Chapter 3 : Strategic Intiatives For Implementing Competitive Advantages

Strategic Initiatives

Organization can undertake high-profits strategic initiatives including :-

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT(SCM)

• Involve the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximize total supply chain effectiveness and profitability.
• Four basic components of SCM includes :-

Effectiveness and efficient SCM system can enable an organization to :

• Decrease the power of its buyers.
• Increase its own supplier power.
• Increase switching costs to reduce the threat of substitute products or services.
• Create entry barriers thereby reducing the threat of new entrants.
• Increase efficiencies while seeking a competitive advantage through cost leadership

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT(CRM)

• Involves managing all aspects of a customer's relationship with an organization to increase customer loyalty and retention and an organization's profitability.
• Many organizations. such as Charles Schwab and Kaiser Permanente, have obtained great success through the implementation of CRM systems.
• CRM is not just technology, but a strategy, process, and business goals that an organization must embrace on an enterprisewide level.

CRM can enable an organization to :

•  Identify types of customers
• Design individual customer marketing campaigns
• Treat each customer as an individual
• Understand customer buying behaviors

CRM Overview

 BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING

(BPR)

• BUSINESS PROCESS - A standardized set of activities that accomplish a specific tasks, such as processing a customer's order.
• BPR - The analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises.
• The purpose of BPR is to make all business processes best-in-class.

                                    Seven Principles of business Process Reengineering

Finding Opportunity Using BPR

• A company can improve the ways it travels the road by moving from foot to horse and the horse to the car.

 BPR looks at taking a different path, such as an airplane which ignore the road completely.

Progressive Insurance Mobile Claims Process

The Benefits and Magnitude of Change

ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
(ERP)

• Integrates all departments and functions throughout an organization into a single IT system so that employees can make decisions by viewing enterprise wide information on all business operations.
• ERP systems collect data from across an organization and correlates the data generating an enterprise wide view