Question

Please respond to the summaries: 6-8 sentences each

You are launching a new company that established its manufacturing operations recently, and you team is struggling to ramp-up it output. Might you consider a strategic alliance? Why?

What are the advantages of integrating suppliers into the product design process as part of a strategic alliances? What are the risks?

Answer 1

No, in this case I would not consider a strategic alliance because the company is very new and challenges and impediments during the initial stage of the organization is quite normal. I would like to give some more time in research and study and also root cause analysis as well and a solution is quite possible which will ramp up the output and efficiency of the production. We can even hire a professional consultant who can guide us and help us do better. A strategic alliance will over shadow out efforts to make it to the industry and our brand may not get the required platform to compete. If things don't work out for long, we may think of a strategic alliance but now we have time and options in our hand to make it better.

The way of product and project development has changed a lot with Agile being the most popular and preferred methodology. Agile is preferred because here, all the stakeholders are in the same phase and the process is very much transparent as well which helps everyone know the requirements and the duties they need to perform in order to be successful. The advantages of involving the supplier in the process is that they are aware of the requirements and know what to deliver based on which we can expect products with high quality and proper specifications. This will create a direct relationship and foster a direct t communication to all the stakeholders involved.