Question

Part A Question: Four steps to help companies to get on the road to service supply chain excellence are listed below: 1. Understand your service supply chain. 2. Determine the needs of your customers and convey those needs down the supply chain. 3. Obtain high quality suppliers. 4. Maintain a competitive advantage. As Target is expanding its online presence, how would you implement the above four steps in order for Target to effectively compete with such online retailers as Amazon as well as brick- and-mortar rivals Walmart and Kroger? Explain each step with one paragraph. Part B Question: One of the common difficulties in project management is to fulfill the triple constraint. Part A of this homework is an analysis of Target online expansion. If you were hired by Target as a project manager to build and maintain its ecommerce marketplace, what challenges would you be faced with in trying to fulfill the triple constraint while doing your job? State the challenges and explain how you would address each of those challenges. please cite the reference

Answer 1

Answer:-

It is a challenge to every on-line marketing business is to manage offer chain as it thinks about with somebody else who are managing supplying operations and inventories. on-line marketing comes below industry however should manage offer chain effectively.

Understand supply chain :

• it is very important to understand offer chain because it is not fully in the hands of on-line business establishment. Here, supply chain is managed by several parties like suppliers, sellers, logistics (courier partners), customers, on-line marketing sites etc., data up dates are very important like stock up dates, transit up dates , delivery up dates, returns and refunds etc.,
So on-line business has distinctive supply chain method and management of such supply chain may be a difficult task for management

Focus on desires :

• Another necessary part in supply chain is to see customer’s desires and convey those must supply chain. These wants solely can determine stock convenience, inventory management, shipping prices , logistics management etc.,

Obtain top quality suppliers :

• The total supply chain management method is depended on suppliers. Suppliers should be prudent and should be distinguished with respect to delivery of products simply in time. it's very important to induce the supply of suppliers and finding the top quality suppliers as per their delivery performance.

Maintain a competitive advantage :

• Competitor analysis, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, observance our services, evaluating supply chain processes furthermore as parties concerned in supply chain. Be proactive to combat with contingencies, strategic marketing plan.

Part B:-

As the project manager for building the e-commerce marketplace for Target, my core focus would stay on the project management triangle, that defines however quality of a project delivery is controlled by its 3 constraints, namely:
• Scope of the project,
• Schedule of the project and
• price of the project.

All 3 constraints along represent the main restrictions that square measure round-faced by any project, and every offers a collection of challenges that require to be resolved for prosperous project management.

Some major challenges that I, as a project manager, foresee to resolve are:

Scope:

• Attracting and holding loyal customers:-

This challenge is resolved with the assistance of thorough information insight into the market trends and client desires, and by investment comfortable time and capital in analysis. making certain comfortable visibility of our complete, and maintaining quality standards can change us to retain customers.

• Identifying and getting the most acceptable products to sell:-

While it's vital to understand what the client desires, it's at the same time important to spot the product makers who will fulfill those demands. This challenge are going to be resolved by having a robust provider base with clear functions, contracts with clear (Service Level Agreements) SLAs and quality commitments and variety in supplier-base.

Schedule:

• Managing commitments on delivery timelines:-

Delivery timelines may be a essential success issue once it involves e-commerce. the most effective thanks to solve this challenge is to own defined SLAs for each customers and suppliers, supported the product. Over-enthusiastic commitments typically result in discontent. All delivery timelines should be realistic. Also, transparency should be maintained within the entire offer chain on wherever the product is, to own prior information of expected delivery.

• Managing warehouse and inventory:-

Sales trends and forecasting will be used to determine the top-selling or re-sale products that have a high turnaround. supported however these trends modification, a time period inventory system are going to be maintained. Also, commitments regarding quality, packaging and delivery are going to be supported these reports.

Cost:

• Returns and Refunds:-

This is one in every of the largest challenges in AN e-commerce business. whereas it's inevitable to own an exact a part of the whole sales to convert to returns, there will make sure measures taken to stay this low, like making certain delivery of committed quality and clear SOPs on returns. we are going to maintain clear policies on returns and refunds, and follow a feedback system within the same to scale back the whole variety.

• Choosing the correct technology:-

While all technology upgrades keep company with a price, it's important to remain up-to-date so as to remain in business. Therefore, we are going to keep our technologies upgraded and if needed, return to a trade-off between value and technology so we tend to maintain a position over our competitors.