SUPPLY CHIAN MANAGEMENT

Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Background

Logistics is usually concerned with satisfying the supply of the customers' needs and wants in a marketing channel (or a distribution channel or a supply chain), while marketing usually focuses on satisfying the demands of the customers' needs and wants in the same marketing channel. For example, a couple of the essential inbound and outbound contributions of the logistics activities in a marketing channel are the procurement of materials and components from the suppliers, and the physical distribution of finished goods to the customers. Other fundamental logistics activities are transportation, warehousing, inventory management, and material handling. In addition, the marketing activities contribute to the promotion and sales activities in a marketing channel. Other typical marketing activities are public relations, sales promotions, merchandising, pricing, communication, and financing incentives. Altogether, marketing activities and these logistics activities may be seen as a chain of interdependent activities that complement each other in order to facilitate the exchange processes between the buyers and the sellers that are involved in the upstream and downstream activities in a marketing channel. Accordingly, marketing and logistics contain a sequence of conflicting activities such as procurement, promotion, sales, and distribution.

Traditionally, marketing consists of two separate but interconnected principal parts, namely the stimulation of demand and the satisfaction of demand. On the one hand, a principal part of the marketing activities strives to obtain a demand for something that is offered in the marketplace. On the other hand, the other principal part of the marketing activities strives to service or match the obtained demand in the marketplace. The interdependence between logistics and marketing may be seen as mutual and strongly interdependent. For example, a marketing activity may be dependent on the logistics activities in a marketing channel, and vice versa. The malfunctioning of one activity may imply the well functioning of other activities in a marketing channel. Therefore, the satisfaction of supply and the satisfaction of demand of customers' needs and wants have to be co-ordinated and synchronized in a marketing channel in order to achieve a successful outcome.

Research Problem

The problem that I plan to investigate is the failure of marketing activities in Logistics and Supply Chian Management.

Research Questions

I intend seeking answers to the following questions:

Q. What marketing strategies should be implemented in the successful process of supply chain management?

Q. Why marketing plays an important role in the logistic activities of supply chain management?

Objectives of the Research

Despite logistics activities and the marketing activities being closely linked to one another in a marketing channel, there is often an illogical and unhealthy distance between the two research disciplines in literature, and sometimes in practice. In some cases, these activities may be treated by scholars and by practitioners as though there were a sharp dividing line between them. Consequently, marketing activities and logistics activities are from time to time treated as separate from each other, which means that one or the other perspective is often ...