Company Development

Reading: Read the text and check how to report a company development.

A company is periodically evaluated to identify its supply chain management. It

permits to set up the company strengths and weaknesses in order to determine and to
restructure the company strategies according to logistics processes and customer
service. In the logistics process, information takes an important role to communicate
among the company and customers on how it works and on how it can be more
efficient. It can be related to information flow and material flow.
Harrison & Van (2011) states that Information flow receives data from the
customer to purchase or supply products, and the moving of material is planned and
controlled by the company. That information is gathered to select and to deliver the
physical goods from suppliers through the distribution centers to stores by means of
Material flow (p. 6). Additionally, if there is a mutual relation among these two types of
information, cash flow is affected favorably or negatively in the company. Each
company creates its own procedures that can work properly depending on company’s
needs or customers’ requirements.
In the following article Blue Cookies shows the strategies implemented to
evaluate and restructure services in the company to satisfy customer service and to get
profitable revenues.

Blue Cookies
Blue Cookies is one of the Colombian’s homemade cookies company, with
Total Revenue of more than 81’540.000 million. It has a network of fifty distributors
around the country and South America, in special Chile. More cookies shops have
increased rapidly into the marketplace. It has created a corporation image to be
recognized by its consumers. This good positioning is supported by its employees, who
provide service levels (correct time and quantities) by delivering to each shop within
specific time. Volumes are impressive. In a year, the company dispatches over 2
million of products to the stores.
Mindful of its responsibilities, Blue Cookies uses national sugar cane processed
with bio fuels and has reduced gas emissions in its production and delivering. Its light
truck is driven with alternative fuels.
Blue Cookies states that its core purpose is “to feed and to satisfy customers to
keep their lives healthy”. A great variety of products and high on-shelf availability in
each shop permit to get that core purpose. This process has been organized according
to the good information flow and material flow relation.
At the beginning of the company, it sold its products in small shops in the
neighborhood but there was not a high- product
quantity distributed in the zone because the
company did not have many raw materials and
place to store the final products. The company
stored its products in the same workplace or
house. A year later, the company enlarged the
depot on the first floor with adequate temperature
conditions but there was small space for storing
high volumes of selling products, and there were a
lot of pile of boxes to be delivered. There was not
a regular inventory turn for dispatching and
delivering the products. It didn´t have a truck to
distribute them. It generated a high volume of
wasting products and storing accumulation. Also, each product had different ordering
systems. At that moment, the company needed a new storing place and distribution
strategy.
Six years later, the company relocated its facilities in the industrial zone. It
provided a huge space for organizing the boxes into aisles and warehousing racks with
temperature ranges according to cookies features. There was a big space for storing
product raw materials. It started a product codification to determine its location and
inventory turn in the company. It reduced costs since ingredients were found easily and
there was a record of all products used. A light truck was acquired to deliver all the
orders in short and scheduled times. Some small depots were established close to the
most important supply areas. It contributed to place the Purchase Order, to get the raw
materials in short time, and to satisfy customer needs in short time.
A Purchase Order is codified with its product characteristics. Then it is placed
in the storage and warehousing rack. It is scanned through the bar code on the box. As
soon as customer or client requires the order, the product is taken from the
warehousing rack. The sale is automatically recorded for each stock-keeping unit.
Cumulative sales are updated every day on the company system. This is a system based
on Internet technology that permits to employees communicate immediately the trading
information. The aim of a permanent communication is to reduce long time storing and
to get a quick delivering response from the company to stores and to ensure product
availability on the warehousing racks. It also permits to determine which products are
on high demand and which ones are required to be made.
Based on cumulative sales, Blue Cookies places orders with its suppliers by
means of electronic data information. This electronic system permits to recognize the
inventory turns and how Purchase Orders are delivered. Also, it forecasts quantities,
type of products and clients by ordering what clients will need in the future. Deliveries
to stores are made according to their requests and demands.
Adapted from “Tesco,” by J. Thomas, 2010, Competing Through Logistics, pp.
4 – 5. Copyright Pearson.
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