Introduction
Organizations face more significant supply chain management challenges in the digital era. Several corporations have implemented a traditional system that does not cater to the needs of their customers. These issues are exacerbated by the high demand for their commodities and services and market uncertainty. Furthermore, companies regularly make strategic choices that impact their activities because of unknown market risks and uncertainties.
Apple is a company that makes electronic devices such as cell phones, laptop computers, and watches. Through its numerous merchandising channels and widely available shops, the institution gets to sell its merchandise to markets all over the world. The company can trace its items with corporate markets and buyers. Apple recently published its quarterly earnings for 2021, which ended on September 25, 2021. The company announced earnings of $83.4 billion, up 29% yearly (Lu, 2022).
Apple is well-known for its innovation and design. Only some individuals realize, however, that how Apple controls inventory also plays a part in its success. Apple has created a closed ecosystem in which it controls almost all aspects of the supply chain, from layouts to retail stores. Apple receives significant discounts on manufacturing capacity, parts, and air transport due to its capacity and its infrequent viciousness. Apple values activities and expert knowledge just as much as it values product innovation and market research.
Apple Inc. and many other institutions are experiencing supply chain challenges. Even though the organization is global, and most individuals doubt that it could undergo the same, it is common for Apple to face supply chain management challenges, impacting its correlating effectiveness and function.
Statement of Issue
The most company faces supply chain management challenges. Poor communication techniques and managerial choices are typically to blame, which seem to overrun technical problems. Corporations encounter obstacles in executing and making proper choices in a changing situation. The demand for Apple’s services and goods is at the heart of the supply chain management issue. Furthermore, because of the product design and raw materials, the organization is experiencing supply chain problems. According to Clarke and Boersma (2017, pg.120), the firm has discovered a supply-chain limitation, including a chip shortage due to a lack of resources.
Apple’s supply chain includes a large number of third-party suppliers. As per recent studies, Apple has 790 distributors in 30 countries worldwide, with China accounting for 349 of them. Apple’s top 200 distributors contribute 96% of its distribution chain, including purchasing, manufacturing, and assembly. It means that 585 of Apple’s distributors account for 4% of its distribution network, giving it substantial latent potential. Apple has a variety of long-term exclusive contracts with its vital suppliers and utilizes prepayments to secure raw materials, discuss favorable pricing terms, and ensure massive production quantities.
The difficulty in predictive performance in recent years has increased. A corporation is subjected to diverse elements of the importance of a supply chain management system. Supply chain management aims to increase consumption, causing operations to be cost-effective and more efficient. The current problem in the technological field is worldwide semiconductor scarcity and product sales. More particularly, the company has stayed competitive in maintaining its line of products and meeting the controlled supply chain system. Disruptions in the supply chain, such as raw materials like semiconductors, make it impossible to offer finished goods to customers. The supply chain manufacturing issue is being powered by the need to reconstruct the amount of inventory in response to the increasingly significant customer demands.
Methodology
The recognized problem in the market segment is the supply of raw materials and how institutions could transport their goods. Institutions must overcome considerable obstacles in meeting customer needs and remaining viable in the market because of worldwide competition. According to Koberg and Longoni (2019), institutions need to work to boost productivity in order to produce value for customers. The market segment’s process depends on the supply chain’s high demand for its goods. Supply base rationalization and outsourcing are part of the supply chain. Supply chain management entails overseeing the movement of materials and information sections between processes and a logistics system.
Land and labor costs are common side impacts of supply chain management throughout many companies. The cost that deals with distributors are used to illustrate the economic implications. According to Rosemann and Brooke (2015), a firm’s public image seeks to monitor its supply chain in services to meet the demands of its customers. It is motivated by supply chain issues in the firm’s raw materials. Raw materials are undeniably crucial in determining if a company’s production process would be met (Tien et al., 2019). When companies have poor supply chain oversight of their raw materials, their manufacturing results suffer (Zhang, 2018). Furthermore, it impacts efficiency because the company needs to satisfy the requirements and increase its customers’ rates.
Manufacturers must redesign the organization’s worldwide supply chain to meet production systems. Among the most common issues technological corporations face is the availability of adequate raw materials during manufacturing. With fierce worldwide competition in modern and classic digital electronics manufacturing, institutions face the task of remaining consistent and achieving their long-term goals (Busse et al., 2017). Strategic methods that analyze the scope of supply are common in modern technologies.
The issues in supply chain management revolve around how corporations can balance their operational systems management. According to Connelly et al., (2013), ineffectiveness is to optimize a corporation’s goals when it can develop a set of criteria. Without a doubt, digital technology firms like Apple experience tight supply chain oversight. Their issues are exacerbated by rising customer demand for goods and services.
Amidst their worldwide scale, most technology institutions are open to problems in their distribution chain. The high demand for services and goods orchestrates risks in supply chain management. According to Slack and Jones (2018), producers must reform and redesign their worldwide supply chains. The domain market’s demand for new technologies has resulted in a significant decrease in the accessibility of resources to producers. Another frequent problem in the technological field is the risks associated with achieving predictability and stability in production chains (Froud et al., 2012). In summary, the primary concern is trying to optimize global production, which varies all across the world.
Discussion
With extreme competition in the market, corporations strive to boost their dominant market position. Companies must incorporate supply chain management to meet customers’ commodity needs in a competitive market to accomplish their organizational objectives. Companies may have formed supply chain management to fulfill the growing need for better solutions. Shifting markets in the digital world are pushed by customers’ requirements and establishing a distribution network that fulfills the process. In a successful company, the focus is on process and operations resilience, which entail various methods in the distribution network. Generally, most companies strive to create and develop flexible processes to avoid potential dangers and interruptions.
Process and operations management determine how a company can manufacture and provide services. According to Mintzberg (2007), supply management is essential in delivering services and products. Because of the increased demand for Apple’s goods and services, most corporations tend to maximize the most effective and efficient supply management strategies because of the decrease in raw materials. Because supply chain management sustainability concerns are complicated, institutions must devise efficient methods for satisfying customers’ needs. It is essential to establish systems that can address these problems. According to Grote (2014), an interconnected operations management system is appropriate for determining if an institution can accomplish its goals. Most companies face complicated problems that impact their business strategies. More particularly, a company can implement strategies to influence its distribution network.
Because companies are involved in a wide range of operations, management must establish adjustable processes in their distribution system. Customers suffer from inefficiency whenever a particular commodity is limited in the market. The interplay of shifting demands forces the market to implement different methods to enhance product delivery to satisfy the diverse range of target buyers. According to Parast et al., (2011), it is critical to provide sustainable competitive supply chain methods to buyers to preserve the standards. Institutions must assess product costs and methods to enhance their sustainability mechanisms. Nonetheless, today’s business is dynamic, necessitating a cost-effective alternative for operations management.
Logistics management is becoming more incorporated and a key driver in advertising (Tannous & Yoon, 2018). A supply management procedure can assist an institution in determining how to handle raw materials from distributors and marketing techniques. An institution like Apple, which includes sophistication in the manufacturing systems, consists of numerous relevant parties directly and indirectly in handling critical manufacturing resources.
Conclusion and Recommendations
To summarize, institutions and business entities strive to develop and design sustainable operational activities resistant to future uncertainties, risks, and disruptions. Most companies suffer from the issue of sustainability in managing their supply chains. Supply chain management orchestrates from insufficient raw materials in production to interruptions in their marketing techniques for technological companies like Apple. The competitive environment has necessitated the integration of a supply chain system. Because of the international competitive environment, technological corporations currently need more raw materials. As a result, the evolution of the distribution chain has altered the main driver in the institution, resulting in the creation of new market strategies.
Apple’s supply chain management entails maximizing supply chain efficiency and meeting consumer demands. Product development strategy entails knowledge of the adoption and incorporation of inefficient supply chain management practices. Apple has fixed the supply chain management process by incorporating new strategies like working with distributors to meet the requirements of customers and producers. As a result, Apple can increase competition and improve cost-effective supply chain management alternatives.
References
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