Forging International Supply Chain Relationships among Small and Medium Sized Businesses for Competitive Advantage in a Globalized Economy

The confluence of continuous developments in information and communications technologies, trade deregulation, and innovation in transport technology has transformed the way businesses configure themselves to compete. Today, businesses of all sizes are faced with a bewildering array of strategies and tools including outsourcing, offshoring and global procurement to gain competitive advantage. These multiple options bring great opportunity as well as great risk and complexity. In this environment, it is the ability to forge and shape mutually beneficial long-term and short-term relationships at the interfaces between businesses that is the key competitive differentiator. However, much of Supply Chain Management (SCM) theory can be bewilderingly complex, abstract and inaccessible to the owners and managers of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and business units in larger organizations. Over the next ten weeks we will look at a different component of these crucial relationships at the interfaces between supply chain to learn why global supply chain management is important to all businesses, what tangible benefits its adoption will bring to your company or business unit and the pragmatic and practical steps you need to take to develop, implement and sustain highly effective supply-chain relationships to grow and thrive.

The topics that we will examine over the coming weeks will be:

1. The Globalization of Business and the Supply Chain Management (SCM) Concept
2. The World is not Flat, Geography Still Matters
3. Culture: An Evolutionary Strategy for Success
4. We’re Getting Hitched: Long-term Inter-organizational Relationships
5. Let’s Make a Movie: Situational Inter-organizational Relationships
6. Why Bother? The Whole is More than the Sum of the Parts
7. Do you Speak my Language? Supply Chain Communication
8. Right Stuff, Right Place, Right Time: Supply Chain Coordination
9. How are we Doing? Control and Measurement in the Supply Chain
10. Where are we Going from Here: Future Trends in the Supply Chain

If you would like to find our more information or if you would like to speak to one of the team, please email info@albalogistics.com or phone: +353 1 415 1252