National Beverage Corporation is an American based company that deals in beverage development, manufacturing and distribution. Since its operation, it is focused on the favoured soft drinks and rank as the fifth largest corporation in the United States.  It has purchased some of the corporations increasing its share in the stock exchange market making it have many bottling plants within the state. Later the company started branding its bottlings and make an end to private label bottling. This gave it a chance to create new products tailored to meet specific people in the market. As a result, the business scope increased making it have an increased customer base. Due to an increase in profit, the company was able to expand its operations causing problems in the management and difficulty in the supply of the products. To make the process run smoothly, the company had to employ a good supply chain management and inventory management to curb the situation. This essay will focus on the operational problems facing the company and various solutions to prevent its occurrence.

The company experienced a lot of problems in its supply chain as it cannot tailor products to meet customers in the market. This poses a significant challenge to the company as it cannot contain existing customers and attract new ones. As a result, there is a reduction in the profit margin making the company have problems in its operation. This can also be as a result of poor management that cannot coordinate the activities properly to ensure that customers’ needs are addressed. Poor coordination leads to low product differentiation and lack of technology integration to ensure that the company stay ahead of its competitors. The cost of production is likely to increase forcing the company to increase the pricing of the products, and this can drive away the customers who might feel that they are being exploited.

Recommendation from supply chain management

The company should use a proper customer segmentation that serves the profitability of the segment. This requires the company to manufacture beverages that can cater to the tastes of different demographic groups and culture. As a result, the company will be able to get customers of different ages and cultures hence increasing the sales of the company. The company should ensure that it has a platform to give customers the opportunity to present their views on the products tastes to help the company improve the quality of the product. The platform will also help the customers to order for the product online hence reducing the delay in the supply chain system.

The introduction of technology will also help the company to improve the supply of the product. It creates a website for customers and invests much on research on the current trends to help facilitate the product supply. The company should connect their bottling branches to the internet to improve the supply of the products. Distribution of the products from the manufacturing sector to the branches will be ease as the communication is made through an internet connection.

The company should listen to the market signals for proper alignment of the demand across the supply chain. The company will be able to plan appropriately on the beverage production and distribution per various changes in the market. As a result, there will be an improvement in the company’s supply chain making the products to be supplied efficiently. This increase the company’s operation of the activities making it use the available resources wisely to expand the profit margin.

The source of the supply should be managed efficiently to reduce the cost of owning materials by the company.This is to ensure that delay in the process of delivery of goods to customers is reduced for fast delivery. As a result, there will be an improvement of services that attract new customers. This also gives the company a good reputation as there is an efficient flow of the operation of the company making the business to have a good image for customer attraction.

Recommendation on inventory management

The company should have accurate demand forecasting that has the highest potential in savings. This is to ensure that problems caused by oversupply and undersupply are prevented. Through this, the company will be able to come up with the exact measures for efficiency in the operational activities. Due to this, the company will be able to ensure that the management of the firm is done efficiently.

The company should manage the inventory turns which is critical in business cost minimisation. This is to check on the effectiveness of the execution of various activities.As a result, the company will be able to define the success of stock rotation. This will make it easy for the distribution of the various products hence ensuring fast delivery to customers.

Inventory management requires the company to audit early and often. Through this, national beverage corporation will be able to start source identification in the auditing process. This is done from the time of receiving the raw materials and time of distribution of the materials. Auditing will help the management to know the exact amount that is used in the production to know the profit the company is earning. As a result, the company will be able to minimise the cost of production to get much profit for the efficient operation of activities.

The company should also make what they can sell and sell what they can make.This is to help the company to stop producing products that are not required in the market. The managers of the company should work to ensure that only the soft drinks that are most needed in the market are produced. The drinks should also be created following the market segmentation for the increase in the sales.

Conclusively, National Beverage Corporation experiences a problem of poor management and supply of the product that can only be solved through inventory management and proper supply chain management. The company should ensure that it employs qualified staff that can work to ensure that there is efficiency in the distribution of the products to the customers. This will ensure that the customers get the products within a short time as they can use the internet to order for the products. Timely management is also useful as the company activities can be coordinated well. Good coordination results into increase in the production leading to much profit. In short, all the company’s problems can be solved by applying principles of supply chain and inventory management.

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