Business Processes

As discussed in chapter 14, business processes are composed of bundles of interconnected activities that stretch across firms in the supply chain; they represent key areas that some or all of the involved firms are constantly working on in order to reduce costs and/or generate revenues for everyone throughout supply chain management. There are eight critical business processes on which supply chain managers must focus:
1. Customer relationship management
2. Customer service management
3. Demand management
4. Order fulfillment
5. Manufacturing flow management
6. Supplier relationship management
7. Product development and commercialization
8. Returns management

The customer relationship management process allows companies to prioritize their marking focus on different customer groups according to each group's long-term value to the company or supply chain. The customer service management process presents a multi-company, unified response system to the customer whenever complaints, concerns, questions, or comments are voiced. Demand management process seeks to align supply and demand throughout the supply chain by anticipating customer requirements at each level and creating demand-related plans of action prior to actual customer purchasing behavior. Order fulfillment process is a highly integrated process, it is often requiring persons from multiple companies and multiple functions to come together and coordinate to create customer satisfaction at a given place and time. Manufacturing flow management process is concerned with ensuring that firms in the supply chain have the needed resources to manufacture with flexibility and to move products through a multi-stage production process. Supplier relationship management process supports manufacturing flow by identifying and maintaining relationships with highly valued suppliers. Product development and commercialization process includes the group of activities that facilitates the joint development and marketing of new offerings among a group of supply chain partner firms. Returns management process enables firms to manage volumes of returned product efficiently while minimizing returns-related costs and maximizing the value of the returned assets to the firms in the supply chain.

In my opinion, supplier relationship management process is the most important because it supports manufacturing flow by identifying and maintaining relationships with highly valued suppliers. This is very important because it is a key step toward ensuring that firms' manufacturing resources are available. This has a direct impact on each supply chain member's bottom-line financial performance. This is also important because communication is key and the employers should always communicate with their employees to make sure that they know what is going on within the company/firm.

What business process do you think is the most important? Do you think one is more beneficial to have when working in a company/firm?