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Collaborative supply chain management focuses on the integration and coordination of the supply chain entities to enhance overall performance. Unlike a transactional approach, which primarily emphasizes the exchange of goods or services, a collaborative approach emphasizes the flow of demand information and cash up the chain. This means that information about customer demand and financial transactions move upstream, enabling all parties in the supply chain to better plan and execute their operations in alignment with actual market demand, leading to improved efficiency and responsiveness.

References

Lambert, D. M. (2008). Supply Chain Management: Processes, Partnerships, Performance. Supply Chain Management Institute.

Mentzer, J. T., DeWitt, W., Keebler, J. S., Min, S., Nix, N. W., Smith, C. D., & Zacharia, Z. G. (2001). Defining supply chain management. Journal of Business logistics, 22(2), 1-25.

Cost leadership is a strategy where a company aims to become the lowest-cost producer in its industry. By offering services or products at a lower price than competitors, while maintaining comparable features, the company can attract price-sensitive customers. Here’s an explanation of the options:

Cost leadership: Focuses on minimizing costs and passing on savings to customers through lower prices.

Service differentiation: Involves offering unique services that justify a higher price.

Customer focus: Prioritizes customer needs and tailoring services/products to meet those needs.

Market responsiveness: Involves quickly adapting to market changes and customer demands. Therefore, cost leadership emphasizes offering services at a lower price while maintaining comparable features to rival services.

References

Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.

Barney, J. B., & Hesterly, W. S. (2012). Strategic Management and Competitive Advantage.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a systematic process for gathering customer requirements and ensuring they are incorporated into the design and planning of a new product or service. Here's how it works:

Customer Voice: QFD begins with collecting and understanding customer needs and expectations, often referred to as the "voice of the customer."

House of Quality: These needs are translated into design requirements through a tool called the House of Quality, which helps prioritize features based on customer importance.

Cross-Functional Teams: QFD involves cross-functional teams to ensure that all relevant perspectives (e.g., marketing, engineering, manufacturing) are considered in the design process.

Integration: The process ensures that customer needs are systematically integrated into product design, reducing the risk of missing key features or quality attributes.

QFD is thus a comprehensive approach to ensuring that customer needs are central to product development from the outset.

Postponement refers to delaying the final assembly or customization of a product until customer orders are received. This strategy allows companies to be more responsive to specific customer demands while reducing inventory costs and risks associated with finished goods. By keeping goods in a partially assembled state and completing the assembly later, companies can quickly adapt to changes in demand and provide customized products without holding large amounts of finished goods inventory.

References

Bowersox, D. J., Closs, D. J., & Cooper, M. B. (2012). Supply Chain Logistics Management. McGraw-Hill.

van Hoek, R. I. (2001). The rediscovery of postponement: a literature review and directions for research. Journal of Operations Management, 19(2), 161-184.