1. Supply Chain Optimization Your company manufactures innovative technology pro
ID: 375637 • Letter: 1
Question
1. Supply Chain Optimization Your company manufactures innovative technology products. Some of your products have been big hits with huge volumes, and some have been just so-so. While the new features are often quite creative, and the physical product itself changes somewhat from generation to generation, the vendors on whom you rely are all used to producing this type of product, and the new versions don't pose any great changes in requirements to them. What would you focus on as you optimize your supply chain and why?
Explanation / Answer
As given in the case, since the company continuously manufactures and distributes innovative products in order to keep the customer interested and increase the top line, I will try to optimize my supply chain in a way which can manage my faster product development lifecycle and also greatly reduce my go to market time. If I can improve these areas, I can launch new products at a faster rate and get to know the customer response quickly. This will allow me to manufacture only those products which are accepted by the customers and quickly phase out the so-so products.
The other benefit of this optimization will be the reduction in TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) in managing my supply chain.
This will further make my products competitive as I can compete on the prices as well and garner more profits per unit of the product sold. I will also improve collaboration between my suppliers and retailers so that they can pass the market intelligence quickly which will further help me in deciding on the product and manufacturing strategy.
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