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The 73rd MBA Forum: Performance Measurement and Strategic Significance of Enterprise Supply Chain Management

publisher:createtime: 2017-05-08

Martin Christopher said: “Competition in the 21st century is not the competition between enterprises but the competition between supply chains.” On the afternoon of May 8, at Teaching Building 9, Xiang Weichun, Director of Greater China Business Development of HAVI Logistics, analyzed leading enterprises in the global supply chain with detailed financial data and pointed out the difficulties in the supply chain management and the motivation and significance of implementing the strategy. The lecture was hosted by Yuan Denghua, vice president of the School of Business.

Xiang Weichun pointed out that the hot topic of supply chain management lies in supply chain planning, supply chain data, strategy and transformation, performance measurement, supply chain subdivision, service cost and so on. Companies that master the supply chain management strategy will go far beyond other companies. For example, Apple Inc. and Procter & Gamble, whose supply chain management stand at the world's leading level, is the benchmark for other companies. Another example is McDonald's. According to the data of Gartner (Gardner Consulting) for 11 consecutive years, the times of average inventory turnover of McDonald's reach 157.3. The speed is amazing.

In addition, he introduced in detail how to look at the performance of enterprise supply chain management from the financial statements. Three indicators should be mainly concerned about are working capital, inventory and return on asset. Working capital refers to the amount of capital required for daily business activities, while inventory represents the total amount of inventory held by the company. Return on assets refers to the ratio of the company's net pre-tax profit and the total amount of assets, indicating the ability of the company to convert the assets into profits. He cited financial statements from Western-style fast food industries such as Starbucks, Yum and McDonald's, e-commerce and traditional retail industries such as Amazon and Wal-Mart, as well as two giant of supply chain---Apple and P & G, and interpreted the superiority of the supply chain management of these enterprises by comparing supply chain management performance.

He mentioned that the promotion of supply chain management may encounter some obstacles: first is a narrow vision of the capital and pressure of quarterly report; second is the constraint of organizational structure of the company; third is uncertain performance measurement; fourth is incomprehension of the cost structure. But in the long run, the Internet reduces the cost of access to information. The implementation of supply chain management can reduce the competitive pressure of cost. Maintaining innovation and changes, leaders of supply chain will continue to improve performance, and thus go far beyond other companies.

The lecture was conducted in frequent interaction. Mr. Xiang also discussed supply chain management of companies like MI, Li Ning and Apple with the students, thus exploring the rules of experience for students to learn from.