Essay Example on Competitive Advantage: Quality, Price, Supply Chain Matters

Introduction

In any two opposing markets, the critical determinant of the trade is the quality, quantity, prices, and supply chain distribution. The comparative advantage acts in favor of the company or industry that is competitively in the supply of quality and relatively cheap goods compared to their counter-producers. The supply chain mainly determines the delivery cost as well as time. The steady and reliable supply of goods and services attracts more consumers to the product. The company in the position to maintain the comparative advantage leads in profit-making as well as outdoing its counter competitors. At that particular point, the leading company is said to cause tradeoffs to the other companies. For that reason, the paper will focus on discussing the negative impacts that American manufacturers have due to comparative advantage caused by the Japanese manufacturers' supply chain.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

What impact did the negative image of quality at American manufacturers versus Japanese manufacturers have on American supply chain practices?

Upon Japanese arrival in the American market and multinational market, American manufacturers had dominated the foreign market, and they could have direct investments in any state across the globe. However, their quality and supply chain reliability was poor and thus could not meet the demands of the consumers. From the 1980s to the 1990s, the Japanese invaded the market by introducing more quality products as well as ensuring that the consumers had a variety of their flavor. Besides, the Japanese supply chain was and is time conscious, and therefore, most dealers in US products had to shift to Japanese products. Japanese used a criterion that the US had never used, that is, Just-In-Time delivery (Kim & Chai, 2017). Regarding the improved manufacturing process and the use of innovative technology by Japanese, assisted them to out-compete with US production as well as supply management. The Japanese advancement and spread to reach the locals created consumer contact with consumers. In return, the tradeoff was experienced in the American manufacturing companies as their sales declined. For instance, the Japanese made sure that they penetrated through to the foreign markets, including the developing and underdeveloped countries with more quality products and machinery (Kim & Chai, 2017). The American supply chain practice, therefore, was out fashioned, thus unreliable, and also their product was seen to be obsolete.

On the other hand, through multinational firms, the US allowed foreign companies to invest and trade within their state by licensing them. The process, therefore, was more vivid that foreign countries such as japan invaded their market by providing more quality goods that the US-supplied. It also made sure that locals accessed the products just adjacent to them, unlike it was before they had penetrated the market (Kuei, Madu, & Lin, 2011). The change in the supply chain, therefore, was initiated to ensure that products were not only accessed on one point but also to all target markets. Japanese domestic market was tough to penetrate, and therefore they had complete control over their market and quality in which any foreign company had to partner with them. In return, they were able to ultimately decline the profitability of foreign investors as they increased their supply. By so doing, Americans had to invest more in supply chain and technology to improve their quality as well as increase their sales for considerable profit margins.

How did American firms respond?

In response to quality management and supply chain integration, American initiated product rewards as well as innovations. Technology is one of the approaches that Americans have persistently improved to improve their quality and a steady supply of their products. Through multinational firms, Americans have developed strategies to form a partnership in different nations to ensure that they reach the world market at relatively cheap and quality products. Through the reduction of long-chain and costly distribution of their products, they have marketed their products. The innovation and persistence integration of their product is the action that they have kept to enhance their product demand. They have also integrated the assessment procedures on which quality checkup is a standard to improve for promotion of the sales within the foreign countries. Finally, it has improved The ISO 9000:2015 Process hence maintaining quality delivery and proper communication as well as the relation with customers.

How can a business best use its resources to achieve coordination in an entire supply chain network?

There are several approaches in which a business can coordinate an entire supply network. One of them is to partner with potential competitors alongside forming market cartels to control the market prices. Secondly, the business can integrate its products by collaborating and assimilating the benefit-sharing models with smart companies across the globe. It may also use its resources to innovatively advance its product quality as well as evaluation to enhance the competitiveness of the product in the market as well as decreasing the viability of the counter competitors. Finally, for businesses to successfully achieve coordination of the entire supply chain, it has to build a good reputation by delivering its product just in time as well as maintaining proper communication channels to the customer service (Kasemsap, 2020). That way, the recapture of the market would be full of control by the business.

Conclusion

The businesses that dominate the market mainly focuses on the supply chain while at the same time, maintaining the quality of the product. Just like the Japanese took the initiative to ensure that their customer receives the quality product in time is the same way another business would integrate its tradeoff process within the foreign market. Also, it is through persistent quality checkups, standards, and innovation that keep the firms competing in the market hence dominating the industry (Kuei et al., 2011). Communication is also vital as well as the collaboration of the firms to ensure that they cooperate to maximize their output or net profit.

References

Kasemsap, K. (2020). Advocating sustainable supply chain management and sustainability in the global supply chain. In Supply Chain and Logistics Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1462-1490). IGI Global. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-0945-6.ch071

Kim, M., & Chai, S. (2017). The impact of supplier innovativeness, information sharing, and strategic sourcing on improving supply chain agility: Global supply chain perspective. International Journal of Production Economics, 187, 42-52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2017.02.007

Kuei, C. H., Madu, C. N., & Lin, C. (2011). Developing global supply chain quality management systems. International Journal of Production Research, 49(15), 4457-4481. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2010.501038