Ensuring Availability and Access to New and Existing Technologies in Cellular Terminal Business

Major changes in the cellular terminal business market environment have resulted in a situation where supply chains need to realign their approach to demand and supply planning, supply dynamics and to technology cooperation practices to stay competitive. The purpose of this research was address the problematic of a dynamic and volatile business environment in regards to supply chains by creating a model of constructs to find solutions to the research questions through a case study approach outlined by Yin (1981, 1994). Real time visibility to market demand both up and downstream in a supply chain can be obtained via various electronic tools and with market-driven collaborative planning efforts inside the supply chain. Limited editions manufacturing, consensus forecasting and effective demand marketing are approaches proposed for demand planning. An aspect to supplier collaboration and supplier management was identified: market environment affects the management practices especially upwards in the supply chain, so market demand clearly needs to one of the main criteria for supplier strategy creation. Also, implementing changes takes longer upstream in the supply chain. Guiding principles have been proposed for managing the access to and development of new technologies. The “nucleus company” within a supply chain should take a leading role in bringing supply chain companies and third parties together to develop innovative solutions to end products within the context of the extended enterprise. The efforts could be coordinated through steering teams and technology roadmap sharing. Companies should also be encouraged to cooperate horizontally and outside the existing supply chain to optimize the number of and introduction speed of new innovations. Product development processes within the supply chain need to facilitate supplier and third party participation in product development. Resources and competencies could be shared within the supply chain to create new, innovative products to end customers. Open interfaces in product development and information sharing endeavor to lower total cost of development and to minimize the time-to-market of new products and applications. This research also proposes some metrics for availability logistics and technology cooperation so the actual value added through various forms of cooperation and collaboration could be measured and monitored.