Question

Identifying Channels of Distribution

For this week’s assignment pick a product with which you are very familiar with or take the time to go through your clothes closet and try and find a product made in the USA, or one that you can anticipate being able to research easily.

1. Map the supply chain of your product as far back as is feasible. A simple example is a diamond sold by a local jewelry store, purchased direct from diamond wholesalers in the Netherlands, bought by wholesalers from diamond centers in South Africa, and brought out of mines owned by a company in South Africa. Identify as many participants in the channel as possible by company name and location.
2. Identify the mode of transportation used between each stage in the channel.
3. Identify by name and location the component parts of the product if any.
   

The requirements below must be met for your paper to be accepted and graded:

• Write between 500 – 750 words (approximately 2 – 3 pages) using Microsoft Word.
• Attempt APA style, see example below.
• Use font size 12 and 1” margins.
• Include cover page and reference page.
• At least 60% of your paper must be original content/writing.
• No more than 40% of your content/information may come from references.
• Use at least two references from outside the course material, preferably from EBSCOhost. Text book, lectures, and other materials in the course may be used, but are not counted toward the two reference requirement.
• Reference material (data, dates, graphs, quotes, paraphrased words, values, etc.) must be identified in the paper and listed on a reference page.

IN YOUR OWN WORDS PLEASE!!!! NO PLAGIARISM!!!!

Answer 1

Supply management is a comprehensive operation that is significant to company success, and it also has the responsibility of fulfilling the high quality, efficient costs, continuous innovation and fast delivery throughout the complete supply chains management of a company.

Nike Inc. is the internationally leading marketer and creator of authentic athletic footwear, gear, apparel, and accessories for an extensive games and fitness exercises variety (Hossein, 2010). The worldwide sports shoe production is represented by the large-scale vertical functions disintegration and subcontracting exercise in the high levels. Production capability of Nike is functioned by the economic state associated with the emerging markets; as countries prosper, there is a demand to identify low cost and new market possibilities (Sadler, 2007). Lean approaches to manufacturing leave Nike more vulnerable to planned stock outs, and there is an increased dependence on other elements of the supply chain management in sync and without interference. Nike exercises various subcontracting projects that let the firm have an adjustable “Demand-Driven Production System,” a high range of flexibility in changing and fluid markets, and allows to shift production between facilities and countries; beginning plants and engaging contracts that potentially last a year.

Nike's key supply chain approach is through delivering up-to-date freight data that can be used to create the supply chain more effective, with transit time signifying the deciding factor above other considerations (Magnus, 2005). Nike's strategies for supplier relationship management include seeding Nike emigrant technicians into companies producing Nike footwear to perform as a liaison between the head office and R&D to assure smooth product improvement processes and maintain product check.  

Nike's forecasting for demand management is mainly based on its futures program, where retailers need to order up to 80% of their stock inventory six months in advancement to get ample discounts and guaranteed shipment times.

At the company’s conception in 1964, known as Blue Ribbon Sports, Nike’s primary business model centered on a competitive advantage achieved by sourcing athletic footwear in Japan at a moment when most major athletic apparel businesses were still producing their athletic footwear in Western nations. As the costs of Japanese labor intensified during the 1970s, Nike sought options to maintain its low-cost, premium stock model, including opening plants in the United States to serve home demand.

At the beginning of the 1980s, however, Nike shifted all of its production to growing Asian countries, in particular to Taiwan and Korea, where government incentives had prompted rapid growth in the production of footwear. Nike worked with several of its existing suppliers to open facilities in Indonesia, Vietnam, and China.  Nike’s colossal employment team in 2006 included approximately 800,000 contract employees operating in more than 700 contract factories in 52 nations.

In the early 1990s, a series of slanders forced Nike management to face the often distressing actualities of the conditions in the factories the group was supporting. Nike took many steps to improve situations in the factories where the business sourced its products. It created a variety of new units devoted to labor methods in the company’s factories, ultimately bringing collectively these departments in the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility and Compliance unit in 2000.

Today, Nike says that they are focusing on quality, long-term supply contracts with fewer factories, that are assigned to their strict standards of sustainability and product excellence. Their sourcing strategy prioritizes and promotes these suppliers that present demonstrable leadership in corporate accountability and sustainability and who seek to move beyond least standards.

References

Alan M. Rugman (2005) The Regional Multinationals: MNEs and "Global" Strategic Management. Publisher. Cambridge University Press. 171-186?

Hossein Bidgoli (2010) The Handbook of Technology Management: Supply Chain Management, Marketing and Advertising, and Global Management. Publisher. John Wiley & Sons. 341-355

Ian Sadler (2007) Logistics and Supply Chain Integration. Publisher. SAGE Publications Ltd. 223-241