The business environment has become highly competitive whereby the businesses need to ensure that they are successful in their domain and are able to portray a unique selling point, using which they will be able to maintain their dominance in the particular market. For this reason, technological updates are considered to be an effective component of the firm`s supply chain management (O’leary 2011). The supply chain management of an organization is considered to be an important part of the business processes and for this purpose the organization needs to ensure that its supply chain management system is optimum in nature (He, Zha and Li 2013). The use of social media can be used to enhance the supply chain management of the organization and to ensure that the different parties involved in the chain tend to make the whole procedure successful.
The given report will be discussing the different aspects related to the supply chain management of the organization. The role of social media in the supply chain management will be discussed in the report. The report will be discussing the importance of socks media and related tools in the use of a supply chain . It will be discussing how it is enganced and what the future prospects in the domain are.
The social media tools in a business organization may be used in various ways. The social media can be described as a computer based technology which may be used to facilitate the creation and sharing of information and related ideas on the virtual communities and network (Zeng et al. 2010). The social media services which are used by the organization can be used to deal with various aspects such as the customers, supply chains, packaging, marketing and production processes as well. However, the use of social media in the domain of supply chain management has increased considerably. This has been done in order to bring the different suppliers together and to ensure that they are all involved in a single system.
HootSuite- The tool goes a long way in helping the different accounts for a business organization. It becomes difficult for a business organization to manage their business and hence, for this reason, a package on HootSuite goes a long way in managing the social media accounts of a business and brings everything under a single head (Ngai, Tao and Moon 2015).
Hubspot-The given tool is used effectively to get a closed loop reporting data. This helps a business to track the funnel and check the channel which tends to drive the most engagement.
Buffer- This is another tool which helps a business enterprise to schedule and manage the different social media posts. Furthermore, it also goes a long way in sharing the best content at an appropriate time.
Sprout Social- The tool plays a crucial role as it allows an individual to manage the tags which customers initiate and maintain the records effectively for the same.
Although the different faces of a business have embraced social media positively, the supply chain and logistics business has been slow in doing so. However they have been able to cross all their initial doubts and have been successfully able to embrace social media as a whole. Recently, IDG Research Services conducted a research survey and stated that 57% of them were not using social media as an effective tool in the supply chain management but definitely look it as an option in the future (Armstrong et al. 2015).
Furthermore, there have been various companies in existent who have used social media and they have been able to shift the entire processes of the industry (Monczka et al. 2015). It has been observed that only large enterprises tend to make use of social media tools in a business organization, however this is not true and it is not only he popular social networks like Twitter, Face book and LinkedIn who are the popular examples. Companies are trying to engage their users using smart phone application, Internet of Things and Big Data for their business.
The companies which have been using social media in their supply chain proce4sses are being able to cut the edge of the given industry and it helps the enterprise to attract and retain employers as well as the clients (Tan et al. 2015). The business environment is highly competitive and therefore, the business needs to come up with new techniques which will assist them to streamline its operations, increase the efficiencies and optimize their production so that they are able to stay ahead of competition.
The use of supply chain in social media can contribute by creating methods that tend to improve visibility, increase control and also reduce the operational costs. Labor costs are also saved due to this (Christopher 2016). When the supply chain of a business is stable, customer satisfaction is enhanced greatly and this might lead to a rippling effect which may help the whole organization to benefit from the positive outcome of the application of social media to streamline the supply chain.
Social media is mainly concerned about building relationships in an organization. And this social media can be effectively used in the domain of business in order to build and develop relationships among the different trading partners. Information and details can be accumulated and used by the different supply chain partners to provide an insight into the different issues of the supply chain process which can then be utilized in order to be able to combat against competition. The building of the relationships can also be used to measure key performance indicators and understand aspects like the on time performance of a carrier or the reasons for slow payment from a shipper (Hugos 2018). Certain organizations also make use of the social media tools in order to be able to take in customer feedback and be able to imply their recommendations attained for the long term improvement of the business organization.
Social media permits chain of suppliers to check the proceedings and dealings to make everyone aware with the present situations, like the suspension and shipment to keep everyone aware about say failure of pick up a product. Twitter texts can specify indication about the pickup product from the given warehouse (John Wiley & Sons. Ross 2013). Twitter can alert the drivers about the coming n leaving of a product from a concerned warehouse. Social media can offer companies with more appropriate knowledge about hazards and measures so as to act faster so that the chain of supply is not disrupted.
For instance, Twitter can be used effective tool which can be utilized effectively in order to understand and communicate the different needs of the shipments of a particular type or to alert the drivers so that they are aware of the different road closures and accidents (Brandenburg et al. 2014). Thus, the social media tools can be used to help the companies to understand the different risks that may exist and also help them to make corrective measures which will then minimizes the harmful impacts of the supply chain disruption.
The social media will be used as an invaluable tool in order to enable the supply chain professionals which will then assist for innovation, commodity tracking and various pricing trends. This ay the best practices can be enabled in the organization and a collaboration between the different peers, stakeholders and suppliers can be formulated effectively. Therefore, these social media tools will be helpful in improvement of the existing processes, mitigation of the risks involved and improving of the efficiency (Chae 2015). This tends to combine the different participants of the supply chain together and drive the innovation along with supply chain so that the business can prosper successfully.
The companies can adopt the social media is an effective tool for the future purposes. Supply chain is highly concerned with providing the right information and hence, the social media inevitably assists the organization to ensure that the distribution which takes place is effective and that the dissemination which takes place is fast and apt (Ahi and Searcy 2013). This rises a proper development opportunity.
There are various social media sites like the Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin which can go a long way and assist the different organizations and enable them to communicate effectively with the different customers. Using the social media as a medium the customers can be updated about their order status and shipment which shall then assist in increasing customer services, improves visibility and help in making the meeting of the consumer demands better. Using this technology, various companies like Amazon, Alibaba and other stores create automatic updates about the inventory and post on these sites (Vinuale et al. 2011). Various circumstances like the condition of the weather may also be given as an update which may elaborate upon the delivery schedules and address the concern of the customer. Additionally, the social media tools also help to respond to the queries of the customer which they have with respect to the product, delivery process or other relevant parts. This has proven to have had a positive impact on the organization and increase their retention as well as satisfaction rate.
Supply Chain in general is quite difficult to manage. The aspect which can go a long way in managing the supply chain is related to the communication aspect. When different suppliers are managed using different schedules in varied locations then it can be difficult for the organization to keep all the parties informed (Markova and Petkovska-Mircevska 2013). Hence, Social Networking and social media helps to streamline the given process and helps the suppliers to stay connected with the business in real time which helps to make management easier. It can keep all the suppliers in a single loop which allows them to be more productive and the revenue of the business can increase considerably. The collaboration among the partners increase which then helps to track updates, share data and monitor their progress. The labor house also decrease with the help of this.
Social Media websites for instance, the Source Map can help to increase the visibility of the supply chain. It is a sharing platform which can then assist an organization in increasing the visibility of the chain of supply (Mangan, Lalwani and Lalwani 2016). Using a platform like the SourceMap assists in accessing the supply chain with a map with which one can contact any supplier and track any product. Transparency is increased with the help of this, which thereby increases control.
Social media also assists an organization to source new talent for the organization. It helps a company to have an access to different suppliers. Linkedin can be used to enrich the procurement process and also be able to identify the correct supplier efficiency.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the given analysis it could be determined that the supply chain of an organization plays a critical role and goes a long way in determining the success of the firm. Supply chain management is deeply concerned with the management of the different suppliers and to see to it that the right product reaches the right customer in the correct condition and most importantly at the right time. With the increase in globalization, supply chain has become increasingly complex and very difficult which then tends to make tracking of the suppliers very difficult. This is where social media comes to rescue. Using social media, the business can improve the communications and enable the firm to improve the supply chain and increase the visibility of the suppliers which enables live tracking. Furthermore, it helps to make the sourcing methods quite efficient. The result of this is that the supply chain becomes more streamlined and the productivity of the firm increases. The given report analyzed the concept of supply chain and social media and its use in business. Furthermore it explained how and why social media can be used in supply chain to ensure that the benefits are felt at all the levels of the business.
References
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Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.
Brandenburg, M., Govindan, K., Sarkis, J. and Seuring, S., 2014. Quantitative models for sustainable supply chain management: Developments and directions. European Journal of Operational Research, 233(2), pp.299-312.
Chae, B.K., 2015. Insights from hashtag# supplychain and Twitter Analytics: Considering Twitter and Twitter data for supply chain practice and research. International Journal of Production Economics, 165, pp.247-259.
Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
He, W., Zha, S. and Li, L., 2013. Social media competitive analysis and text mining: A case study in the pizza industry. International Journal of Information Management, 33(3), pp.464-472.
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John Wiley & Sons. Ross, D.F., 2013. Competing through supply chain management: creating market-winning strategies through supply chain partnerships. Springer Science & Business Media.
Mangan, J., Lalwani, C. and Lalwani, C.L., 2016. Global logistics and supply chain management. John Wiley & Sons.
Markova, S. and Petkovska-Mircevska, T., 2013. Social media and supply chain. Amfiteatru Economic, 15(33), p.89.
Monczka, R.M., Handfield, R.B., Giunipero, L.C. and Patterson, J.L., 2015. Purchasing and supply chain management. Cengage Learning.
Ngai, E.W., Tao, S.S. and Moon, K.K., 2015. Social media research: Theories, constructs, and conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), pp.33-44.
O’leary, D.E., 2011. The use of social media in the supply chain: Survey and extensions. Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, 18(2-3), pp.121-144.
Tan, K.H., Zhan, Y., Ji, G., Ye, F. and Chang, C., 2015. Harvesting big data to enhance supply chain innovation capabilities: An analytic infrastructure based on deduction graph. International Journal of Production Economics, 165, pp.223-233.
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