CHAPTER 3: STRATEGICS INITIATIVES FOR IMPLEMENTING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

       In this chapter, there are 4 types high-profile strategic initiatives that an organization can undertake to help it gain competitive advantages and business efficiency, which is:

Supply Chain Management (SCM)

        SCM involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability. There are 4 basic of SCM include:


1) Supply chain strategy - strategy for managing all resources to meet customer demand.
 
2) Supply chain partner - partners throughout the supply chain that deliver finished products,                                                                    raw materials, and services.
3) Supply chain operation - schedule for production activities.

4) Supply chain logistics - product delivery process.

Effective and efficient supply chain management systems:

•  Decrease the power of its buyer.
•  Increase its own supplier power.
• Increase switching costs to reduce the threat of substitute products or services
• Create entry barriers thereby reducing the treat new entrants.
• Increase efficiency while seeking a competitive advantage through cost leadership.

Customer relationship management (CRM)

        Customer Relationship Management (CRM) involves managing all aspects of customer‘s relationship with an organization to increase customer loyalty and retention and an organization’s profitability.

       Customer Relationship Management (CRM) allows an organization to gain customer’s shopping and buying behaviors to develop and implement enterprise wide strategy. Customer can contact an organization through various type of technology such as:

§     - Call centers

§     -Web access

§     -Email

§      -Faxes

§     -Direct sales

That provide access to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) information within different system from

• Accounting system
• Order fulfillment system
• Inventory system
• Customer service system        

Then, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) allow us to communicate effectively with each customer, understand customer product and service.   

        Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is not just technology but also a strategy an organization must embrace on an enterprise level. Implementing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system:

# Help an organization identify customer                   # To treat customer as an individual

# Design specific marketing campaign                       # Understand customer buying behaviors

Business Process Reengineering (BPR)

A business process is a standardized set of activities that accomplish a specific task, such as processing a customer’s order.

Then, what is business process reengineering? Business process reengineering (BPR) is the analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprise. Finding opportunity using BPR. 

For example:

- A company can improve the way it travels the road by moving from foot to horse and then horse to car.

- BPR looks at taking a different path, such as an airplane which ignore the road completely.

Progressive Insurance Mobile Process

7 PRINCIPLES OF BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) – integrates all departments and functions throughout an 

organization into a single IT system so that employees can make decisions by viewing enterprise wide 

information on all business operations.

# Keyword in ERP is “enterprise”

                                                                           

	# ERP systems collect data from across an organization and correlates the data generating an enterprise wide view Thank you very much. That's all for this chapter 3...