Question.624 - Identify a company in your region. Research the company's supply chain and operations planning process. Identify the company's strategic plan and mission. What are the company's core competencies? How does the company integrate the voice of the customer and the voice of the market into its company strategy? Identify at least three function area sub-plans (e.g., finance, supply chain operations, information technology, marketing, human resources). How do the sub-plans support the corporate strategy? How does the company create, foster, and maintain important business plans? Also, describe the benefits to the company of using the SCOR (Supply Chain Operational Reference model) within their operations.
Answer Below:
Amazons Strategic Aim and Mission Amazon is one of the topmost multinational companies in America that is leading throughout the world. The company is an e-commerce business platform that focuses on cloud computing and artificial intelligence. With the advancement of technology, the company is innovating new approaches and strategies to dedicate its complete focus on customers and their well-being because Amazon strategic plan and mission is to server its customers through online and physical stores and focus on selection, price and convenience (Tiwari, 2018). The new strategies that the company implement is more for its consumers satisfaction level than the production aspect. Both are interconnected because unless customer gets satisfied with the products and service, the company will hardly reach its productivity level. Therefore, the vision statement is make the company worlds most customer-centric one where customers can find anything as per their taste and preference and explore things more and get access to their requirements with high quality and lower price. It is quite evident that Amazon focuses only on its customers because the company is operated on the basis of four principles- customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking (Tiwari, 2018). Amazons Core Competencies Core competency is an important concept in business introduced by C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel that distinguishes a company from others in marketplace through variety of resources and skills (Rollinson, 2021). The core competencies of Amazon are customer-oriented where the company is identified mostly because of its relationship with its consumers. Amazons infrastructure is updated and innovative with the best delivery service where there are policies for one-click delivery, delivery within one day or delivery as per customers preference and convenient (Rollinson, 2021). Moreover, it provides a wide range of different products and services which is difficult for the competitors to imitate and as such the demand for the products is high because of the cheaper price with best quality. A competency becomes core competency only when the organization or the company id distinctive from its competitors. Amazons use of integrated supply chain management system also provides another strong core competency that doesnt make Amazon identical to the e-commerce companies in marketplace. Voice of Customer and Voice of Market Voice of customer is particularly the feedback received from the customers about products and services of a company that needs to be improved and optimized as per their feedback (Keblis & Chen, 2006). Through the voice of customer, Amazon is able to understand and study customer experience, review their comments on products and services and accordingly starts working on the issues to resolve it as soon as possible with a positive outcome. This is the reason why voice of customer is so important for an organization to run in a longer term with customer loyalty and satisfaction. While Voice of market is the service that gives a company a better understanding and an insight into the intelligence to stand upfront against the competitors that helps in growing the business widely. In Amazon, with the help of customer experience health, the finished products are also modified and produced as per customers demand and convenience which otherwise is not possible for the competitors to make that change once a product is produced and considered it to be the finished result (Keblis & Chen, 2006). Moreover, the voice of customer helps the company to understand how effective the offers are working on the basis of customer feedback. This helps in identifying the loopholes in the supply chain process or any defective products that has been returned back. This metric helps the company not to repeat those loopholes and work on it to give better production with high customer satisfaction. The voice of market is done within the company internally in order to find the drawbacks and performing on them while the voice of customer is external that is received from customers perspective which is more important (Khan, 2022). Amazon gives more importance to the voice of customer that helps the company to maintain customer experience health effectively because of the integrated supply chain management that keeps on changing strategies and policies to satisfy customer as per their needs and desires. The three functions of area in sub plan in amazon are- Finance- Amazon provides Amazon users financing through the availability of credit cards- the Amazon Rewards Visa Card, the?Amazon Prime Rewards Signature Visa, the Amazon Store Card, and the Amazon Secured Card (Maverick, 2020).? Information technology: One of the most important and beneficial information technologies that Amazon operates is cloud computing and artificial intelligence. It helps in having an effective interaction with the customers and operate the production process in a fast and innovative manner. The information technology helps in improving productivity level by storing knowledge explicitly. Human Resource: The human resource department in Amazon is one of the most effective functions of area that provides employee engagement and reduces employee turnover. The HR department is efficient in recruiting potential employees as per the companys required skills and resources that helps in succession planning for the organization. Amazons Business Plan Amazons business plan revolves around the preferences of customers where the company aims to maximize profit as much as possible. As such, the company is more focused on customer satisfaction than production because both are interlinked to each other. In order to convince and satisfy the customers, the products and services needs to be upgraded along with considering quality management which will provide new customers to rely on the products and services. Moreover, the use of integrated supply chain management has provided with new technologies and operation trends that has made the production and delivery process faster and effective. For instance, the delivery process is possible with just a click away or delivery can be done with customized process and it has been anticipated that in future, the products can be delivered through drones with Amazon Air Prime. SCOR in Amazon The Supply Chain Operations Reference Model is a strategy for management that helps in improving supply chain decisions and policies with the help of internal and external shareholders of the company. Accordingly, Amazon uses the model of SCOR that helps the company to deliver its products and services to the Amazon users and new customers through various distribution centres. The SCOR model helps Amazon to offer a wide variety of products with high quality and low price to the esteemed customers and as such helps in cutting operation and management cost and this results in customer satisfaction because Amazon is a customer-centric multinational organization. SCOR further helps Amazon to identify the possible challenges within its operations thus allowing full leverage of capital invested, supply chain roadmaps creating, and aligning business functions that have seen it through an average of three to six times return on its capital investment annually ("SCOR model of Amazon", 2017) References Chehbi-Gamoura, S., Derrouiche, R., Damand, D., & Barth, M. (2020). Insights from big Data Analytics in supply chain management: an all-inclusive literature review using the SCOR model.?Production Planning & Control,?31(5), 355-382. Keblis, M. F., & Chen, M. (2006). Improving customer service operations at amazon. com.?Interfaces,?36(5), 433-445. Khan, A. (2022).?Share of Voice on Amazon and Why It's Important - Marketplace Strategy. Marketplace Strategy. Retrieved from https://marketplacestrategy.com/blog/share-of-voice-on-amazon-and-why-its-important/. Maverick, J. (2020).?How Amazon Financing Works. Investopedia. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/company-insights/090116/how-amazon-financing-works-amzn.asp#:~:text=Financing%20is%20available%20to%20Amazon,score%20and%20other%20screening%20factors. Rollinson, R. (2021).?Why does Amazon Succeed? Core Competencies! | LBL Strategies. LBL Strategies. Retrieved from https://www.lblstrategies.com/why-does-amazon-succeed-answer-they-focus-on-their-core-competencies/. SCOR model of Amazon. Studocu. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.studocu.com/row/document/istanbul-universitesi/marketing-management/scor-model-of-amazon-grade-55/13976805. Tiwari, S. (2018). Amazon: customer first approaches.More Articles From Operation Management
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