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Small number of strategic suppliers
Work as one unit
Share information which could be beneficial
Reducing geographical distances
Having an integrated supply chain can improve the supply chain dramatically. It will ensure speed to the market, will
give organisations the competitive advantage over them and it will cut costs dramatically.
Having a integrated supply chain can cut costs and improve a brands reputation because of the quicker service and more
specialised service. This will cut costs because companies will not lose profit through making mistakes. Also both brands
can make the other look better through their services.
This is compared to a non-integrated supply chain..
A non-integrated supply chain is a supply chain which doesn’t work alongside other brands or organisations to improve
their supply chain. The efficiency will suffer here as the quality of the service would not be as high compared to an
integrated service because all parts of the supply chain are specialised in what they do and deliver the highest quality. In
a non-integrated supply chain companies could be losing money and time by not integrating as they are trying to do all
parts of the supply chain themselves. This could lead in money being lost when it is not correct and time being lost
focusing on these problems.
Overall I believe it is a smart idea for businesses to integrate as overall it will be a better outcome for their businesses.
They will gain more customers, more profit and a more specialised service which will continuously bring back loyal
customers.
An example of integrated supply chains would be London Fashion Week and DHL. DHL are used by London Fashion
Week to create a fast shipment process which would benefit LFW as they could often need fast shipments of garments
and equipment which could just be arriving hours before the show would start. Without DHL’s fast service this would
not be possible.