Effect of Supply Chain Management on Customer Satisfaction
EFFECT OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Supply chain management typically establishes the process of planning, sourcing, procuring and controlling the movement of the raw material to finished goods right from the hands of the suppliers into the lap of the customers. These activities can be seen as originating from an order of the customer to the delivery of the products which will interconnect various stakeholders from customer to retailer to distributer & wholesaler to manufacturer to vendor and supplier.
The SCM system of a company can directly influence the customer satisfaction and hence the profitability of the company. In recent years manufacturers have realised that the SCM can be leveraged as a big differentiator in providing customer satisfaction & value by eliminating the barricades between customers & suppliers. The decision taken by one of the links of SCM can be detrimental to the effectiveness & profitability of the entire chain.
A company having great customer service has an obvious advantage over the competition. To stand out amongst today’s aggressively competent marketplace, a company should capitalize on every opportunity that presents itself and SCM is one of them. If a company is exceeding the customer expectations then it can also expect the customer retention and also affect word of mouth publicity. A good SCM will help in adding to the customer satisfaction in following ways: 1) It can deliver the products in the fastest time and without errors. It can help in the reduction of the lead times to the orders. 2) It can help the companies to maintain optimal level of inventories at point of sales so that what customer demands is always in stock. 3) It can help the customers to track the status of their orders. 4) It can help the companies to reduce their spending on raw material inventory by controlling the stock. In case of E-commerce companies like e-bay, myntra, tradus and others, who
Supply chain management typically establishes the process of planning, sourcing, procuring and controlling the movement of the raw material to finished goods right from the hands of the suppliers into the lap of the customers. These activities can be seen as originating from an order of the customer to the delivery of the products which will interconnect various stakeholders from customer to retailer to distributer & wholesaler to manufacturer to vendor and supplier.
The SCM system of a company can directly influence the customer satisfaction and hence the profitability of the company. In recent years manufacturers have realised that the SCM can be leveraged as a big differentiator in providing customer satisfaction & value by eliminating the barricades between customers & suppliers. The decision taken by one of the links of SCM can be detrimental to the effectiveness & profitability of the entire chain.
A company having great customer service has an obvious advantage over the competition. To stand out amongst today’s aggressively competent marketplace, a company should capitalize on every opportunity that presents itself and SCM is one of them. If a company is exceeding the customer expectations then it can also expect the customer retention and also affect word of mouth publicity. A good SCM will help in adding to the customer satisfaction in following ways: 1) It can deliver the products in the fastest time and without errors. It can help in the reduction of the lead times to the orders. 2) It can help the companies to maintain optimal level of inventories at point of sales so that what customer demands is always in stock. 3) It can help the customers to track the status of their orders. 4) It can help the companies to reduce their spending on raw material inventory by controlling the stock. In case of E-commerce companies like e-bay, myntra, tradus and others, who
References: 1) Article on "How Supply Chain Management Decisions Impact Customer Values” on psiplanner.com 2) Paper on “ Customer Satisfaction from a supply chain perspective: An evolutionary process in enhancing Channel Relationship” by Stanely Fawcett & Michael Swenson, Birmingham Young University. 3) Paper on “Consumer Behavior, Supply Chain Management and Customer Satisfaction: An Investigative Study in Small and Medium Enterprises” by Samuel P.D. Anantadjaya, Astari Walidin & Egah Sari, Swiss German University.