You have been asked to prepare a business report evaluating the global strategic approach to managing your organisations supply chain.

Task

You have been asked to prepare a business report evaluating the global strategic approach to managing your organisations supply chain.

As part of your report, you must evaluate each of the following, in relation to your organisation:

the impact of market changes on the supply chain

sustainable global sourcing decisions

the strategic logistical implications of globalisation

the impact of supply chain management on corporate performance

Your report must include recommendations for improvement.

Prepare a business report

Whilst the task asks you to prepare a business report, it is important to bear in mind that this is an academic assignment and not a business report. As such, make sure that you write your assignment in the 3rd Person. Also, if your organisation does have a standard report template, do not use it as it is not appropriate for this academic assignment.

Refer to the Candidate Assignment Guidance document for details on how you should structure your assignment.

Also, remember that you are being asked to evaluate the global strategic approach to managing your organisations supply chain, so it is really important that you always relate the content back to your organisation.

Evaluate the global strategic approach to managing your organisations supply chain

Command Words:

Evaluate - Calculate or judge the value of something; include your personal opinion in your evaluation together with appropriate reasons for your opinion

(Evaluate) the impact of market changes on the supply chain

Which models could help you to determine external environmental factors that could influence and impact the supply chain?

What impact do some of these factors have on your supply chain? Use relevant examples.

(Evaluate) sustainable global sourcing decisions

What do we mean by sustainable there are many definitions.

What factors should be considered in sustainable global sourcing decisions? How well are these considerations reflected in your organisations sourcing decisions? What drives these decisions in your organisation (for example does your organisation have a robust CSR strategy? Does your organisation have a sustainable procurement policy?)

How are sustainable global sourcing decisions made? What information is used to inform these decisions? What are the wider implications of your organisations decisions, and on whom? How is performance measured? How are conflicting priorities managed?

(How) is global supply chain risk identified, assessed and managed as part of your supply chain management strategy?

(Evaluate) the strategic logistical implications of globalisation

What is globalisation? Why is this important in the context of supply chain and logistics?

What are some of the strategic considerations associated with the global nature of your supply chain?

What are some of the strategic logistical risks and opportunities associated with globalisation, and what impact could these risks and opportunities have on your organisation?

(Evaluate) the impact of supply chain management on corporate performance

(How) does the performance of the supply chain affect the achievement of organisational objectives? (How) are performance measures of the supply chain developed within the organisation? (How) do these performance measures link to the overall corporate performance measures?

Which model could be used to measure financial and non-financial performance?

How do supply chain strategies affect overall corporate performance?

Your report must include recommendations for improvement.

You MUST include recommendations in your assignment.

Think about the gaps / areas for improvement that you have identified in the sections above, and how you could use these areas for improvement to develop your assignments recommendations.

Really focus on what the assignment task is asking. Try not to digress or get distracted with things that dont answer the task. Always ask yourself

1) Has what Ive written answered the question? and

2) Has what Ive written added value to the assignment?

If the answer to either of these questions is no, really think about whether you should keep it in the assignment.