While some oil companies have chosen to augment their value chains by subsequently globalizing their operations in order to escape the possibility of future White House interference, Marathon has chosen to rely on its investments in new technologies to lead it into the future (Wingfield, 2010). Furthermore, when considering that many developing nations have recently begun to nationalize their oil industries (and presumably this trend will continue), the strategic decision by Marathon to develop new technologies seems like a smart choice (Zissis, 2006)
The extent to which a company is able to reduce or eliminate redundant activities and hand-offs in carrying out different tasks in the physical value chain processes determines its capability in responding to customers' specific demands and expectations in quick time. By improving its internal business activities, a company can not only meet customers' demands in products and services quickly but also offers additional values to customers (Kotler, 1972)
The extent to which a company is able to reduce or eliminate redundant activities and hand-offs in carrying out different tasks in the physical value chain processes determines its capability in responding to customers' specific demands and expectations in quick time. By improving its internal business activities, a company can not only meet customers' demands in products and services quickly but also offers additional values to customers (Kotler, 1972)
It has been able to use technology in to control all aspects of its company. A radio frequency network among area stores has improved its distribution network, and hand held computers have provided its associates with the technological tools to work more efficiently (Teece, 1986)
Southwest Airlines' successes were enough to get them listed in Fortune magazine's "Top 100 Companies" list. In the magazine, it is noted that Southwest Airline won the Triple Crown award for Best Airline five times; a fact that shows their success is more than just financial (Moskowitz and Levering 148)
Overview of Lockheed Martins' Value Chain The value chain of Lockheed Martin is quite complex, with many dependencies and interrelationships of tasks and processes. Figure 2 shows the Lockheed Martin value chain from a program lifecycle standpoint, as presented by Ronald Paulson, VP Engineering of Lockheed Martin (Paulson 2004)
Figure 1 illustrates Porters' Value Chain Model first introduced in Dr. Porters' book, Competitive Advantage (Porter 1985)
The fishbone diagram below summarizes the main causes. PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT Reports indicates that the FY2011 was Tesco's worst performance in 20 years (Hawkes,2011)
Tesco's Value Chain Analysis Value chain is defined as the special links that exists between the key value adding activities as well as their interfaces with all of the supporting activities (Lynch,2003)
This is the case with Netflix. Though the case does not elaborate, Netflix is having significant problems with content providers, for example Disney and Sony, and the result is that Netflix customers are losing access to films from some major content providers (Edwards & Grover, 2011)
It helps in improving internal and external communications as well as enhancing their capability to monitor organization performance against strategic goals. Balanced scorecard is a performance measurement framework that adds strategic non-financial measures to traditional financial metrics (Voelpel, Leibold, Eckhoff & Davenport, 2006)
Yet in fact as the events in China (Monotti, 2008) become more significant over time, and both external stakeholders including national governments starting to see there is a growing issue in this industry regarding quality, internal stakeholders become involved in terms of responding to requests to compliance within the industry. Given the transparency and immediacy of data and information the Internet has made available, there was a corresponding groundswell (Bernoff, Li, 2008) of interest in the issues of quality that continue to gain news coverage throughout nations seeing problems with chocolate quality
¶ … Chocolate Value Chain Analyzing the Chocolate Industry Value Chain The chocolate industry value chain is one of the most global in scope, encompassing the growing and harvesting of cocoa beans throughout Africa, Asia, South and North America, with processing centers in over 100 different countries of the world (Delfosse, 2009)
Studies indicate that one of the factors contributing to chocolate being so recession-resilient is the fact that it is one affordable luxury and has an affordable price and pervasive availability, which is due in large part to the exceptionally efficient supply chain of this industry globally (Delfosse, 2009). Market makers including Cadbury, Mars, Ferrero, and Nestle all rely on advanced forms of supply chain coordination and shared risk, including the use of Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) processes and systems to better manage the high variability of product demand (Doherty, 2009)
The primary activities of Inbound Logistics, Operations, Outbound Logistics, Marketing & Sales, and After Sales Service are supported by the Firm Infrastructure that is typical throughout this industry, which is by nature oligopolistic. Figure 1: Chocolate Industry Value Chain Sources: Based on analysis of (Delfosse, 2009) (Doherty, 2009) (Hildebrandt, 2009) (Monotti, 2008) (Sridharan, Caines, Patterson, 2005) (Tirone, 2008) Next, the Human Resources practices of the industry are evaluated, which in the case of the chocolate industry have a high level of duality associated with them
Better management of supply chain risk is critical for each member of the value chain to stay profitable. Industry Value Chain Analysis Using the value chain framework (Porter, Millar, 1985) as defined by Dr
The primary activities of Inbound Logistics, Operations, Outbound Logistics, Marketing & Sales, and After Sales Service are supported by the Firm Infrastructure that is typical throughout this industry, which is by nature oligopolistic. Figure 1: Chocolate Industry Value Chain Sources: Based on analysis of (Delfosse, 2009) (Doherty, 2009) (Hildebrandt, 2009) (Monotti, 2008) (Sridharan, Caines, Patterson, 2005) (Tirone, 2008) Next, the Human Resources practices of the industry are evaluated, which in the case of the chocolate industry have a high level of duality associated with them
Keeping in mind that chocolate is inherently a process good, the need for accurately tracking sales-out data through Point of Sale terminals and the use of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), a batch-oriented communications protocol that functions as a distributed order inquiry and order management system to ascertain sales by stocking unit (SKU) or box, the industry is grappling with what standard to use to track sales at the product level. The use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) on individual chocolate packing is making it possible to know item-level inventory positions within the largest retailers for example including Wal-Mart, an early adopter of this technology (Zhou, 2009)
For purposes of this analysis the quote-to-order process these auto manufacturers and others like them also use to translate customer demand into high quality vehicles is used (Selladurai, 2004). Describing the Quote-to-Order Process between Chrysler and Toyota The purpose of the quote-to-order process is to streamline the capturing of customer needs, preferences and requirements and translate them into the highest quality vehicle possible (Bilek, 2010)
First, a member of the auto manufacturer's selling organization will meet with a representative of a fleet buying group or buyer who is going to place an order for up to a hundred units or more which is often how rental care companies buy vehicles (Chow, Choy, Lee, 2007). In the past several years, Chrysler and Toyota have led auto manufacturers with the development of online product configurators which guide potential customers through the series of vehicle options and alternatives, allowing them to build their own preferred car and then order it (Roehrich, Parry, Graves, 2011)