Strategic positioning of a company in the supply chain

Abstract

Strategic positioning is concerned with choosing those production centred activities that an organisation should carry out internally, and those that should be external and under the ownership and control of suppliers, partners, distributors and customers. This concept extends traditional decision methodologies, such as those associated with make versus buy and outsourcing, by looking at the interactions between manufacturing operations and the wider supply chain networks associated with the organisation. Hence, it considers the ownership of manufacturing related activities at the interface with customers, infrastructure, product range as well as the more traditional material supply base. This study reviews the existing practices in supply chain positioning process and then proposes a methodology for the same purpose that is suitable to Singapore industries. The usability of the methodology was assessed by applying it as a case study on a few Singapore companies. The study finds that the methodology can be helpful for Singapore based enterprises to decide their supply chain positioning, those activities which should be carried out internally and those which should be done externally.