Integration of Supply Chain

Organizations or companies that intend to use Supplystrategic partnership. The approach is taken based on
Chain Management should focus on the need formutual benefits and continuous improvement on both
integration of their supply chain. The effectiveness ofsides. The approach is also less aggressive and
the company to deliver its goods to the end user iscommands the respect of each supplier. Each
highly dependent on the integration of its linkagesnegotiation that occurs in this approach is done with
between their partners. A company can no longerfocus on quality as the priority and follows by the
compete effectively on its own but with support andcost.
integration with its downstream partners also. SupplyExample of a local Malaysian company that integrates
Chain integration is a process integration of upstreamtheir supply chain is the Malaysian car automotive car
and also downstream activities through a medium ormaker, Proton. After Proton suffers negative growth
platform interconnecting each other. With the rapidin the last few years, the new management of
development of ICT, the process of integration hasProton has decided to integrate its supply chain and
become much more easily compared to the past.reduce their vendor based from 260 vendors to only
In the past, in the buyer-supplier relationship, the20 to 30 vendors only. Proton's logistic provider
buyer will usually reduce the cost of purchasedcompanies have also been reduced from 14
materials through aggressive negotiations. This usuallycompanies to 3 companies only. The objective of the
bring to a win-lose situation whereby the supplierreducing was simply to cut waste and minimize the
profit margin have been reduced drastically to meettransaction that does not add value to the company.
the demands of the buyer. With supply chainReducing the vendors has helped Proton to cut the
integration, this is no longer the case. In a win-wincost of the car they are selling and with higher
situation, the buyer and supplier are in the form ofquality.