Functional Responsibilities Analysis

Introduction

A supply chain is a network involved in producing and distributing a company’s products.
It involves multiple activities, entities, resources, people, and information. Supply chain
operations involve various processes in transferring raw materials to the manufacturers and
delivering finished products to the market. Therefore, supply chain management involves
planning, tracking, and perfecting the processes of transferring goods throughout the chain.
Organizational management should maintain a strong relationship with the supply chain to
enhance business costs, productivity, and profitability. All departments involved in the supply
chain, including marketing, human resource, and finance, need to have the necessary information
to understand supply chain operations.

Business Function Responsibilities Analysis

Operations Function Supply Chain Responsibilities
Marketing Marketing plays a significant role in
strengthening the company’s competitive
position and building internal and external
relationships that support efficient operations.
Marketing allows the stakeholders to
understand their roles in the supply chain and
the target markets. Such is achieved through
marketing communications that inform
suppliers and other stakeholders about the
products and brands they support and their
role in delivering the final products to target

customers. The function requires that
marketers identify and understand how
different stakeholders fit into the supply
chain. Marketing also nurtures the culture of
collaboration through connecting and
integrating suppliers and different
stakeholders into a team (Bai & Yang, 2021).
Consistent contact through the various
organizational platforms helps establish an
alignment with internal and external business
partners.
Marketing helps improve the
understanding of market demand and
initiatives in support of planning. An essential
marketing strategy is considering the
information gathered from market research to
set the right price for products and services.
For instance, if the customers demand a high-
end product from the available category, the
pricing strategy may require that the company
sell it at a high-end price depending on the
perceived value. However, if the consumer is
bargain conscious, the pricing strategy will

require that the product be sold below the
competitor’s price (Bai & Yang, 2021).
Therefore, marketing allows the company to
understand the market demand and plan on
product and service pricing. Identifying the
product and service features simplifies
suppling while maximizing the marketing
effectiveness.

Human Resources Human resources use the existing human
resource management programs in an
organization to improve the efficiency of
supply chain operations. First, they are
responsible for helping the organization hire
the desired talent, including the supply chain
professionals. The human resource needs to
analyze the talent properly they require,
especially because there is increased
outsourcing (Stahl et al., 2020). The
organization’s main objective is to offer
quality products and services to the system.
Therefore, HR ensures that the employees
offer quality services by assessing the supply
chain’s vital information. HR invests their

time in seeking to understand the products
and services being realized to the market,
some of the challenges in the supply chain,
and how they can be addressed.
More so, human resource
management is responsible for incorporating
people who can handle and manage the
advanced technology with minimum
supervision. There are changes in the
organizational process due to the adoption of
advanced technology (Stahl et al., 2020). A
decade ago, supply chain management used
simple tools such as excel sheets. Today,
advanced technological tools such as machine
learning and algorithms help suppliers
understand the supply chain requirements
based on access regions, market patterns, and
product lines. Collaboration has also changed
significantly. Previously, most organizational
communications were conducted by asking a
supply to commit to a specific forecast.
Today, there are automated tools such as
cloud technologies and web services. Human

resource management understands such
changes and recruits professionals with the
necessary skills and competencies to enhance
the success of supply chain operations (Stahl
et al., 2020).

Finance Integrating financial services into
supply chain management is about finding
new opportunities for cost reductions. There
exists a significant connection between
finance and supply chain operations. While
finance is concerned with risk management
and budgeting, the supply chain deals with
purchasing materials, manufacturing, and
supplying them to the end customer. The
supply chain is considered the stronghold of
any business and takes up a significant share
of the budget (Jia et al., 2020). Nevertheless,
when the cost of supplying is high, it poses
risks to the organizational financial health,
adversely affecting productivity and
sustainability. Therefore, the finance
department and supply chain should work
closely to find opportunities for cost

reductions. For effective cash flow
management and cost reductions, the finance
officials need to make decisions based on the
operations taking place in the supply chain
(Jia et al., 2020). Such can be achieved
through having an integrated system for both
departments, which allows for information
sharing, reporting, and forecasting.

Conclusion

All departments involved in the supply chain, including marketing, human resource, and
finance, need to have the necessary information to understand supply chain operations.
Marketing allows for effective communication and planning, essential in supply chain
operations. Human resource management plays a significant role in acquiring the desired talent
to enhance supply chain management. Then there are the financial executives responsible for
budgeting and allocating resources based on processes in the supply chain operations.

References

Bai, B., Gao, J., & Lv, Y. (2021). Linking marketing and supply chain management in the
strategy of demand chains via a review of literature reviews. Management Research
Review, 44(9), 1263-1276.
Jia, F., Blome, C., Sun, H., Yang, Y., & Zhi, B. (2020). Towards an integrated conceptual
framework of supply chain finance: An information processing perspective. International
Journal of Production Economics, 219, 18-30.
Stahl, G. K., Brewster, C. J., Collings, D. G., & Hajro, A. (2020). Enhancing the role of human
resource management in corporate sustainability and social responsibility: A multi-
stakeholder, multidimensional approach to HRM. Human Resource Management Review,
30(3), 100708.