This document discusses opportunities and challenges in supply chain management (SCM). It outlines how information technology enables quicker customer fulfillment, reduced costs and inventory, and improved forecasting. Opportunities in SCM exist in food, e-finance, and pharmaceutical industries through outsourcing and digitalization. However, challenges include globalization, demand variability, ROI uncertainty for new technologies, and information disintegration across the supply chain. Effective SCM requires information integration and a demand-driven approach.

1. Opportunities and Challenges of
SCM, Future of SCM
Bipin
Roll No: 10
MBA FT

2. What is Supply Chain Management?
• A supply chain is a network of facilities and
distribution options that performs the functions
of procurement of materials, transformation of
these materials into intermediate and finished
products, and the distribution of these finished
products to customers
• Supply chains exist in both service and
manufacturing organizations, although the
complexity of the chain may vary greatly from
industry to industry and firm to firm.

3. Opportunities in SCM
• Information Technology in SCM
– Quicker customer response and fulfilment rates
– Shorter lead time
– Greater productivity and lower costs
– Reduced inventory throughout the chain
– Improved forecasting precision
– Fewer suppliers and shorter planning cycles
– More reliable and quality information

4. IT in SCM
a. Supply Chain Management Software
– Customer requirement processing
– Purchase order processing
– Inventory management
– Goods receipt and warehouse management
b. ERP and SCM
c. RFID and SCM

5. Opportunities in SCM
• Supply Chain in Food Sector
– directly into consumers
– cold storage units
– food processing entities
– restaurants, caterers
– packaging units, wholesalers or distributors

6. Opportunities in SCM
• E-Financial Supply Chain Systems
– Cross border transactions
– decreasing cost of technology
– speed of transaction
– 24hour 365 day facility

7. Opportunities in SCM
• SCM in Pharmaceutical industry
– Outsourcing reduces the overall cost by 30 to 35 per
cent
– Reduces problems faced during the regulatory process
– Improve manufacturing efficiencies
– Reduces excess production capacity by divesting
facilities
– Improve net earnings and cash flow
– Fast and cheaper to have discovery work outsourced
as it reduces the drug development cost.

8. Challenges of SCM
• Expanding distribution systems transcending the national boundaries and
becoming global
• Reduced inventory goals require flexible, high velocity manufacturing
strategies that can enable a quick response when unexpected changes in
demand occur
• Many new SCM technologies like RFID are in the nascent stage and for them
ROI is not yet identified
• Increased demand responsiveness requires a “demand driven supply network”
(transformation from push to pull operations) collaboration and closed- loop
planning environment requires clean synchronized n data
• Information disintegration-disconnected demand, supply and financial plan
make it difficult to reconcile plans with reality and re-plan accordingly

9. Challenges of SCM
• Complexity- increasingly complex supply chain processes impede best
practice decision making and management of data transfers.
• JIT inventory- cannot afford to have errors or supply chain disruption that
will cause manufacturing to halt.
• Short product life cycles- one has to constantly set up new supply chains.
Each product has its own supply chain; the more finished product and
inventory are lying dead in your supply chain the faster you will get
obsolete.
• Faster order cycle time-less margin for error or delay in the supply chain.
• Information Integration
• Coordination and Resource sharing
• Organizational and Relationship linkage

10. Conclusion
• Supply chain management is about getting the
right stuff to the right place at the right time,
efficiently and effectively.
• Technology plays a crucial role in modern
SCM.
• An effective supply chain management has
information integration as its foundation.

11. References
– Jayashree Dubey, M.L Sai Kumar, 2007, ”Supply Chain Management” New Century
Publications, Second edition
– Sunil chopra, Peter Miendel, 2005, “Supply Chain Management Planning, Strategy
And Operations”, Pearson Education,Third edition
– Harrison, A., & van Hoek, R. 2008. Logistics Management and Strategy: Competing
Through The Supply Chain. London: Prentice-Hall.
– John Storey, Caroline Emberson, Janet Godsell, Alan Harrison, 2006, Supply chain
management: theory, practice and future challenges, International Journal of Operations
Production Management Volume: 26, Issue: 7, Pages: 754-774.
– Mary J. Meixell , Vidyaranya B. Gargeya, 2005 Global supply chain design: A literature
review and critique, Elsevier Ltd.
– Omera Khan, Bernard Burnes, 2007, Risk and supply chain management: creating a
research agenda, The International Journal of Logistics Management, Volume 18, Issue:
2 Page:197 – 21
– The Journal of Supply Chain Management, ISM (Institute for supplymanagement),
Quarterly publication, Issue 2, 2006.
– International Journal of logistics Research and Applications, Quarterly, Taylor & Francis,
Vol. 7, Issue 1, 2006.
– Supply Chain Management Resources, Michigan State University, Michigan State
university Libraries, Michigan.
– International Journal of Value Chain management (IJVCM), Quarterly, 2006, Vol. 1, No. 2,
Inderscience Publishers, www.inderscience.com.