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Compliance in the Supply Chain: Implications of
Sarbanes-Oxley for UK Businesses
-- Jean Anne Stewart, Marc Day,
Carole Print and Giampiero Favato
The key aims of this research are to not only estimate the current number of UK companies that have to be Sarbanes-Oxley
compliant, but also how that number will grow over the coming decades, particularly given the impact of the supply chain. This study
also examines UK organizations that will need to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley as a cost of doing business, raising capital or for
general corporate governance best practice. The number of Sarbanes-Oxley compliant companies in the UK could be between 45,000-
60,000 over the next 10 years. Sarbanes-Oxley compliance could become an international standard of quality in corporate financial
disclosures, a sort of ISO-9000 certification of management and reporting transparency. Companies adopting Sarbanes-Oxley may pay a price
now, but will exploit an enviable competitive position in the future, making them preferred partners of large corporations, which must
comply with Sarbanes-Oxley.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Antecedents and Drivers for Green Supply Chain Management Implementation in Manufacturing Environment
-- Srikanta Routroy
Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) is, today, gaining much importance in manufacturing environment due to pressure
from the government and environmental consciousness among the customers, to gain competitive advantage. In this paper, an attempt
has been made to propose the antecedents and drivers of GSCM in a manufacturing environment, followed by a detailed discussion.
While the antecedents of GSCM implementation are proposed as top management support and government's initiatives, the drivers of
GSCM implementation are proposed as green sourcing, Green Design (GD), green manufacturing and re-manufacturing, green
packaging, Reverse Logistics (RL), Environmental Management System (EMS), green innovation and customer awareness. These
proposed antecedents and drivers for GSCM implementation in the manufacturing environment are highly conceptual in nature, which
may be validated empirically by conducting a survey among various manufacturing supply chains, for complete acceptability.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Modeling Inventory Management Improvement:
Criticalities and Recommendations
-- Mohit Kumar and Shirshendu Ganguli
As technology is influencing the field of project management, the role of teamwork and communication becomes important in
the modern business scenario. Inventory management is being influenced by all these management factors.
The cost of inventory in a company is not being fully identified, tracked, and therefore, effectively
controlled, against the expected benefits which the inventory reduction
can bring to the company. Accuracy and completeness are important in inventory management to allow an organization to make
informed investment decisions. Monitoring inventory is important
for executives to determine if the investment is progressing as
expected. And, after carefully collecting all inventory reduction
costs, the organization can evaluate the return on investment and determine the
amount of profit that was generated due to the efforts. By improving the inventory management,
a company can determine the most efficient and cost effective ways to
deliver, faster, cleaner and higher quality products to
its customers. In this paper,
the case study based approach is used by collecting data related to inventory management in a reputed American manufacturing
company and then a model of efficient inventory management
is put forward using recommendations which are based on the inventory problems.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Aligning Interests of SMEs and a Focal Firm (MNE) in a
Global Supply Chain Setup
-- K K Morya and Harsh Dwivedi
In a global supply chain, many partnering firms are normally
Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) which support a focal
firm from the process of supplying raw materials to the delivery of
the final products and services to the end
customers. With regard to the supply chain of the focal firm, SMEs play a very crucial role in attaining cost efficiencies in procurement and production
processes, and accurate and timely delivery of products and services to the end customers.
However, this requires a close and trustworthy
relationship between the focal firm and the associated SMEs. In the words of Lee (2004), focal firm and SMEs (partnering firms) need to
have alignment of interests amongst themselves to attain unmatched competitive advantage.
However, surprisingly, it is observed that
managers rarely emphasize on alignment of interests of partnering firms. This is primarily due to divergent mission and objectives of members
of a supply chain. Scale of operations and structure of SMEs are also big hurdles to achieve unanimity of objectives between a focal
firm and SMEs. This paper tries to explore the objectives, activities and structure of SMEs that are possible sources of misalignment of
interests of these firms with the focal firm. For this, orientation of firms is conceptualized, on which strategic, structural, cultural, resource
and system issues are targeted. This paper is a conceptual one. The previous research conducted on the similar topic is taken as
a base for developing the concept.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
RFID Adoption by Indian Retailers:
An Exploratory Study
-- Chandan A Chavadi and Shilpa S Kokatnur
This article aims to understand the impact of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology on organized retailers' supply
chain with special reference to its benefits and challenges. The research study conducted was empirical in nature, involving
personal interviews with organized retailers. Analysis of the impact of RFID technology on supply chain strategy examines the benefits
and challenges faced by the retailers. The results indicate that the application of RFID technology enables majority of retailers to
have better inventory management, control over labor costs, track high-value items, reduce shrinkage, enable accurate recalls and
improve customer service. The implementation of RFID technology was investigated in isolation, without considering the effect of
other technological tools. Though the study is done in Bangalore, which is more prosperous than other regions, the research results
cannot be generalized. As RFID technology application is in its nascent stage in India, the present study focuses on the challenges
faced by the retailers. The paper concludes by proposing a framework to enable retailers with the change towards introducing RFID
to enhance their supply chain efficiency. From a practical point of view, RFID calls for huge investments, but nevertheless
enjoys substantial competitive advantage. The study enables us to understand the challenges faced in implementing RFID.
© 2009 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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