Bakos and

Brynjolfsson believed various alternative explanations intrigued by this phenomenon and

eventually developed a conclusion on the basis of incomplete theory of contract( Bakos, 1991).

New information technology contributed more importance to investments which are

noncontractible by the suppliers, like quality, innovation and responsiveness. Successively,

when such kind of investments was specifically needed, organizations would employ less

number of suppliers. On the basis of a continuum of the theory explanation of the incomplete

contract, (Brynjolfsson, 1994) developed a model depicting the influence of new technology of

communication would make smaller firms and less integration by reducing the specificity of

assets. Other than other exponents of the move to middle hypothesis, Clemons and his

colleagues examined each component of costs of transaction one by one(Clemons, Row and

Reddy, 1993 and Row, 1992). Their analysis says the selection of mechanisms of governance


was dependent on the expenses of the categorisation and risk of transaction associated with the

categorisation. Generally decreases in the costs of coordination would result in increase in the

risk of transaction. However the new technology of communication would make a unique

environment where the related risk of transaction and coordination costs could be lessened

simultaneously and so two extremely coordinated, interdependent organizations would be

commanding the mechanism of governance in supply chain management. Since this hypothesis

developed from various perspectives, every thought lines had their own problems in the

argument. Followers of networks of electronic business had a same dilemma with the followers

of the hypothesis of move to the hierarchy. Even though they powerfully argued that the

organizations with networks would be the future of choice of organisational governance, they

were known about the possibility that innovation of technology might make opportunity for

deconcentrated pure market (Nouwens and Bouwman, 1995, Stenfield, 1995). They allowed an

opportunity for hierarchy by mentioning the attributes of product briefly. Their care for

attributes of product was not fully incorporated in those scholars’ argument. Even though bakos

and Brynjolfsson (1993) captivated components of the reality and their logical thinking seemed

unlined, they did not explicate why they believed that new technology of communication would

step up the importance of non contractible investments. In contradiction to their assumption,

many forms of non contractible investments got more procurable with new technology of

communication in reality. Brynjolfsson (1994)’s explanation was especially concerned with

assets of information, contradicted to other sorts of specific assets like physically specific assets

and site specific assets. Therefore, practical application of the model of him must be limited to

positions where specific assets which are information based are included. The studies by

Clemons and friends were on basis of a notion that the affect of new communication technology

on coordination of firms must be anticipated by decomposing the costs of transactions. Clemons

and Row (1992) collapsed the costs of transaction as formulated below:

The costs of transaction = coordination costs + transaction costs

Risk of transaction = Transaction – specific capital + resource loss

Firstly, Clemons and Row (1992) debated that new communication technology would bring

down the costs for coordination. They also expressed that the costs of coordination are highly

independent of whether an interaction happens within a single organization or the boundaries

across the organization. They concluded new communication technology would bring down the

risk of transaction by bringing down the degree of transaction specific capital and by cutting

down the cost of control and monitoring among different firms. Afterwards Clemons, Row and


Reddy (1993) slightly altered their former argument and examined the costs of transaction as

follows

Cost of transaction = cost of coordination + operations risk + risk of opportunism

They determined cost of coordination as the exchanging information cost and comprising the

information into processes of decision in an extensive sense. The risk of operations was

determined as risks that the other parties in the dealing wilfully manipulate themselves recoup

information, or underachieve their accorded upon duties. They appended that the risk of

operations stems from deviations in goals among interacting parties and is affirmed by

asymmetries of information between the parties or by troubles in imposing agreements. The

final element of costs of transaction, risk of opportunism was cited to as the danger associated

with a deficiency of power of bargaining, resource control loss. The ideas under this analysis of

costs of transaction were the same. New communication technology would contribute to more

closely coupled inter organizational relationships all around different industries by bringing

down costs of coordination while not increasing risks of transaction previously obtained by high

categorization. So this impression comprises a great deal of truth. However we cannot assist

disagreeing on four significant points. Firstly we affirm that costs of coordination are not

autonomous of whether the interaction happens within a single organization or all around the

boundaries of the organization. In contradiction to that costs of coordination are affected by

whether an organization purchases in-house or purchases in a market. If costs of coordination

were not different in both the cases appreciably, outsourcing would be much suited for any

organization as long as its dealings with suppliers do not include a vital amount of transaction

specific assets. Secondly opportunism is not at all limited to a little part of costs of transaction.

Instead, opportunism is one of the two main assumptions of behaviour of TCA and spread

widely all around the process of activities of transaction (Williamson, 1985). Thirdly they did

not demonstrate how new technology of communication could depress asset specificity rather

than asset specificity which is information based. Therefore their anticipation could be genuine

only within a fixed range. Finally, it appeared that they were breaching a main assumption of

TCA. In accordance with their logical thinking, the most suitable mechanism of governance was

a middle field between hierarchy and market, a well known cooperative relationship which was

inaccessible only because of higher costs of coordination and risks of transaction. In this

assumption, the largest contribution of new communication technology would be reducing the

costs of coordination and transaction which modifies cooperative relations between buyers and

suppliers. Rather differently, TCA considers a market as the choice of ideal governance. Only

when procurance through mechanisms in market becomes also costly as chances of great


uncertainties and specificity of asset will be the search firmly for more beneficial alternatives

like tightly coordinated cooperative bond or hierarchy. While most of the debates supporting the

move to the middle hypothesis were on basis of theoretical hypothesis or conceptual modelling,

Stump and Sriram (1997) checked the move to the middle hypothesis with empiric data. They

failed to demonstrate a direct bond between an investment of a buyer in a new communication

technology and the overall closeness of the relationship between buyer and supplier. A

mediating variable associated indirectly with the two variables, the percentage of transactions of

purchase using new technology. The troubles in these hypothesises should be attributable to the

different directions that growth of communication technology have adopted since the

establishments of the hypothesis.


CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

I undertook methodologies which were qualitative and quantitative for understanding the

Supply Chain Management system and its functioning within P C World. Though great

importance is given to the analysis of secondary data collected for the purpose of research, the

real crux of my studies would be the primary research which I had done. Certain areas

necessitated the collection of secondary data instead of primary as I assume it will be more

helpful for the analysis of my findings towards the improvement of the Supply Chain

Management and the relation of it with the Information and Communication Technology.

Qualitative Analysis

For the examinination, primarily the main source of the information was qualitative in nature. I

took every care to be aloof as much as possible since I know upto what extent the qualitative

values can vary. I applied the ‘shadowing’ mode to observe the business functioning. I

examined the Supply Chain Management System in P C World by using my time for discussion

with different staff within the organisation to figure out the supply chain in the organization and

the pertinent use of I C T in that system. In addition to this, I have applied various other

methods of which helped me in the analysis and finding out the issues, some of the methods

used are as follows.

Participant Observation: People performing various roles were chosen, for which I had to find

people randomly with different nationality, different locality, different usability and different

preferences. This was very important to be as random as possible because if I were to collect

data in one locality, the chances of me drawing a similar conclusion were more.

Group Meetings: They were undertaken with the PC World staff and the normal populace who

are the customers. I went to various stores located at different places which obviously had

different type of customers with different choices, also the People were preferred from different

locations to get a more vivid results

.


Interviews: The interviews that were of the staff and the public which were highly structured

and unstructured in nature, It was very important to get a clear and unbiased result which

would’ve be possible only be taking both informal and a formally structured interview. The

Unstructured interview helped me to get the minute details which were obtained from the staff

mainly and the structured interview was mainly taken from the public and the staff.

Historic Research: The observer’s views were very much of a skeleton of my whole research. I

read various journals which speak of various aspects of the supply chain and the various

methods that were applied and resulted in the success of supply chain management were

followed. It gave me an insight of the happenings and what possibilities apply to a regular

management change. And for the analysis of data I had to use the following methods

Coding: I made it clear that the data is to be maintained and shown properly as they are the

backbone of any research. This had to be done by applying a holistic approach. The conclusion

were drawn from the extrapolation of various parties which provided with different results while

the interviews.

Personal Judgement: I also had to apply my personal judgement, as my views were based on

my experience. I also decided to undertake different locations and different people for the data

collection on my intuition. Hence some of the outcomes are concluded by me.

Recursive Abstraction: Pc World is an MNC with having various stores, but the way of doing

things varied slightly due to the change and effect of their organisation culture. Its departments

were randomly chosen which were preferred abstractly. Also no two departments from the same

store were chosen to get a sense of abstractness.

Quantitative Analysis

For collecting quantitative value I had to conduct Unstructural and structured ways, different

people which included the staff and the customers were asked with a premeditated set of

questionnaire, the results were then mapped against the overall number of people interviewed.

This provided me a much insight and the understanding of the organisation. These results helped

in my study of the importance of the cause of SCM and ICT systems in P C World and it

identified ways to improve its functions.


Primarily the research was taken to analyse the relationship between the customers and

the organisation. It thus greatly emphasises the role of services on the response of the customers.

‘Tech Guys’ which just started as a kind of Repair and maintenance service was a great hit

among the customers. This thus greatly drove to a conclusion that a good relationship between

the organisation and the customers are absolutely vital. Hence I undertook interviews from the

staff and also the customers who are impacted by P C World with their extra ordinary trouble

shooting and services to the customers.

The people interviewed were asked questions to find out the effect of,

� A price increase and bundled more items

� A price increase without any extra offerings

� A price decrease with lesser items

� A price decrease for the same product

I used statistics for the analysis of the response and the effect. This helped me gain an insight

required in the supply chain management.

I used the following methods for interviews with the consumers and suppliers of P C World to

get the Structured and unstructured data.

• Face to face interviews

• Electronic interviews

• Telephonic interviews

I used statistics for the analysis and conclusion of the data collected and this was applied to

examine the data primarily, I had to use the Z-Statistics as I undertook interviews from more

than 25 people. The analysis of the data first revealed the relationship between the data with the

current practices and problems. This helped me to give the recommendations towards the

findings.

There were different dimensions which were sometime irrelevant and bore little usability in the

improvement of the business. My motive was to find the current practice in the supply chain and

the ways it can be improved. This explained me the concept of SCM and the role I C T can

play in reshaping it, Finally I have examined the effect of the implementation, the difficulties

that the organisation will face, this was conveyed by the senior members who provided the data

required.


I would be addressing the issues relating the following issues and we can see that supply chain

is such an inevitable field

Problem Function attributed to.

Intended item out of stock Supply Chain malfunction

Delivery outside acceptable timelines Supply Chain malfunction

Home delivery too pricey Supply Chain malfunction

Problems with making online purchases Supply Chain malfunction (ICT), Corporate

Tech Team

Did not receive confirmation Supply Chain malfunction (ICT), Sales

Service

Limited choice Supply Chain malfunction, Product Planning,

Inventory Management

Website not user friendly Supply Chain malfunction (ICT), Corporate

Tech Team

Non Competitive Prices Supply Chain malfunction, Marketing/

Assortment

Not enough Gift items/ Value adds Supply Chain malfunction, Promotion

Web site doesn’t have enough product

information to induce a sale.

Supply Chain malfunction (ICT), Corporate

Tech Team


DATA COLLECTION

I had to collect data by conducting interviews as that is the best way to gain an internal aspect

rather than collecting information arbitrarily

CUSTOMERS

Respondent 1:

• What is your designation?

Doctor, I am a General practitioner in NHS

• Do you own any PC or Laptop and engage yourself in Technology?

Yes I have a Desktop which is custom made by Dell, Two laptops made by Sony and

Advent, also I have bought my kids an Xbox Recently

• Where have you bought most of your IT stuff from?

I have bought mostly from Pc world and Maplins but I normally buy my things online by

online shopping. It is more convenient for me with exceptions of some technical glitches

on their websites.

• Which company has a better customer service?

I personally prefer PC world as they have larger stores and they provide extended

services and they have a really good team of technicians like the Tech-Guys, their

service is impeccable

• Would you prefer in store purchasing or online?

I am a busy man so my preference would be online

• Are you happy with the service?

Frankly speaking I am happy but there is always a room for improvement especially

their prices are expensive sometimes compared to other companies


Respondent 2:


I am a Software Engineer in Accenture


I have two laptops, Mac and IBM; Also I am a game Geek so you would find many

gaming stations in my house


I have bought my IT stuff from E-bay and Maplins


I personally like E-Bay as they are cheap and I can buy my goods online and they are

secured. PC world service is good but their prices are a bit steep, but no doubt PC world

values their customers more

• Would you prefer in store purchase or online?

Online definitely

• Do you like their service?

Yes but obviously there service is not comparable to PC World and you hardly find any

complain as their marketed products are best valued and they provide


Respondent 3:


I am a Shopkeeper


Yes I have a Desktop, one laptop, one projector, Broadband Modem Router, I pod etc


Pc world and currys


PC world as they have well trained and Dedicated Customer advisors, I don’t have much

knowledge in technology, these advisors are highly trained and are a great help for

people like me who are not that technically sound.


Online if I am busy or if I have to buy something expensive then I prefer going to the

shop


Excellent service, I don’t like the online service though as it is complicated for me, they

should make the website more simpler.


Respondent 4:


I am a House Wife


Yes I have a Laptop and an I Pod


Pc world and Currys


Both are good


I would go for in store purchasing as I can See and evaluate the product, I can get a good

idea of the product by interacting the customer advisors who are very professional and

very helpful


Excellent service


EMPLOYEES

Respondent 1:

• What is your Designation?

Store manager, I have to monitor what all is happening in the store, All the staff

including the customer advisors, the middle managers and the technicians have to report me and

I have to report to the managers in Head-Quarters

• What is your Experience in this field?

I have worked as a store manager for almost 10 years

• Do you think there is a need of improvement in the Supply chain process?

Our company is no doubt the leader in customer services, We have utmost respect for

our customers, Business customers are valued and are served by our specialised Business

managers, Earlier we had difficulties in serving the customers as the Demand for goods

fluctuated and hence the warehouse management had extremely painful and difficult

times, but now its been changed with the application of Warehouse management systems

and Eclipse which is linked to the Warehouse management systems

• Are there any changes in customer Behaviour?

Customers always remain customer and for us they are every thing as we rely on

customers for our wages at the end of the day. And the customer behaviour is Tech

Savvy as they tend to move on with changing technology

• If you were able to modify the system what changes would you suggest?

I can’t think for any change as for me managing the store has become more and easier

with the ever changing technology.


Respondent 2:


I am an inventory manager and my job is the management of Inventory and report

regarding the same to the store manager.

• What is your experience in this field?

I used to work as a Customer advisor for 3 years and recently I got promoted as an

Inventory manager


Yes especially handling of goods, as it is very time consuming to count the pallets. We

use Scanning guns for scanning the bar codes during the Auditing which we normally

organise in Sundays and then we match them against the sales and the demand. Overall

speaking the supply chain is good.


My job description doesn’t tell me to interact to customers as I spend most of the day in

inventory management, Replenishment of the stock on the floor and reporting to my

Senior Inventory manager


I would go for increasing the speed of inventory management which often takes hours

and hours for counting.


Respondent 3:


I am a senior inventory manager. I contact our suppliers and the Sales staff directly,

there is a team who works below me and I report to my Store manager frequently


I have worked for over 10 years and 5 years as an Inventory manager.


PC World has a very good business and the demand increases day by day. I opine that

the company should increase the speed of delivery maybe by sharing the Transportation

routes with other companies hence reducing the trips and increasing the speed. Apart

from that rest is going good


Customer behaviour has recently shifted to online purchasing hence we need to be

dynamic in our service which changes accordingly to the increase and decrease in

demand.


I would try to increase the delivery speed due to the ever increasing demand of goods

may be by streamlining the transportation and reducing the trips and increasing

coordination between all DSGI companies for increasing the operational speed


Respondent 4:


I am a Sales manager my duty is to manage the day to day sales and monitor the

interaction with customers


I have about 10 years of experience in this field of sales, As a manager i have recently

been promoted to this rank, but I have experience in Business 2 Business (B2B) too. The B2B

experience was much shallow compared to this consumer perspective as they have a different

tendency.


Yes, I think the changing trends of technology should be more precise and clearly be

conveyed to our management, As sometime we don’t have the required stock maybe due

to a delay in logistics? Also we had complaints of faulty products for some time as The

new entrant supplier companies must be rigorously checked for compliance with our

standard


I have observed that customer behaviour is changing hugely and dramatically. A reason

could be booming technological advances, new competitors in the market, a demand for

latest gadget and so on. Customers are also sensitive to a good customer service which

we provide.


I would like to have Software services playing a bigger role on which the whole

management system is to be linked to the external interfaces like the websites which

allows the customers to virtually enjoy the benefit of in-store purchasing on a computer.

Summary

From the research, we understood the overall concept of supply chain management, Information

and communication technology and the relation between them. Let us find out how these

systems are used in P C World in further analysis.


CHAPTER FOUR

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

PC World Today

In 1993, DSGi plc bought VTA (Vision Technology Group Ltd), who had the ownership of four

P C World Stores. P C World stores were based on Croyden, Lakeside Retail Park at West

Thurrock, Staples Corner at North London, and Brentford. It was a period of successive growth

for P C World from there. It was from 2000, the name of Dixons Group plc renamed as DSG

International to reflect its growing status in international market better.

PC World UK acquired the management control of its French subsidiary in September 2006.

PC World was undergone a change of style at the beginning of 2008, including a new logo, staff

uniforms and store layouts for re-branding its image. In 2009, P C World and Currys opened

first dual branded megastore in Fulham on October 15th which provided a better experience for

the customers. DSGi announced in November 2009 that 162 stores were reformatted in UK and

Nordics and it has confirmed its plans to reform its stores all over Europe. P C World has its

operation in different countries. The operation of P C World extends to UK, Ireland, Italy,

Spain, and Sweden. In Italy, Spain and Sweden, the retailer is known as P C City.

PC world works under the DSGI which is the supplier. DSGI supplies to Currys, PC World and

Comets.

DSGI

(Supplier)

PC World

(Reseller)

CURRYS

(Reseller)

CURRYS

DIGITAL

(Reseller)


P C World and its Supply Chain Management Systems

P C World has got an efficient system of management of supply chains. It has been maintaining

good relation with its customers and suppliers. It is the success of the organization and it allows

them to compete with the rivals in the competitive business environment. Efficient supply

chains are the way to success in a business of an organization where products in the stores are

immediately replaced by new upgraded products. One way to make efficiency from a

environmental and logical standpoint is to share routes of supply with corporate partners.

P C World is focused on renewable and more on sustainability, such as creating ways in which

they can use networks and bases (locations which are away from the company's main

distribution center) with Curry's stores (another electronics retailer owned by the same

conglomerate as PC World), so they only need one vehicle between us, Christian Brown,

Manager of P C World, Croydon says. ''We have managed to achieve a substantial increase in

supplier backhaul, which has both reduced empty running and allowed us to take more control

of the inbound process.''

Other sustainability initiatives at PC World include powering road fleets with

biodiesel, redesigning delivery trucks to improve aerodynamics, using more roll-cages to reduce

the need for cardboard, and returning delivery pallets to suppliers for re use.

Impact of ICT in P C World

I would be analysing the various systems used by PC World in the Supply Chain process, will

be presenting their basic architecture and discussing their prominence. At this stage, I

concentrate mainly on the activities downstream of the value chain. Online purchases account

for over 30% of PC World’s top lines. The customer satisfaction is given great priority by the

top management of P C World. The online services and the telephonic services of P C World

keep them top on the market. The success of P C World is related mainly to the adaptation of

highly advanced systems of information and communication technology. I would be

concentrating on the virtual books are affected by these activities. P C World is much focused

on new technological advances in relevant field and keen to implement them according to the

requirements of the organization for the better performance of the supply chain management.


Impact on the Customer Services

The customer services of P C World were criticised critically by the customers in the past. With

the improvement in their supply chain management and the information and communication

technology systems, the customer services are better nowadays. The large queues when they

open new shops shows the change in the concept of consumers and they are attracted rather than

before towards the P C World. Now the services of this company had been bettered according to

the opinions of the Customers. Today, P C World tries to make every effort to resolve the

queries of the customers speedily and smoothly.

The P C World has a team called Tech Guys to help its customers with all kind of technical

aspects related to their products and services such as to install, to connect and to repair goods if

they go wrong the telephone team of P C World has been awarded for their performance in

2009. They handled 3.6 million calls previous year and more than 80 per cent of problems of

callers were resolved over the phone itself. Service hotline number with the products of P C

World allows the customers to call twenty four hours to solve their problems and advices.

Still in the interviews with structured questionnaires, a lot of customers are unhappy with the

customer services of P C World. Some customers opt Currys instead of PC World for

purchasing the same items. This shows the insufficiency of their system of customer services.

Now the new combined show rooms of Currys and P C World is a boon for its customers. In

this modern era, if a company could not satisfy the demands of the customers, it cannot survive

in the market even if the products of the organization are the best in market. The satisfaction of

customers should be well maintained in P C World. The approach of P C World towards its

customers is getting better day by day with their improved Information and Communication

Technology. This is a good sign for the company and the facet of P C World is changing now

with better customer services. Improvements are necessary as the company should maintain the

satisfaction of customers and should create a loyalty in their customers towards the firm.


The questions designed for customers in the group meeting

• Are they satisfied with the services of P C World?

• What makes them unique in comparison with the competitors?

• Is there any suggestions by which the service of P C World can be improved?

Questions designed for suppliers in the group meeting

• What approach does P C World follow with the suppliers?

• How P C World maintains their relationship with the suppliers?

• How P C World upgrade the standards of facilities to develop the supply chain?

Questions framed for the management in the group meeting

• How the management maintains the relations with the suppliers and customers?

• How vital is the satisfaction of customers and suppliers for the organization?

• How they upgrade the technology to improve the supply chain management?

• What is their style of operation with their customers and suppliers?


The findings from the group meetings and interviews with

customers and suppliers

The customers:

B2B customers are suffering and the sales of PC world has declined to 6% a drop of nearly 13%

in Curry's and a staggering 17% in PC World’s reseller Branch. Recently this change of

perspective has caused this severe drop. The SME’s which form the core and the backbone of

the reseller arm have taken aback because of the lack of dependability. PC World was supposed

to ease the supply chain between the Vendor and the customer. The chain can be seen as below.

Here we see the gaps between the Business customers and the vendors. PC World has much less

options as the products are given away by the supplier and the local business don’t have the

same options available as the normal customers.

The B2C customers are highly satisfied with the services provided by the P C World. The

purchases through online provides them great convenience and gratification. In an interview

with a group of customers, most of the customers conveyed this kind of information. The

current status of P C World is much convenient for the customers as everything can be done

with finger tips. Exceptions were also there in the opinions. Some were having the suggestion

that the services can be improved by the P C World. The services by the tech guys are a great

advantage for P C World. The immediate services executed by the tech guys developed the

brand image of P C World. Telephonic services done by tech guys have achieved a great

appreciation by the consumers of the organization as it is being done in a much convenient and

speedy manner. The combined retail shops by the Currys and P C World is also welcomed by

the customers as they can enjoy a variety experience of shopping. The P C World’s speedy up

gradation of existing goods and introduction of new products makes the customers always

happy and attracts towards the showroom and their web site again and again. Among all the

services, the online applications of P C World are really comprehended by the customers.

Dixons Group Plc

The suppliers

who supply to PC

World and SMEs

PC-World( The

vendors who deal

with Local

Business, PCWB)

Local Small and

Medium Scale

Industries

Products are transported off to the SMEs


Suppliers:

According to the opinion of the suppliers of P C World, the management of P C World is keenly

careful to maintain the relationship with them. The organization provides all requirements of the

suppliers for timely delivery of the products. The suppliers of P C World are happy on the

facilities provided by the organization. The strategies of logistics of P C World make the job of

the suppliers easy and comfortable. The transportation is done by various methods. The modes

of transportations are either arranged by the company itself and they render the service of

suppliers or other private firms according to the demands of the situations. From these data, I

analyse that the success of P C World is mainly counted on their effective relationships with the

suppliers of the organization. The suppliers of P C World enable them for delivery of goods and

other jobs within time, reasonable cost, and technical performance with a team work with the

management of the organization.

The management:

The management of P C World is always careful in maintaining the supply chain management

according to the needs of the organization. The significance of the management of supply chains

increases as per the vision of management according to the changes in the highly competitive

environment. The management believes the success of the organization firmly related to the

satisfaction of the customers and suppliers. The relationship with the customers and suppliers

are glorified as a basic culture in the P C World according to the management of the

organization. All the components in the supply chain management are taken care of by the

management for the beneficial operations of the system of supply chain. The top management is

really careful in the innovative systems of information and communication technology. This

observation on the technology allows the company to implement pertinent information systems

as per the demands of the situations and this stands as the key element of success of P C World.

Teaming up with customers and suppliers is the way of the processes of P C World in the words

of management. They offer value added services to both customers and suppliers. These

services are continued to be delivered till the satisfaction of them is guaranteed by the

management for the accomplishments of the goals and objectives of the organization.


Summary

The study on the supply chain management and the implementation of information and

communication technology systems within SCM in P C World has done here with the

qualitative and quantitative analyses and the findings as described above. The conclusions and

the recommendations which I found out as the result of this research for the improvements of

the supply chain management system and the processes of the organization are explained below.


CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The recent studies and implementation of successful supply chain strategies have earned respect

and fame to some of the very famous companies like Wal- Mart, Dell, Procter and Gamble, and

H-E-B. Supply chain is changing every day with the advent of new technology change od

customer choices, better and fast ways to remove the excess costs and increase the speed of an

organisation’s response to a change in its operating environment. This has shown how supply

chain can become one’s strength and how can it affect an organisation’s performance if it is ill

managed. We have extensively researched about the impact of supply chain and how it is related

to the marketing, operations, sales etc processes and we have established the leading role of ICT

in their collaboration. Every business process we know has been shown with the effect of ICT.

It is thus established that that the operation superiority can be achieved only by streamlining

them, SAAS which stands for software as a service clearly shows the whole mechanism behind

the operation of the company. The opinions and an exhaustive interviews with 15 professionals,

12 costumers and 2 suppliers were interviewed and examined and used for forming a hypothesis

and then seeking an explanation for that view.

The finding talks extensively of the need of a continuous upgrading of the ICT and shows the

huge gap between the managerial and the Customer perspective. The models which are already

in academics are either too unrealistic or are too ambitious which thus bars them from

implementation into the field

Literary findings suggest that price has a very deep impact on the customers and the

organisation’s supply chain. The demand can decrease or surge abruptly and these fluctuations

should be carefully managed by improving the response, this is possible only by ICT

implementation which allows to monitor and implement the changes almost in real time.

Price coordination is another such fact which should be carefully managed, price coordination

with quantity discounts is a must as an unmapped quantity discount can cause uncounted change

in the supply and demand which can cause the bullwhip effect as stated by Lee,

Padhamanabhan, and Whang (1997),

From the research, we have understood that PC World need to map the price and non-price

mechanisms more accurately to reduce the Bull Whip. Similarly, the need for standardization of

processes for success with the mechanisms with pertinent application of new and feasible

information and communication technology systems is increased day by day in this competitive


market. Managers established that a more deep involvement of the learning and implementing

of supply chain management is needed for getting a better coordination of the channel.

Managers view them as means to enhance the effectiveness of flow coordination mechanisms.

So it is necessary to update the technological advantages and implement feasible ways to

improve the supply chain management to be survived in market for P C World.

The P C World is undergoing a lot of reforming programs to make the efficiency and

productivity of the organization. The results of them are clearly visible in the operations of P C

World. Continuous improvements are essentially needed for maintaining this impact in the

market. New technological advantages should be used to update the information and

communication technology of P C world. The customer satisfaction should be given the most

concentration.

Supply Chain Collaboration

The best example of the effect of a good supply chain network can be seen in the collaboration

between Wall-Mart and Proctor & Gamble, Whenever product runs out of the wall mart store a

software sent alarm in Proctor and gamble and the amount of items and the type and name of

items, thus the replenishment of goods is continuous and there are no log-heads. I found that

some of the areas can be looked into and the overall efficiency can be achieved. (Eggert and

Helm, 2003) suggests the ways and benefits of sharing information, sharing The information by

the local SMEs with PC World and Dixons will increase the speed and transparency. (Liker and

choi, 2004, page 112) further state that “Sharing too much information is will ensure the right

information is unavailable when needed”

Why supply chain software?

Normally how the supply chain worked was that the sales managers, the store managers and the

warehouse manager analyse the performance of the items by conducting audits, a purchase order

was made and the goods are sent by the headquarters, this traditional approach depends on the

forecasts made precisely by the able managers automation now saves time, effort and

increase the efficiency of the company, and will reduce the Bullwhip Effect and increase its

response to the market fluctuations, well the supply chain software is no doubt one of the

world’s most fractured softwares but one software like Advanced Planner and Optimiser by

SAP is one such solution.


SMEs which form the business customers to PC World can share EDIs with PC World and

Dixons group, sharing information should be done Clearly without allowing cluttering of excess

information. This will improve the interaction between the suppliers, the vendors and the

customers and a better analysis can be done on PC World’s part.

Increasing the Usability of RFID

RFID normally are used as a security feature which normally are put on the items as security

tags, these tags after the item being sold are deactivated and thus the lifespan of the usability of

an RFID is limited, but as a matter of fact the usability of an RFID is much more, the

Storehouse can have all the pallets and goods tagged with the RFID reader installed on the

gates, thus counting of goods will be very quick and efficient.The customer satisfaction should

be given the most concentration.

SUPPLIERS, SMEs AND RESELLER

SHARING EDIs

(ELECTRONIC DATA INTERCHANGE)

DIXONS GROUP

(SUPPLIER)

LOCAL SMEs

PC WORLD

(RESELLER)


STEPS TO BE TAKE� FOR A BETTER REAL TIME ICT

According to Craig Conway, the CEO of PeopleSoft, there are twelve points which must be

applied for a snag-free operation of real time ICT :

1. Business process should be standard: regardless of the geography or the location of the

client the business process must be standardised

2. Pure Internet Architecture: This will make support even cheaper and flexible

3. Using Standard software: Using a standard software will promote sharing of EDIs easily, a

little customisation must be allowed

4. Collaborating with Software Specialists: Using help from a good software vendor and their

service will ensure continuity of service.

5. Sharing Databases: Using and sharing multiple Databases will ensure a good data sharing

and a good disaster recovery

6. Applications must be Better Scalable: since millions of users will be directly connecting to

business processes, the applications must be highly scalable

7. Multi Language and Currency based : If the company needs to expand throughout the

globe the Online process must be done in Multilanguage and multi currency based

8. Vendors must be Interactive: All the vendors must increase their engagement with each

other operations and must receive each other’s information in real time

9. Availability of Online Analytics: Analytics must be embedded which will allow customers

and vendors for making better decisions and better interactions.

10. More products and Few vendors: Less vendors and broader product line should be

available for ensuring a more reliable system

11. Managing Change: The change to be brought must be dealt sensibly according to the laws

of change management for ensuring better acceptability

12. Tough CIO: Lastly it all depends on the Chief Information Officer to ensure the team is

upto the mark.


Summary

I conclude the research of Supply Chain Management System and Information and

Communication Technologies in PC World, and what I have apprehended is that Information

and Communication technology is one of the most Vital and Misunderstood areas of

management, if they are to be ignored an organisation is zero, it is thus imperative for an

organisation to keep itself in pace with the changing technology. The recommendations given

will help to improve the productivity and efficiency of the organization. As we know as a fact

that PC World is highly committed to a good service to its customers, it is imperative that the

company maintains and improves its existing service quality. Eventually it will add to the

profitability of P C World


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MBA THESIS ON SUPPLY CHAIN MGMT, LONDON

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