Process Improvement Paper OR Analyze a recent article - Assignment Example

ARTICLE: “Supply-chain Management: Growing Global Complexity Drives Companies into the 'Cloud'” When I came across this article the first thing thatcaught my attention was that how can complexity drive any complexity into the “cloud”. It was interesting to find out that in this period of worldwide recession how can companies be ecstatic. If you read the article you get to know that how adversely the multinationals got affected by the global economic recession and how they had to cut down on operations by reduction in the head counts, technology and by putting other budget constraints.

This worldwide crisis has also made customer retention and satisfaction a great problem for companies that provide on-demand global trade and logistics technology. As a result of this many trading companies had to face challenges dealing with their supply chain. All the retailers, manufacturers, clients, transportation providers, shipments with suppliers and end users all had to suffer because of this and eventually the overall activity endures the dilemma. To get rid of that setback and to streamline their supply all over the world, such companies decided to bring into use the concept of ‘cloud computing’.

I was not aware of the concept of cloud before although that was quite known in the business as well as IT world. Cloud basically means a network of computers that deliver software and data for service purposes. According to Gartner, cloud computing means, “ a style of computing whose massively scalable and elastic, IT- related capabilities are provided ‘as a service’ to external customers using internet technologies.” Cloud computing is a term that is basically used for hosting delivery or distribution services over the Internet.

It has added to the improved transportation and efficiency of trade-related services of many companies and vendors like GT Nexus, Descartes System Group and Management Dynamics. It provides a variety of business softwares like Customer relationship management, NetSuite, e-business and accounting tools etc that can be used by multinationals in order to manage their logistics processes, transportation and trade compliance. This software would help the multinationals to manage the complexity and variability in their supply chains.

Companies and people think that the most successful companies are the ones with best products and services but we cannot neglect the input of their supply chains in the overall activity. It is because of their efficient and organized supply chains that they are able to produce and deliver quality products and services. On this, Professor Christopher, Cranfield School of Management, England once said, “We don’t compete as individual businesses anymore; we compete as supply chains”. Multinationals that use primitive ways like Microsoft Excel, e-mail and EDI (Electronic Data In charge) software and formats for management can take advantage of this cost effective new cloud technology to work together with their suppliers in order to formulate precise delivery forecasts and to avoid delayed or late deliveries to the end users.

Companies invest great amount of their budget in operations to organize and maintain their supply-chain management. Since global supply chains are fragmented and there is this high level of complexity because of the huge network, companies should go for this new way of working. And cloud computing can help such companies through its different service categories like IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service). To reduce this cost here, Greg Kefer, of Business Director Development at Oakland says, “Cloud gives you access to a multibillion dollar technology infrastructure.

” The concept of Virtual supply chain was introduced by companies to reduce the increased complexity of global supply chains and also the costs that are incurred by this. Moving from vertical supply chain to virtual supply chain was primarily to reduce the involved operation costs. But it could not serve the purpose because of challenging and huge network and variability of the global supply chain. Professor Christopher, Cranfield School of Management, England also said, “We can’t go back to the old vertical supply chain but we need to manage information, and the best way is shared information.

” Cloud computing has additional and flexible features that differentiate it from conventional hosting. Firstly it is fully managed by the provider that is all a consumer needs is a personal computer and Internet access rest of the work is done at the backend. Secondly it is sold ob demand that is by minute or hour. And the third feature that makes it unique is its elastic nature that is the user can ask for as much or as less amount of service as he/she wants. It helps the companies to do so as it works in back end and front end layers.

Front end is the interface that customers interact with whereas back end is the architecture that fuels the frontend that users interact with. Today, there are a number of successful communities like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Google Docs etc that use this technology. There are billions of users of these communities that can operate from any nook or corner of the world. And the other functions along with the data maintenance are done at the back end by the manufacturer. It also helps the manufacturers to do changes whenever required.

Changes can be easily made and additions and subtractions are possible at any point in time. Before this hubs were used by any companies for the purpose of networking. But now just a few of them are left because of the cost involved and the dependence of internet by the supplier or the service provider. With the help of this cloud technology, companies don’t need to depend on any other supplier or manufacturer but their own self. Remarkable innovations have been made through this cloud based technology.

Descartes’ Global Logistics Network is one of the most broad multimodal business software networks that help the customers to manage their shipments by sea and air. In future it has also decide to advance this cloud based technology platform to do merchandising and sales over the mobile and cellular devices. According to the chief technology officer at Hewlett- Packard Company, Christrian Verstreate says, "You just plug in your lamp, and you get what you need. You don't know where it comes from, and you don't care.

" According to other professors at Wharton, Cloud computing is a great development and is an incremental step and advancement in technology for supply chain management. it has some added features for the companies and can analyze and comment very well on the performance of the supply chains of the customers, their key performance indicators and also to create reports for distribution to the various departments of the customers. But companies should also be aware of the fact that cloud computing is not a miraculous software.

It is not capable of changing ‘the impossible’ to ‘possible’ and is not any revolutionary software. It can only add to the efficiency of the supply chain management and cannot revolutionize the overall system of any company. References: "Supply-chain Management: Growing Global Complexity Drives Companies into the 'Cloud'." Knowledge@Wharton n. Web. 20 May 2011. . Taty, . "How Does Cloud Computing Work? [Technology Explained]." Make use of. makeuseof.com, 15 March 2010 . Web. 20 May 2011. . Weinberg, Neal.

"Cloud computing: Hot technology for 2009 ." Network World. Networkworld.com, 5 jan 2009. Web. 20 May 2011. . "Cloud computing." searchcloudcomputing.com. searchcloudcomputing.com, 28 dec 2007. Web. 20 May 2011. .