Supply Chain Management Research Paper

Supply chain management is the management of the flow of goods and services. It involves the movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from the point of origin to point of consumption. Supply chain managers are responsible for directing or coordinating production, purchasing, warehousing, distribution, or financial forecasting services or activities to limit costs and improve accuracy, customer service or safety. In this essay, I will discuss the roles of supply chain managers in a company, characteristics of a successful supply chain manager, and strategic contributions of supply chain managers. There are approximately five (5) roles of supply chain managers in a company. The first one is as the

A supply chain manager must have plans for future success. Supply chain managers are responsible of structuring an organization by making sure that communication is handled the right way throughout the organization, which can be done by giving every employees their own freedom to express any ideas regarding the issues of supply chain in the company. In order to identify the characteristics of a successful supply chain manager, we have to look back at how some of the supply chain managers can get into the logistics or supply chain management industry. Back then, some of the supply chain managers usually come from different educational background and areas such as transportation, IT and finance. But nowadays, there are specific logistics and supply chain courses in universities and colleges. Furthermore, this proves that logistics and supply chain industry have been getting awareness and attention in recent

The importance of supply chain management can be seen and largely explained through relational and network view of strategy. To find the scopes of strategic supply chain management, there are many common search areas between supply chain management and strategic management fields. Strategic management of supply chain can also impose of many key questions regarding supply chains, such as ‘when should supply chain activities imitate industry best practices so that it can reflect the unique characteristics of its partners?’, and ‘how, and to what extent supply chain activities directly indirectly affect firm’s profitability and stock