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Ford Motor Company – Supply Chain Strategy

In: Business and Management

Submitted By zackm
Words 1723
Pages 7
Executive Summary
Ford’s existing supply chain is highly complex and there are several external factors that have contributed to the search for solutions to move past the costly supply chain challenges the company has been dealing with in recent years. The challenge in their current supply chain system revolves around the inefficient management of their large data base of suppliers, the existence of independent distributors and their inability to communicate and provide direct service to their customer base. Recognizing an immediate need to improve and enhance their supply chain, making it more cost effective and profitable, I have decided to implement portions of the supply chain strategy “Virtual Integration” from companies such as Dell. Although there are several main differences between the two companies which is visible in the comparison, pieces of Dell’s virtual integration strategy can be applied to Ford’s supply chain to improve operations. Through this solution, Ford will implement information technologies and internet, along with innovative concepts from high tech businesses, in order to directly interact and perform transactions with their suppliers and customers. This solution will allow Ford to increase its sales by gaining customer satisfaction and by providing rapid communication with their suppliers, manufacturers, and customers – but also keep current client that enjoy buying from dealerships. Since Dell and Ford are two different types of industries, a modification of the virtual integration system currently used by Dell will be applied. Aspects of the virtual integration system will be added concurrent to the current supply chain system, which will remain. This is critical since trying to introduce the full virtual integration business model alone and eliminating the existing supply chain system would put ford in high risk of losing current

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