Essay Example on Maximize Revenues With Blurb: Self-Publishing Solutions

1. Introduction

The modern-day business environment very competitive, and organizations tend to focus on budgets, resources, and personnel on sales efforts. Profits are top business priorities, and business owners understand the best way to boost them is by focusing on generating revenues. With too much attention on sales, other company processes, although essential and likely to affect business performance, are likely to get overshadowed. As such, Blurb, the self-publishing business, has recognized that its procurement process is as essential as its sales efforts. In instances that there are ineffective purchasing procedures or insufficient purchased supplies to meet their publication need, the efficiency of their operations gets reduced. Their design, internet, and media veterans are their purchasing team whose efforts have established a system that produces a new publication every minute. It promotes Blurbs operations efficiency, thus meeting their customer's needs. Quality checks are a critical aspect of purchasing supplies to ensure they maintain the quality of their publications and increase their customer satisfaction.

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2. The Concept of Adding Value to a Business In Terms of the Purchase

According to Riorini et al. (2019), the added value is the increase in value gained by a business through undertakings of the production process. Companies can add value in their purchasing and production in various ways. For instance, an organization can choose to build a brand by having a reputation for high quality and cost products. It is an essential aspect that Blurb the self-publishing and marketing platform has established by enrolling a team of designers, internet, and media veterans who ensure authors publish the best stories. Through the adding value approach, production costs get transferred to customers who are prepared to pay for high-quality publications delivered in their books. Besides, Blurb ensures delivery of excellent services through high quality and attentive personal service. It differentiates Blurbs product and service delivery from other publication companies, which justifies their high or medium selling price in the long run. Blurb's self-publishing and marketing platform purchasing employs product features and benefits that add value to their publications. For instance, the platform offers its authors additional functionalities, a term of design, and guided authorship that helps produce better quality publications that sell at higher prices. Besides, added value boosts a company's general image where it gets viewed as an expert in the industry, thus improving its brand.

3. Make Decisions or Buy Decisions and how they are made in a Company

Make or buy decision refers to a company choosing between manufacturing a product and acquiring it from external suppliers. It is also known as outsourcing decisions. It involves comparing the benefits and costs of producing or outsourcing a product. Companies making the make or buy decisions must consider all essential aspects attributed to storing and acquiring a product versus in-house creation of the product. Every business engaged in the production of one or more types of goods aims at profit maximization. For the successful profit maximization, companies procure materials desired for the operations of its plant at the lowest cost. A firm will have the alternative to satisfying its requirements by producing goods from within its firm (Li et al., 2014, 2). Notably, a firm can manufacture in the desired quantity at moderately low costs. However, there are instances when outsourcing raw materials is more advantageous. For Blurb self-publishing and marketing platforms, the make or buy decision seems to get determined by the quality of product output targeted. High-quality targets on production push Blurb to choose the make decision in their production operations. The make decision is supported by having designing teams, internet, and media veterans to help people in the production aspect of their books. The make decision is critical as it ensures high-quality publications that are competitive in the market, thus achieving higher prices.

4. Significant Benefits of Sustainable Purchasing/Sourcing for the Company

Sustainable purchasing focuses on social, financial, and environmental factors when undertaking procurement decisions. A suitable sourcing approach will focus on making decisions based on living costs, related costs, and societal and ecological implications (Lorentz et al., 2018, 2). By employing suitable purchasing or sourcing, Blurb's self-publishing and marketing platform enjoys saving, developing effective utilization of natural resources, and encourages innovation. Suitable purchasing or sourcing offers signs to a proper and sustainable market for the product. It provides an expression of the organizations' attainment of sustainable development.

5. How Modern Technologies are helping Improve Purchasing Processes and Purchasing Decisions in Blurb's Self-Publishing and Marketing Platform

Agility is a critical aspect of the efficient running of any business. Procurement represents one business function that requires constant change. As such, Blurb's procurement teams are required to perform technology-enabled strategic roles. An advancement in automation and cloud services has resulted in an emphasis on the efficiency and sustainability of the undertaken purchasing decisions (Jarvinen et al., 2016, 1). Blurb self-publishing and marketing platform have utilized modern technologies in their procurement by effectively embracing and using cloud-based platforms. The cloud-based acquisition ensures fast and efficient service delivery, which helps conquer the competitive and innovative publication market. By embracing cloud technology in their procurement processes, Blurb self-publishing and marketing platforms have been able to enjoy cost-effective, energy-efficient significant opportunities. It has boosted Blurb's access to a more articulate and maneuverable global supply chain.

References

Jarvinen, J., and Taiminen, H., 2016. Harnessing marketing automation for B2B contentmarketing. Industrial Marketing Management, 54, pp.164-175.https://jyx.jyu.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/52186/finaldraftautomationimm.pdf?Sequence =1

Li, G., Huang, F.F., Cheng, T.C.E., Zheng, Q. and Ji, P., 2014. Make-or-buy service capacity decision in a supply chain providing after-sales service. European Journal of Operational Research, 239(2), pp.377-388. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264161300_Make-or-buy_service_capacity_decision_in_a_supply_chain_providing_after-sales_service

Lorentz, H., Kumar, M., and Srai, J.S., 2018. Managing distance in international purchasing and supply: a systematic review of literature from the resource-based view perspective. International Business Review, 27(2), pp.339-354. https://aspace.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/268153/Accepted%2Bversion.docx.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=n

Riorini, S.V., Yaputra, H., and Widayati, C.C., 2019. Increasing purchase intention by creating an online shopping value. Polish Journal of Management Studies, 19. http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.baztech-130b131c-a00f-453f-a7be-0bc35fb1b39f/c/PJMS_2019_19_2_319-330.pdf