One of the key things that are important during the supply chain management process is to make sure that the supply chain integration process is carried out in the right manner. If there is integration in the supply chain, the management is going to be able to ensure that they can track the movement of the raw material, optimize the level of inventory to reduce as well as make sure that the supply chain is synchronized to make sure that the customer demands are met. In this paper, some of the more important supply chain integration issues are going to be discussed and how they can be overcame by any business (Cao et al. 2015).
Globalization
One of the most important challenges is the globalization as one of the biggest issues that it creates is that whether production has to be outsourced or managed on their own (Monczka et al. 2015). If the production is not outsourced, then the key problem that business has to face is that how they are going to be managing different supply chain vendors across different locations (Cao et al. 2015). At the same time as the localization of the products into the global market has to be carried out, when the localization is carried out, it creates quite a lot of challenges as the companies have to adapt their product to ensure that they different cultures and preferences are being taken care off (Cao et al. 2015). One of the ways to overcome this challenge is to make sure that the supply chain enterprise technology is being used to allow diverse communications can be handled in an appropriate manner (Cao et al. 2015).
Rapidly Changing Markets
As the consumer preferences and demands are changing, there are many factors that the supply chain mangers have to make sure that the globalization is carried out in the appropriate manner. Even the presence of social media is creating many challenges for the business and thus the business has to adopt their supply chain lines to ensure that they cater to their sensibility. The products these days have also shorter life cycles and the businesses are under pressure most of the times (Monczka et al. 2015). At the same time, the as the product features are being updated on the regular basis, the entire supply chain strategy has to be changed to make sure that these changes are accommodated. The companies these days are opting for data management to make sure that they are more alert to adapt these changes so that extent to which supply chain can be controlled could be looked after (Monczka et al. 2015).
Quality and Compliance
As the markets as a whole are becoming more regulated, there are many regulatory compliances that the business have to make sure when they delivering their product. Due to that, the enterprises are under increased pressure to make sure that they are not only managing the supply chain in the right manner, the quality has to be quite refined. As a matter of fact, the margin of error has declined with each passing day (Wiengarten et al. 2016). The enterprises when they are operating at the global have to make sure that they are complying with the international and the local standards. It is a core challenge when it comes to the integration of the supply chain.
Conclusion
There is plethora of challenges that the supply chain managers have to face each day to make sure that they are catering to the sensibilities of people in the appropriate manner. The idea at the level of the enterprise is to make sure that they are integrating the supply chain in the manner that is allowing maximum leverage to the business.
References
Cao, Z., Huo, B., Li, Y., & Zhao, X. (2015). The impact of organizational culture on supply chain integration: a contingency and configuration approach. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 20(1), 24-41.
Monczka, R. M., Handfield, R. B., Giunipero, L. C., & Patterson, J. L. (2015). Purchasing and supply chain management. Cengage Learning.
Wiengarten, F., Humphreys, P., Gimenez, C., & McIvor, R. (2016). Risk, risk management practices, and the success of supply chain integration. International Journal of Production Economics, 171, 361-370.
