Time Is Equal to Money of Supply Chain Management

Discuss the statement “Time is equal to money” within the context of supply chain management for both manufacturing and retail organisations. There is no such thing as constant. Everything in this world evolves, even strategic performance measures.

An organisation must be open to the idea that some measures changes over time. Organisations must research on different approaches to be at par with the changes on the systems. Business organisations today particularly the manufacturing and retail organisations operate in a turbulent and dynamic business environment.The contemporary business environment is undergoing a metamorphosis as rapid technological innovations, competitive markets, diverse customer preferences, and extensive global operations prevail in it because of the value of time. For them time is equal to money. To ensure continuous operation and survival in today’s rigid business environment, a business firm has to be open to change and improvement. Business processes, services, products and operations should be consistently subject to evaluation and refinement.

The norm is to deliver quality products and services while maintaining flexible and effective operations.One of the most vital aspects of a business operation is the management of the supply chain. The supply chain comprises of the coordinated arrangement of manpower, technology, and production processes that transforms raw materials into tangible products or services. The supply chain is the overall process that determines how business firms secure materials, exploit people, utilise machines, and follow business processes to develop specific products and services for the satisfaction of consumers. This business operation is crucial as any defect in one area can render adverse impacts to the others.Thus, management of the supply chain entails strategies and constant monitoring to ensure its consistency to deliver outputs to the customers at the most convenient time. Time is valuable to any business organisations since it corresponds to satisfaction of clients and business progress.

Satisfaction and progress reflects to the money earned by the organisation. In manufacturing and retail organisations, time is very vital. In manufacturing business, let say in food industry, products should be delivered in appropriate time to avoid food expiration that may possibly results to failed transaction and loss of money.The needs of the supply chain demand the efficient and speedy movement of goods to the end user with enhanced levels of service. Increasingly, this entails the customisation of goods and services according to the requirements of individual clients. In order to maintain their competitiveness, all parties involved in the process, including manufacturers, vendors and logistics providers, must be able to offer and provide a swift and individually customised service to value time and money. In retail business, time is also important because of continues changes in the demand of the consumers.

The retail businesses should learn how to cope up to the current trend and time in business to have more profit. Retail businesses should consider the changes in business arena. They should know the competition, position in the market value of money and time. A certain business has to improve the flexibility of its supply chain network and coordination among the various entities involved in the process. Coordination and flexibility go hand in hand because a company that has well-aligned supply chain operations is guaranteed total flexibility.A business has to plan its supply chain operation in advance to minimise wasted transactions. (2007) reports that the pursuit of supply chain flexibility is by designing a supply chain model.

A supply chain model requires the company to determine the kinds of strategies and amount of time to suffice current customer needs. In this approach the business has to analyse and understand customer and stakeholder expectations in order to conceptualise the supply chain requirements and costs involved in each.Today, with these reasons, time management has increasing prominent to the success of any company. From the challenges in both manufacturing and retail industry, appropriate time management maybe used in order to maintain product traceable and avoidance of product expiration. Every business organisation is determined to know what kind of work they would and would not do for their customers and, in turn, they carefully learn how to fulfil the needs of each kind of customer in their target markets.Thus, they should emphasised the idea to take advantage of the competitive situation not just by being better in how that product gets sold, serviced, and marketed at the customer interface. It requires that the business industry creates breakthroughs in how they interact with customers, and design a way of interacting that makes an indelible impression on customers, one that so utterly distinguishes them from others that it becomes a brand in itself.