Seco Electronics Company Case Study

As early as the 1970s Mattel was manufacturing products in China in order to take advantage of lower costs and enable corporate resources to focus on establishing the brand. By 2007, nearly 65% of Mattel products were produced in China. Mattel used a combination of company-run plants and a network of contract manufacturers. Exhibit C displays a simplified example of Mattel’s supply chain after moving production to China. Global production obviously had major benefits for Mattel, the country factors of China gave it a comparative cost advantage over producing in the U.S., and outsourcing enabled Mattel to remain profitable in an increasingly competitive toy industry. However, outsourcing does have disadvantages, a global supply chain increases the challenges to regulate and enforce quality.

A supply chain is a net work of firms. Thus, each firm in the chain should build its own supply chains to support the competitive priorities of its services or products. Two distinct designs used to competitive advantage are efficient supply chains and responsive supply chains. Efficient supply chains work best in environments where demand is highly predictable. The focus of the supply chain is on efficient flows of services and materials keeping inventories to a minimum. The firm’s competitive priorities are low-cost operations, consistent quality, and on-time delivery. Responsive supply chains designed to react quickly in order to hedge against uncertainties in demand. Work best when firms offer a great variety of services or products and demand predictability is low. Typical competitive priorities are development speed, fast delivery times, customization, variety, volume flexibility, and top quality. Tables below show the environments and design features that best suit each design.

Li & Fung is a long-standing Hong Kong based company that that has evolved from an export trading company to a coordinator of value-added services across the entire supply chain in a global, open manufacturing environment. They assess the clients’ product and delivery needs and orchestrate supply, manufacture and delivery in a very tailored and specialized way (Claremont Conversation Online, 2008). In the prevailing business environment, it has not been cost effective to trade with SMEs since production orders were below the factory minimums. Through the implementation of an internet portal, they have secured their position with the SME market while maintaining economies of scale.

In today’s business world, production cost was an increasing concern for companies working to stay competitive in the global marketplace. The top management must search for a global solution to drive down costs and reduce difficult activities associate with inventory management and production management. Global sourcing aimed to exploit global efficiencies in the delivery of services and goods across geopolitical boundaries, including low cost skilled labor, low cost raw materials, tax benefits, and price breaks. Whelan Pharmaceutical was the best example to illustrate how the company chose the best manufacturing site for global sourcing from different perspectives.

The process of globalization has numerous significant effects on countries, organizations, and individuals. These effects can be observed in the quality of products, in their prices, but also in their availability. Because of globalization, numerous companies prefer to expand their business on international level. Some of them outsource some of their processes and activities to cheaper destinations that allow them to reduce their investments.

Through this process, the company has found accessible ways to enter new markets with little to no risk and gain a large chunk of these respective markets. Their supply chain is managed from a global and regional perspective, and necessary adjustments are changing in accordance with global demand and production.

Those firms that choose not to will suffer from both late to market costs, as well as increased costs to build their supply chain. Cost, Production, and Quality across the supply chain must be measureable. Maintaining the perspective of a global workforce remains a vital way of doing business, however,. it must continue and grow stronger through innovation to better meet the needs of the customer. Shortening supply chains and making them simpler yet more robust, is something that Ghemawat believes is a critical requirement.

Good performance in the previous years pushed SELCO to expand to other states. It moved out all the employees to neighboring states and decided to appoint business associates, in simple words out sourced. The entrepreneurs who saw the success of SELCO in the recent years expressed interests to be SELCO associates of SELCO. This move was a disaster not only to its existence but also to its founding principles. The associates started to sell the solar lights to upper middle class and upper class and the poor were left

No other industry touches as many technology-related business sectors as telecommunications. Telecommunication industry started from the past two centuries with limited and high expensive telephones, radio and TVs. The industry has been developed and improved remarkably fast. The demand of using mobile phones is getting increased. The technology growth in compound way which lead to huge acceleration in providing services. The industry market structure is oligopoly that’s because the more control of price and less competitors. In this case study will be discussed the history of telecommunication industry, the main characteristics of the industry and the efficiency of the market.

U.S. Semiconductor, a semiconductor manufacturer decided to expand their business to UK market in 1980. Their new business plan needed specialized technical support facility in UK. In order to minimize the equity investment, they decided to fund their assets mostly with debt. As Semiconductor owned subsidiaries, which spread all over the world, they face great exchange risk. Besides, instead of building a production department in UK, Semiconductor kept producing their products domestically and delivered them to UK by plane. British firms also confronted exchange risk due to the difference between import costs and sales revenues. This case mainly involves the discussion on the method of debt funding.

In today’s international business environment, the world is seen as a global village where goods and services flow across geographical boundaries and territories for the common purpose of providing high-quality supplies to domestic and foreign markets at a lower price to satisfy today’s ever increasing demand for quality products and services. Here are some major forces that have made global sourcing and global supply management a reality for many contemporary businesses and industries. Some of these factors can be traced back from historical factors, technological changes, free trade agreements between countries, an increase in global competition and low cost of sourcing to mention a few.

Strategies through achieving a competitive advantage resulted in the existence of the terms `Globalisation` and supply chain management (SCM). Because in today`s emerging and industrialized environment companies seek to achieve competitive advantages and are no longer competing with their own expertise but with the talent in their entire global supply chain. [1]

Globalization has led to the rise of transnational corporations and global production chains. Global value chains “[describe] the full range of activities that firms and workers do to bring a product from its conception to its end use and beyond” (Global Value Chains). Firms are forced to make decisions regarding where production takes place, and whether to make or to buy products necessary for the firm’s success.

Companies tend to outsource in logistics area. This includes complete cycle of material flow; from the purchase and internal control of production materials to the planning and control of work-in-process; to the purchasing, shipping, and distribution of the finished product. Pepe Jeans outsourced in logistics area. Even though the company was successful and profitable doing so, this resulted in inefficient delivery time and unhappy retailers due to the restrictions of the outsourced company asking for six month lead time in ordering products. Now company faced with changing the way the production flow works in order to respond the retailers and independent agents’ complaints. As it indicates at themanager.org companies that rush overseas in search of low production costs may be walking into a strategic trap. It's easy to underestimate the hidden costs in long supply chains and their impact on profitability. Customers in outsourcing transactions face both direct and indirect risks. If your outsourcing vendor fails to perform, you may suffer direct damages in the form of out-of-pocket expenses incurred to perform the function yourself or hire another vendor, and lowered profits caused by lost business and harm to your reputation. Strategically, a main goal of outsourcing has always been to shift risk from the customer to the vendor. But while the risks arising from implementing new technologies and labor markets can be shifted in this way, CIOs know that not

Many complex and more diverse decisions confront supply chain managers on a regular basis: what would be more efficient to manufacture in-house or to outsource; what new channels to implement that it would benefit their customers and suppliers, or how all new technologies, platforms, and practices have to be aligned to enable real-time supply chains. Current information technology reduced outsourcing transaction costs drastically, enabled companies to an increased supervision and control over offsite work, and outsourcing services can deliver faster and more convenient, but technology alone is not the solution. If a company decides to embrace changes in business processes and business culture, those changes can support a long way toward delivering a better product for less money. Complex sphere of activities in many countries is not relevant anymore because a massive number of activities outsourced became commonplace, a new normal.