Research Topic
Global Supply Chain With The Local Marketing Talent
Released in August 2014
Research Questions:
- What is the importance of local marketing talent within the global supply chain network for multinational firms?
- What kind of supply chain relationships best facilitate the integration of marketing strategy planning and execution?
- Can we extend organization learning to supply chain learning?
- Can we extend market orientation to supply chain orientation?
- What are the best methods for capturing the voice of the customer in different firms embedded in different national and corporate cultures?
- How should globally derived voice of the customer data be integrated and contemplated within strategic market planning?
- What roles do qualitative and quantitative customer data play in customer value prediction at various points in global supply chains?
- Should customer value learning and creation processes be formalized and standardized for maximum global supply chain effectiveness and efficiency or is the world so hyper-competitive and amorphous to require more temporary, localized, ad hoc processes?
Research Objectives:
1- Re-evaluating the relationship between marketing and strategic supply chain management and transferring it to a more strategic level, in addition to providing a new framework and ideas for this relationship and new strategies that must be innovative by the rapid change and quality management system in the global business environment and customer perception. orders across different markets around the world.
2- Integrating local marketing talents with global strategic supply chain management design for multinational companies.
Keywords
Global supply chain, strategic integration between marketing and SCM
Global Value Chain, Collaboration, Standardization vs. adaptation Local marketing talent, Economies of scale & Economies of scope
Framework
LPG and Global Supply Chain
Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization (LPG) economic systems have a significant effect on the competitiveness among firms, as many factors lead to an increase in the interdependent & integrated economic system called the global economic system, as a result, the competitive environment faced by the firms has a dramatic change since the last decade as a result from the drivers of globalization like decreasing tariffs and barriers and improving transportation and information technology as well as we live on the era of the communications activities.
These changes gave the firms high access to produce globally and the result from this was a proliferation of choices for consumers all over the world this required the firms to offer greater products and services at lower cost and high quality to remain a competitive advantage and customer’s satisfaction and increasing their customer value creation and relationships, so this pressure lead to more emphasize on reengineering internal business process as well as working more collaboratively with customers and suppliers to integrate planning and operations throughout the supply chain management.
The changes also have a significant effect on increasing the dynamic markets and lead to more uncertainty about customer demand, day after day customers gain more access to more products and services globally as well the introduction of new products and services is occurring at a faster pace.
The main important point from the introduction above lies on; in today’s business the firm’s competitive positions mainly depend on the ability to realize and well understand the changes of the customer demands and perceptions which have a rapid change also the differences of customer tastes and preferences among different markets to respond appropriately and quickly to those different and changeable demands for the customers.
Supply chain management tools and techniques are considered as the mechanism that allows the firms to respond to all of these changes, so strategic integration between marketing and supply chain management is an essential topic in today’s business.
Brief history of supply chain management:
Logistics activities have existed since the early 1900s and were related with the military as an essential branch of war that pertains to the movement and supply of armies. The logistics model is essential by the Military Forces which use the logistics model to ensure the availability of the required materials at the right and accurate place at the right and accurate time the logistics model is still essential and being used by the military forces until now. Since 1950 The Supply chain has been something very interesting and got more attention in the manufacturing and production sector, we can observe that the inventory became the responsibility of the marketing and accounting as well as the production areas, also order processing as part of sales and accounting duties
The supply chain is one of the most powerful engines in business transformation, The supply chain is considered one area where the efficiency and effectiveness of the operational activities can be reached it decreases the organization’s costs and improves customer service as well as increases the firm’s value chain. As much as the technological and telecommunications tools increased supply chain management became more powerful.
In the early days, the supply chain was referred to as the functions of logistics, transportation, purchasing, and supplies.
The evolution of the supply chain has moved to focus on integration, visibility, cycle time reduction, and streamlined channels. Also integration with marketing, this integration has a variety of activities that include:
- Integrated Purchasing Strategy
- Supplier Integration
- Supply Base Management
- Supply Chain Management
Competitiveness and Supply Chain Strategies
During the last decades, multinational firms succeeded by how they could capture the economies of scale and & economies of scope as well as the usage of advanced technology in their products and services into the physical assets, and this for sure increases the customer’s value creation. Competing in the global market requires new capabilities within the firm Such as considering the customers as strategic assets.
This research focuses on the FMCG multinational firms, and it’ll propose a framework to move the integration between marketing and supply chain management to a more strategic level through the integration of local marketing talent with the global supply chain management design for the Multinational firms into a more strategic level, not only on the operational and tactics level.
The proposed framework builds on these perspectives, which captures the integration between marketing and supply chain into the business unit and moves them onto a more strategic level. Integrating marketing and supply chain strategies involves the management of the following levels of integration:
- Strategic corporate, customer, and shareholder integration.
- Strategic supplier integration.
- Strategic marketing and SCM with the local marketing talent integration.
I’m focusing on explaining the customer’s value within the supply chain network, and customer segments, realizing the rapid change of the global business environment and customer demands & perceptions, and delivering value to the customers.
The purpose of this research is to evaluate and review supply chain management and its relation with marketing, to contribute to the body of knowledge by developing a conceptual framework for integrating marketing and supply chain management on a more strategic level to include local marketing talent, As well as to understand, evaluate and analyze the global supply chain and global marketing strategies, the relation between both as well as the important of integration of local marketing talent in the strategic decisions in global supply chain management to MNC also suggest strategies and activities to MNC to improve the marketing talent. and all of the above considered as the answer of why this topic is important.
Global SCM and Marketing Strategies
The value of the research could be as follows: the relation between marketing and supply chain management as it is considered an essential topic of global marketing. This research will focus on the integration between marketing and supply chain management on a strategic level as well as the importance of the local marketing talent in the global supply chain design.
This research will explain the Decision framework for the development and implementation of global SCM and marketing strategies and programs, also evaluate management decisions connected with the global SCM and marketing process, design the global SCM and marketing programs and implement, coordinate the global SCM and marketing programs within supply chain network.
The definition of global marketing to realize what are the aspects, that are essential in this study and connect it to the marketing strategy and programs within the supply chain network, to understand and realize the background and the main dimensions to be connected on the integration between marketing and supply chain management including the local marketing talent on a strategic level. So first the research will explain the meaning of local marketing talent.
Local marketing talent
To realize the meaning of local marketing talent we have to get the meaning of the following:
Talent management
Talent management refers to the firm’s anticipation and expectation of required human capital as well as the planning to meet those needs.
Talent management can be described, as the science of using strategic human resources to improve the business value for enabling the firm to achieve its strategic goals and increase its competitive advantage. Also talent management including recurring, retaining, rewarding, developing, and enabling the employee performing forms a part of talent management as well as planning the workforce on a strategic level, basically the talent management strategy has to be linked to the business strategy to make sense, and logically supply chain management is the core of the business strategy. This research focuses on the strategic integration between marketing and supply chain management so we have to realize the meaning of Marketing Talent
Marketing talents concentrate on everything related to the market and competition with customer value creation involving the value of talent that enables the firm to cover the benefits of economical areas, customer satisfaction, competitors, quality productivity, cycle time, market capitalization as well as costs and revenues, rationally those activities can’t be achieved through machines, so it should be achieved through talented persons, so the firm’s process which improves the management and marketing talent not only including hiring the most qualified and valuable employee but focusing on how to retain them and the main important to improve their skills and knowledge.
From a talent management point of view, the firm is concerned with two major areas (performance and potential), performance involves the current performance of the employee, and potential involves the potential outcomes and benefits from the talented employee so I see that the talented marketers can play a vital role if we want to move the integration between marketing and supply chain management into more strategic level that will be clear within the body of the research.
Global Market Entries
Global marketing refers to the firm’s commitment to coordinate its marketing activities across national boundaries to satisfy the global customer wants & needs better than the competition and this implies that the firm can:
- Develop its marketing strategies and activities based on the similarities and differences between markets
- Utilize and exploit the knowledge from the headquarters (home org.) through worldwide diffusion and adaption
- Transfer the experience, knowledge, and best practices from any of its markets and use it in other markets which doing business.
Hence we can conclude that the collaboration and integration between marketing and supply chain management is essential on a strategic level.
Global+local=Glocal “Think Globally, act local”
Glocalization :
Because this research focuses on the relationship between marketing and supply chain management as well as the integration between supply chain management and local marketing talent, so we have to take a look at the concept of Glocalization
Glocalization can be described as the global marketing strategy that seeks to achieve the slogan Think Global, Act Locally, which called Glocalization, which could be achieved through dynamic interdependence between the firm’s headquarters and its subsidiaries among coordination of their efforts and functions to ensure the global integration and local flexibility at most cost-effectiveness. Principally the value chain functions should be carried out which is not required to be achieved only from the firm’s headquarters (Bellin and Pham, 2007) so the role of supply chain management and marketing is critically important in this topic.
The key point of Glocalization is knowledge management which refers to continued learning from experience, from this point I want to mention that in the context of global marketing, the management of knowledge can be achieved through cross-culture activity, which its key task, is to foster and continually upgrade collaborative cross-culture learning. Glocalizaton is one part, which is also important for the research’s main idea.
Organization’s Marketing Structure
* Centralization vs. decentralization
One of the core activities of any multinational firm lies in the organization’s marketing structure, which could be centralized or decentralized. One of the main functions of the firm’s marketing activities is communication. The marketing department continuously tries to communicate the brand image, mission, and objectives as well as the products & services of the organization. And how the communication approach might produce different marketing tones, which is affected by the firm’s structure and how the different departments are allocated. For example in a centralized marketing approach, there is only one marketing department that controls all the marketing activities from the headquarters in the home country that responsible for managing and conducting all the different marketing initiatives and unifying the brand image this approach is applied when the Multinational firms conducting global standardized marketing strategy.
Decentralization basic view refers to that multiple business groups can make a decision. Some benefits from decentralization are adopting the products or approaches to the local culture insight, local competition, local language & laws, and increasing the sales channels. And this point is considered as one of the reasons, that increases the importance of integration between marketing, and supply chain management.
Usually, the decision to centralize or decentralize the organization’s marketing activities comes by default, based on how the company is structured as well as the relation between marketing and supply chain management plus the capabilities of the supply chain to meet the different customers demands in different markets which considered as one of the main Important factors which are essential in the organization’s decision of centralized or decentralized, and this factor considered as the nature of the product or services that offered.
The research focuses on “FMCG “fast-moving consumer goods and this industry always depends on decentralized as well as adaptation approaches in their marketing strategies and activities, also the research will examine the mix of both centralized/decentralized with its relation within supply chain management and the importance of integration between marketing and supply chain management on diverse perspectives.
The mistake often lies in lumping everything under marketing because it should be under the supply chain management with its relation to marketing.
The level of benefit will depend on what part of the marketing function we talk about as well as the level of scale benefits that could be achieved within the supply chain network also the factors that affect the advertising have a critical interest as well as the market segmentation variables have a significant effect on the advertising process in different ways.
The contextual variables include regulations and media availability as well as the costs of advertising plus the number of competitors in the foreign market.
Multinational firms should take into consideration the local advertising regulations which means some global ideas can violate the rules and regulations in one particular market, so multinational firms should realize the essence of globalization of advertising while considering local responsiveness which means the adaptation should be conducted (think globally, act locally) when dealing with different cultures, the Multinational firms should realize how this different cultures decoding the advertising so the decentralized approach should take place on this area of working.
Organization’s Marketing Structure
The standardization vs. adaptation
One of the most important decisions associated with the marketing mix is developing an adequate marketing mix in diverse markets to achieve the firm’s objectives. The products that entire new markets for the first time should be adopted and tailored to the characteristics of the customers to be suitable to their demand, especially taking into consideration the existing heterogeneity of the markets ( Vignali,2001). In this point, we can say that the decisions of standardization or adaptation make a lot of organizations redesign their supply chain management with its relation to marketing activities and should manage well the supply chain network.
The global strategy of multinational firms seeking to manage the differences that emerge beyond different domestic markets across the world ( Ghemawt,2007) Also global marketing is not synonym with a standardized approach to managing the marketing processes (Acito, & Rusetski, 2006; Zou & Cavusgil, 2002).
Multinational firms follow 3 diverse perspectives when competing in the global market
First: concentration-dispersion perspective: the perspective, which analyzes the structure of the firm
Second: integration- independence perspective; the perspective which has to do with the process, which is independent from the organizational structure but integrated to the marketing and supply chain management in the competition challenges faced by the multinational firm.
Third: concentration of the articles, which deal with the standardization/adaptation perspective associated with the degree of adjustment or standardization of the marketing mix factors.
Some theories support the standardization approach which builds on the belief that the world is becoming more and more homogenous as a resulted of advanced technology and telecommunications as well as evolving transportation (Jain 1989:levitt, 1983) also some researchers such as (Jain, 1989, 2007; Levitt, 1983; Vrontis & Papasolomou, 2005) mentioned that. Consumers are converging on some global norms, and sharing common tastes, needs, desires, references, as well as cultural similarities so the researchers said according to these big similarities, and the low barriers and advanced technology that occurred from integrated and interdependence economic system as a result from globalization, the multinational firms can sell more standardized products that lead to more standardized marketing programs (Zou & Cavusgil 2002).
According to the research, the researcher doesn’t support this approach however it has some activities which the researcher accepts it, but when the multinational firms adopt their marketing strategy, they can bring more advantages and outcomes that exceed the disadvantages and strengthen also these disadvantages and strengthen can be handled when we integrate the marketing and supply chain management within professional supply chain network.
Finally, on this point; the degree of standardization or adaptation depends on internal and external factors and in today’s business environment adaptation is highly required so the integration and collaboration between the internal and external factors requires an integration between marketing and supply chain management.
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