In several of our cases the stability motive as referred to by Bode et al. (2011) played
an important role and companies strive to have reliable and secure suppliers. On the
one hand, in traditional industries, stable supply is important to allow the constant
flow of material and highly dependable delivery of functional products to the
customers. On the other hand, also in dynamic industries, companies need to be able to
rely on their suppliers, even if agility is needed on the customer-side for rapid reactions
to changing customer needs. In the case of unreliable or unsecured suppliers, i.e. high
supplier-side risks, the stability of the entire chain would be affected. This calls for
additional investments in robustness in order to bring the supply chain back to stability.
One further reason for different approaches to supplier- and customer-related risks
lies in the fact that a focal company will not be able to only use highly flexible and
reactive suppliers and, therefore, need to incorporate robustness on their own. In one
case the manager emphasized:
To sum up, on the one hand, we need to be agile internally, this is a practical constraint
related to customer requirements [ . . .]. On the other hand, we cannot force our suppliers to be
as agile as we are. Therefore, we need to find a way to decouple the operation modes of our
supplier and ours
In several of our cases the stability motive as referred to by Bode et al. (2011) playedan important role and companies strive to have reliable and secure suppliers. On theone hand, in traditional industries, stable supply is important to allow the constantflow of material and highly dependable delivery of functional products to thecustomers. On the other hand, also in dynamic industries, companies need to be able torely on their suppliers, even if agility is needed on the customer-side for rapid reactionsto changing customer needs. In the case of unreliable or unsecured suppliers, i.e. highsupplier-side risks, the stability of the entire chain would be affected. This calls foradditional investments in robustness in order to bring the supply chain back to stability.One further reason for different approaches to supplier- and customer-related riskslies in the fact that a focal company will not be able to only use highly flexible andreactive suppliers and, therefore, need to incorporate robustness on their own. In onecase the manager emphasized:To sum up, on the one hand, we need to be agile internally, this is a practical constraintrelated to customer requirements [ . . .]. On the other hand, we cannot force our suppliers to beas agile as we are. Therefore, we need to find a way to decouple the operation modes of oursupplier and ours
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..
