RMG 434 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Walmart, Supply Chain, Ableton
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
RMG 434
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
RMG434 WEEK 1 LECTURE 1
Helps pull a lot of what you learn over the past few years together
Espeially if you’re lookig to e a uyer – important because you need to work w/ your supply chain buyers
1998
• Silicon Valley begins
• The dot com bubble, then burst in 2001
• The birth of Google
• A lot of ecommerce began that year, such as Sears launching their ecomm
• Supply chain was incredibly different – people would shop in catalogues, stores etc.
o Essentially, most companies from a supply chain perspective were reliant on their bricks and
mortar so their supply chain catered to their bricks and mortar
o The big difference between scholarly articles then and now is that their perspective was
aspirational and they did not have a lot of real life best practices examples
• Google had a huge impact on every type of business, including retail
Exam: If an example is given during a lecture, will probably ask the same question just a different example but
it will still be a critical thinking question
Zara, H&M, Nike, Walmart etc. all have this in common:
• Sophisticated retailers with sophisticated supply chains
TOP 25 GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAINS (GARTNER)
• All of these retailers aka Adi, Nike, Zara, Walmart all make it to the list because they do it well
• Aazo, Apple, P&G, MDoald’s hae ade the Masters List – aka best practices for supply chain
• Whats different about their current top 10 list is that we have a lot of retailers
o Shows how retailers have advanced in their supply chain management/networks
o The point of investing in this area: the less complex the supply chain, the eaiser it is for the
customer. The strategic goal is always to obtain and maintain customers. To get that seamless
experience for the customer you have to invest in the back end of the company
WHAT IS A SUPPLY CHAIN?
• We know what it does, we know it can help create this seamless experience
• The stakeholders involved:
o Manufacturer – got to have a place where the product is actually made especially for a supplier
that supplies the product
o Supplier
o Transporter – truck, plane, ship, back to a plain etc.
o Warehouse
o Retailer
o Customers too!
• Supply hai does’t just stik / the people eployed y the retailer, many outside companies are
involved in the process of the supply chain
• Complicated but essential to retail
• Every retailer supply chain varies
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• In a network (supply chain) – reeer that ’s of people are ioled i this etork or e of
supply chain, such as management in the warehouse, management at the supply chain, employees at
the transport stage such as in the procurement centre
• Decisions such as where the product is manufactured is a part of the supply chain
management/logistics field
• Coca Cola example – imagine having a product that is perisable. Such as coca cola, has to be stored at
a certain temperature, not too hot or too cold or cans specifically could explode
• Decision making process
o Important to understand the decisions for carefully selecting the product in the buying stage
o NOW, the supply chain has to figure out how the business is going to move this product from
place to place in one piece in the condition the customer expect it to be?
o Supply chain is all about the details
CHAPTER 1: Understanding the Supply Chain
• Value chain – managing activities that lead to a competitive advantage
o Product development
o Innovation
• Supply chain – managing processes that fulfill customer requests
o Delievering the vision that the value chain has
o Physical
o Production
o Logistics
o Supply chains ultimate purpose is to get the final product to the customer
• Focus on the different activities in value chain and supply chain
o Value chain focuses on downstream activities
▪ How do we deliever value to the customer?
▪ All of the activities around the customer are considered downstream
o Supply chain focuses on upstream activities
▪ Upstream activities are critical to a supply chain working well
• Also consider various stages and different flows involved in a supply chain
o Flows are things such as product, information and resources moving between elements in the
supply chain
▪ Key flows that are constatntly shifting across each stage of the supply chain
• Product
• Information
• Resource
• Every cross functional area interacts with supply chain → product development, marketing, customer
service
• Important to envision all of the different mini steps that are required to birth a final product
o E.g. paper from a timber company for the label of a product
• Flows in a supply chain are better described as a web or network – aka less linear
• The overall objective is to maximize overall value generated
o To do so you must have a surplus
o For all of the different costs that go into building a supply chain, have to manage them at the
end of the day there is still some profit for the company
• SUPPLY CHAIN SURPLUS = CUSTOMER VALUE – SUPPLY CHAIN COST
• Ultimately the customer is the only source of revenue in a supply chain
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Helps pull a lot of what you learn over the past few years together. Espe(cid:272)ially if you"re looki(cid:374)g to (cid:271)e a (cid:271)uyer important because you need to work w/ your supply chain buyers. Exam: if an example is given during a lecture, will probably ask the same question just a different example but it will still be a critical thinking question. Zara, h&m, nike, walmart etc. all have this in common: sophisticated retailers with sophisticated supply chains. The strategic goal is always to obtain and maintain customers. To get that seamless experience for the customer you have to invest in the back end of the company. Such as coca cola, has to be stored at a certain temperature, not too hot or too cold or cans specifically could explode: decision making process. Chapter 1: understanding the supply chain: value chain managing activities that lead to a competitive advantage, product development.
