supply chain
Amazon WAAS – Warehouse as a Service
The article “A Rare Peel inside Amazon’s Massive Wish-Fulfilling Machine” demonstrates the efficiency and power that an intelligent warehouse like Amazon’s has. What makes Amazon truly remarkable is that over 40% of their inventory comes from third-party sellers. In 2013, Amazon sold over a billion items on behalf of third party sellers. By creating this selling platform for other sellers, it has allowed Amazon to explore and develop unique solutions in other fields. To name a few: Amazon Prime, Amazon TV, AWS services, amongst others. Amazon’s intelligence in logistics is an advantage that no other tech rival can come close to, as of now. Amazon is increasingly becoming faster and smarter, allowing it to fulfill consumer wishes faster every day. Amazon allows many businesses to save money, due economies of scope. Meaning they can reduce procurement costs for businesses due to their sheer volume of order volume.
Discussion Questions:
1.) What do you think Amazon will do next to enable more sales for small businesses?
2.) How do you think Amazon will enter local markets? Perhaps acquire a company like Postmates? Drones?
3.) Do you think that Amazon will develop its own private shipping service? (Ex. UPS, FedEx)
New Personnel for Supply Chain Management
One of the main areas of focus in chapter 8 is supply chain management, and the strategy, benefits, and organization involved with it. A supply chain is a collection of companies and processes involved in moving a product from the suppliers of raw materials to the suppliers of intermediate components, then to final production, and finally, the customer. This article by Loretta Chao of the Wall Street Journal talks about the massive shift in strategy regarding the management of organization’s supply chains. This area of business is becoming increasingly dependent on technology, and is more prominently taking place on a global scale as time goes on. Due to these factors, companies are searching for people with the technological capabilities to consolidate the roles of logistics, procurement, and management all into one position. However, companies are struggling to find the right people with a broad enough background to do this, as 71% of companies are having difficulty recruiting senior leadership for their supply chains, with many believing that the current strategic thinking and problem solving skills of their supply chain managers is not up to par. Cisco Systems Inc. President of Supply Chain Operations John Kern believes that companies that do not invest in cultivating talent in this area now will “get caught flat footed two to three years down the road.”
Questions
- What do you think are the most important skills and/or qualities to have in managing a supply chain?
- In what emerging ways do you think technology will impact supply chain management in the future?
- Aside from technology and movement towards a global realm, do you envision any other changes to supply chain management that companies will have to prepare and recruit for?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-see-massive-shift-in-search-for-supply-chain-talent-1432327353