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mparative study of Wal-Mart and ASDA’s supply chain management 38
4.1 Strategic function of Wal-Mart and ASDA 38
4.1.1 Difference in strategic network optimization 38
4.1.2 Difference in strategic partnership 43
4.1.3 Difference in information technology 46
4.2 Tactical functions of Wal-Mart and ASDA 55
4.2.1 Difference in distribution planning 56
4.2.2 Difference in customer demand planning and forecasting 58
4.2.3 Difference in sourcing planning 60
Chapter 5 Conclusions and recommendations 62
5.1 Main conclusions 62
5.2 Recommendations of Wal-Mart success to China's retailing 63
5.2.1 Identifying distribution pattern 64
5.2.2 Enhancing the development of logistics information 64
5.2.3 Accelerating technology applications 65
5.2.4 Strong support from Government 66
5.2.5 Introducing foreign investment and accelerating the integration of the logistics industry 66
5.3 Limitations and future research 67
References 68

  

Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research background
1.1.1 Brief introduction of SCM
Supply chain management (often shortened as SCM) is the overall consideration of all the business resources concerning materials, information as well as finances as they move in the process from the manufacturing to the consuming of a certain product. Usually, this process involves the manufacturer, the supplier, the wholesaler and the retailer and their combined activities to complete the cycling of the realization of the value of a product (Mentzer, et al., 2001).
Supply chain management has been proved to be more and more important with the increased speed and scope of globalization and competition world wide today. It has been regarded as one of the chief factors for pushing forward the fast development of not only international trade by also global economic development in a lot of ways. As a result, supply chain management has become one of the major issues for the successful management of modern business organizations (Lavassani, Movahedi & Kumar, 2008b). It is so important that supply chain management is nowadays a very important and critical issue for any company in the modern environment of business competition as well. Supply chain management is all about getting the right products to the right places at the right time. The central task of modern supply chain management is to find out efficient ways to get products to the customers better, faster and cheaper according to the needs of the consumers (Cooper, Lambert & Pagh, 1997).
Typically, the stakeholders of supply chain include supplier, manufacturer, distributor, retailer and customer. Thus, supply chain management aims at moving goods and services from one end of this chain to the other through different stages so as to improve the efficiency, productivity and profitability of the entire process (Lambert & Cooper, 2000). When the customer has direct access to suppliers, the number of competing vendors in any category is huge. Modern markets force companies to maintain competitive prices. Thus, the ability to produce a given product at a lower cost can give any company tremendous competitive advantage irrespective of its geographical location (Chopra, & Meindl, 2001). At the same time, increased volumes in the market add substantially to the bottom-line. Supply chain management is 本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。