Analysis of the relationship between Supply chain management and logistics Management for the Jeronimo Martins Company
Discuss about the Definitions For Green And Sustainable Supply Chain Management.
The business environment can be defined as a marketing term that refers to the forces and factors that affect the ability of an organization to expand its business in a specific market. In order to access and improve the internal environment of an organization, it is highly crucial to have an effective supply chain and logistics management. In this report, the relationship between supply chain management and logistics management of the Jerónimo Martins company will be performed. Along with that, the analysis of the ways by which logistic management can enhance the consumer satisfaction will be performed. Not only that, this report also contains the methods by which the organization will be able to enhance its consumer loyalty and reduce its costs by introducing effective ERP. Finally, several best practices by which Jeronimo Martins will be able to reduce its logistics costs have been discussed.
The Jeronimo Martins Company is a Portuguese organization which operates in specialized retail and food distribution. The Company has more than 3600 stores in Portugal, Colombia and Poland. The Jeronimo Martin group is the major owner of Jerenumio Martins Retail which is a highly renowned super as well as hypermarket chain in Portugal ( Jerónimo Martins 2018). Two of the most renowned brands off the mentioned group includes Fero Nova and Pingo Doce. Since the year 1982, JMR is running a joint venture with the Ahold Delhaize firm.
Management for the Jeronimo Martins Company
Supply chain management chiefly deals with the flow of the products and services. It involves collaboration between the companies to connect with consumers, suppliers as well as other partners in order to enhance the quality of the product to the end consumers. Considering the fact that Jeronimo Martins is a retail organization, it involves a good number of organizations who works as a supply chain to manage the flow of raw material and ensure that high quality finished goods have been provided (Christopher 2016). The supply chain managers of the mentioned organization work across multiple companies to ensure that the finished product meets all the requirement of the consumers. Logistic management can be defined a crucial portion of the supply chain management. The logistics management of the mentioned organization chiefly includes transportation, warehousing and packaging of products. The achieve objective of logistics management is to make sure that that the products manufactured by the organization reach the consumer within the stipulated time (Islam et al. 2013). Several differences between the Supply Chain management and logistics management of the Jeronimo organization can be noticed. Firstly, like any other origination, the logistics management of Jeronimo company include the management of the flow and storage of it product both inside an outside the firm. However, the company’s Supply chain management mainly deals with movement and integration of the supply chain activities. Secondly, the chief aim of the logistics is to fulfil the satisfaction of the consumer. But the goal of the supply chain management of Jeronimo Martins is to gain a competitive advantage in the global market (Stadtler 2015). Lastly, several organizations ate associated with the supply chain management of Jeronimo Martins. However, when it comes to logistics management, only the network of logistics and distribution centres of the company are involved.
The significance of an effective logistics management function in achieving customer satisfaction
Being one of the largest retail organization in Portugal, Jeronimo Martins is expanding its network of logistics and distribution in order to deal with the growing market share. The company has appointed AECOM in order to ensure effective investment supervision in terms of cost management as well as project management (Jacobs, Chase and Lummus 2014). The chief goal of the logistics management of the company includes construction of single story warehouse, receiving, storing as well as distributing products within the stipulated time in the Jeronimo Martins chain of shops and finally fulfilling the technological function of the logistic centre. All these factors are directly associated with the satisfaction of the consumers of the mentioned organization. In order to implement an effective logistics management, the logistics management of the company needs to understand its significance in achieving consumer satisfaction. As been discussed earlier, the chief aim of logistics management is to enhance the satisfaction of the consumers by achieving the location as well as time-related marketing challenges and by the quality and cost of the service provided by the company (Rushton, Croucher and Baker 2014). Two factors which logistic manager of the company should consider while incorporating strategies to develop effective logistic management are the purchasing power of the consumers and the specific requirements of them. Consumer satisfaction is highly important since it will help the mentioned organization to gain consumer loyalty as well as brand equity in the global market.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) can be defined as a process adopted by organizations to manage as well as integrate the crucial parts of the business. The crucial sectors of business managed by ERP involve planning, inventory, purchasing, marketing, sales, human resources and faineance (Ahi and Searcy 2013). At the basic level, the job of the ERP software includes integrating these various functions into one complete system so that information or processes can be streamlined throughout the organization. The chief feature of the ERP system includes a shared database which supports multiple functions used by several business units of the organization. For instance, with the help of the ERP software, the accounting department of Jeronimo Martins Company can use the same information that has been uploaded by the sales department of the company (Seuring 2013).
Analysis of how an ERP can help the Jeronimo Martins Company to improve its customer satisfaction, while reducing its cost, with a focus on e-commerce.
The management of the Jeronimo Martins Company can effectively reduce the cost of the supply chain by implementing the ERP Software. Implementation of the ERP Software will also ensure the increment in profitability, improved communication and elimination of waste. Some of the methods of reducing costs of the mentioned company by implementing ERP include:
- Improvement in communication
Definition of ERP
Being a retail organization, the management of the Jeronimo Martin company needs to communicate with their suppliers and vendors frequently. The ERP software can reduce the cost by improving communication of the company. Real-time communication will ensure that every member associated with the supply chain of the company are aware o all the valuable information associated with demand and supply (Tsai et al. 2012). This, in turn, helps the management of the Jeronimo Martins organization to keep the supply in control.
- Managing inventor
ERP has the ability to help the organization in managing its inventory level. Being a well known retail organization of Portugal, the Jeronimo Martin Company has a huge amount of stock to store. This, in turn, enhances the costs of the company. The increased collaboration, as well as communication provided by the ERP solution, will help the mentioned organization to reduce wastage of inventory space and negotiate better supply terms along the chain (Lee and Lam 2012).
The ERP system can help Jinimo Company to enhance the satisfaction level of the consumers by the following ways.
- Provision of accurate delivery date
The ERP system will enable the company to provide the delivery to the consumer within the stipulated time. The mentioned organisation can enhance its consumer base by implementing eshopping facilities for its consumers. The ERP system will help the management of the Jeronimo Martins Company to enhance its relationship with the virtual consumer and gain consumer loyalty.
- Return tracking
Considering the fact that the company wants to focus on e-commerce, it may face difficulties while tracking the return of the products, The ERP system will help the company to manage all activities associated with issues of the consumers.
- Issued invoice
The primary role of ERP system includes issuing an invoice for the consumers kipping accordance with their requirements. Not only that, the ERP system will allow the Jeronimo Company to manage activities that will lead to the satisfaction of their consumers (Seuring 2013).
In order to reduce the cost associated with logistics the mentioned organization should implement the following best practices:
- Focusing on labour costs and preventive measures
In order to reduce labour cost, the Jeronimo Martins Company should reduce the cost of labour before any warehousing operation. Several labour management softwares can be used for this purpose. Apart from implementing incentive programs, the company can implement carousel storage and robotics to replace labours. These strategies will not only enhance the productivity of each labour but will also ensure the usage of less equipment (Christopher and Peck 2012). Besides that instead of reactive maintenance, preventive maintenance should be implemented by the company. Preventive maintain ace has the ability to prevent any types of unwanted accident which may enhance the logistic costs of the company.
- Optimum usage of resources
The management of the Jeronimo Martins Company should assess whether any their assets are underutilized or not. For instance, often it is found that the retail organization gets negatively affected due to underutilization of fleet vehicles, inventory or facilities. In order to reduce logistics cost the mentioned company must ensure optimized use of all the resources (Seuring 2013). For this, the company cam rearrange its delivery schedule to keep the fleet vehicles active throughout the day.
- Usage of systems and tactical technology
According to the survey, wearable voice command tools can effectively enhance the efficiency of factory warehouse by 30 percent (Lee and Lam 2012). Not only that, warehouse management systems have the efficiency to reduce logistics costs by implementing automatic cycle counting. Moreover, High-efficiency lighting has the capacity to save a lot of cost of retail organization, Therefore in order to save logistic costs, the organization must implement the above-mentioned technologies and systems.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be said that to access and improve the internal environment of an organization, it is highly crucial to have an effective supply chain and logistics management. It involves collaboration between the companies to connect with consumers, suppliers as well as other partners in order to enhance the quality of the product to the end consumers. From the above analysis, it can be clearly stated that the Jeronimo Martins Company must implement ERP is to enhance the satisfaction of the consumers. Finally, with the implementation of the above discussed best practices, the mentioned company will b able to reduce its logistics costs and enhance the overall productivity.
Reference List:
Ahi, P. and Searcy, C., 2013. A comparative literature analysis of definitions for green and sustainable supply chain management. Journal of cleaner production, 52, pp.329-341.
Christopher, M. and Peck, H., 2012. Marketing logistics. Routledge.
Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
Ho, W., He, T., Lee, C.K.M. and Emrouznejad, A., 2012. Strategic logistics outsourcing: An integrated QFD and fuzzy AHP approach. Expert Systems with Applications, 39(12), pp.10841-10850.
Islam, D.M.Z., Meier, J.F., Aditjandra, P.T., Zunder, T.H. and Pace, G., 2013. Logistics and supply chain management. Research in Transportation Economics, 41(1), pp.3-16.
Jacobs, F.R., Chase, R.B. and Lummus, R.R., 2014. Operations and supply chain management, pp. 533-535
Jerónimo Martins. (2018). Jerónimo Martins | Responsibility, Investors, Media and Careers. [online] Available at: https://www.jeronimomartins.com/en/ [Accessed 23 Apr. 2018].
Lee, C.K.M. and Lam, J.S.L., 2012. Managing reverse logistics to enhance sustainability of industrial marketing. Industrial Marketing Management, 41(4), pp.589-598.
Rushton, A., Croucher, P. and Baker, P., 2014. The handbook of logistics and distribution management: Understanding the supply chain.
Seuring, S., 2013. A review of modeling approaches for sustainable supply chain management. Decision support systems, 54(4), pp.1513-1520.
Stadtler, H., 2015. Supply chain management: An overview. In Supply chain management and advanced planning, pp. 3-28
Tsai, W.H., Lee, P.L., Shen, Y.S. and Lin, H.L., 2012. A comprehensive study of the relationship between enterprise resource planning selection criteria and enterprise resource planning system success. Information & Management, 49(1), pp.36-46.