M9-Assignment no.

Steven Railey F. Arcebuche

1. What is Supply Chain?

A supply chain is defined as the entire process of making and selling commercial

goods, including every stage from the supply of materials and the manufacture of

the goods through to their distribution and sale. Successfully managing supply

chains is essential to any company hoping to compete.

A supply chain is the network between a company and its suppliers and

customers that includes all the transactions involved in transforming raw goods

into a salable products.  

The network includes the activities, people, technology, information and resources,

while the functional teams involved in the company’s network includes sales,

sourcing, procurement, production, logistics and customer service.

2. What is Supply Chain Management?

Supply Chain Management can be defined as the management of flow of

products and services, which begins from the origin of products and ends at the

product’s consumption. It also comprises movement and storage of raw materials

that are involved in work in progress, inventory and fully furnished goods.

The main objective of supply chain management is to monitor and relate

production, distribution, and shipment of products and services. This can be done
 by companies with a very good and tight hold over internal inventories,

production, distribution, internal productions and sales.

3. Why is a Supply Chain important?

The importance of clearly laying out the supply chain is that it helps a company

define its own market and decide where it wants to be in the future. The supply

chain enables a company to understand others that are involved in each of the

stages, and thereby provides some insights on the attractiveness or

competitiveness in industries the company might want to enter in the future.

When the activities of a company’s supply chain are brought together into a

single vision, supply chain management drives a competitive advantage by

executing faster, reducing friction through all internal and external points, thus

bringing more transparency throughout the process to deliver a product or

service that is beyond expectations of the end customer.

4. What roles do the supply chain and its processes?

Executive roles are the top tier of the supply chain. Their primary responsibilities

and roles are bigger picture types of responsibilities and goals. These are some

of the supply chain roles and responsibilities for those at the executive level:

 Hiring: Executives are not at the forefront of hiring, but they are often

involved in vetting and considering new managers and directors.

 Cost Reduction: In this role, you will analyze costs across many different

areas of the supply chain to find ways to reduce costs. Renegotiating

 partnerships and other executive-level relationships is also part of this

responsibility.

 Risk Management: Analyzing operations to find ways to reduce risk is an

important role of the supply chain executive. Failing to identify risks can

seriously damage the company.

 Regulations: Following governmental regulations and setting benchmarks

for the company itself often go to the executive tier. Executives often need to

analyze other factors that impact the entire business that come from multiple

levels.

 Considering New Trends: Industry changes and new trends are constantly

popping up. Executives must stay up-to-date on these changes to determine

whether the company must adapt along with them, including updating

technology.

5. How Supply Chains are changing?

During peak COVID-19 fears, supply chain touchpoints all over the globe

were affected in different ways. From stay-at-home orders to travel bans and

quarantines, supply chains were interrupted like never before.

Changing consumer demand impacted supply chains, as well. Suddenly, an

increased need for home items (like toilet paper or cleaning wipes) was

contrasted by a drastically reduced need in the industrial-sized counterparts

because of fewer people being in schools, offices and public buildings. Many

industries found it difficult to switch gears quickly enough to seamlessly fill

the gaps left from those changes.

More than half of all businesses  struggled through these issues without a

business continuity plan in place for emergencies or disasters.

The increased hacking  during the pandemic and a number of natural

disasters only add to the serious need for companies to plan for

emergencies. Without a supply chain contingency plan in place, employees

and management are left scrambling to create new policies and change

typical processes with little forethought about how everything will play out.