Don't shoot the messenger

Don't shoot the messenger

1. If you were in Jeff's position, what would you have done to preserve relationships?

Supply chain is referred to the system that is used for organizing, activities, people, resources and information that is involved in service or product development which is further delivered to the final user or end customer. Therefore, supply chain management (SCM) is considered as an important factor that contributes in operational efficiency of the business. As it is also realized by the modern organizations that supply chain management performs effective role in competing in the competitive environment of the business. It is found that in recent period information technology, outsourcing and globalization enabled various businesses to enter successfully in collaborative network of supply chain where each business partner is involved in specific strategic activity such as Hewlett Packard and Dell (Lambert, 2008).

In today's global market where there is intense competition, products are introduced rapidly and have shorter life cycle and there is great expectations of customers forced the business to employ and focus on effective supply chain operations. Supply chain is a complex management system and following the reason that explains the difficulty of supply chain management.

Strategies of supply chain cannot be developed in isolation as there are several other chains that are connected with other chain of the business. For instance the development chain in the business is associated with the introduction of the product and also related to the objective of the business which could be increased market share. Developing a supply chain management system that minimizes the overall cost of the business is difficult to design. In addition to this it is to mention here that each supply chain management system is exposed to risk and uncertainty as the business cannot effectively forecast the demand of the product or the service of the product.

As supply chain revolves around efficient integration of manufacture, supplier, stores and warehouses. Activities in supply chain management are related to coordination of activities throughout the supply chain of the business. This effective coordination result in reduced cost, enhanced performance, reducing the effect of bullwhip, effective utilization of resources, and efficient response to the changes occurred in the market. However, businesses indentified that is not only limited to coordinating the activities but it is integration of front and backend of the supply chain. Therefore, there are various strategies for supply chain which includes push strategies, pull strategies and push-pull strategies. It is obvious that supply chain effectiveness is dependent on information and it plays significant role in integrated supply chain (Harrison et al., 2004). Thus, in some scenarios supply chain is developed in the way that is used to gather information and in some scenarios supply chain strategy is used to effectively utilize the information that is gathered. In addition to this in various cases there is open network of supply chain that is used to compensate the lack of information.

If I were at the Jeff's position, I will effectively look into the ...