Opinion

Supply chain management

Supply chain management

By Saramsh Kharel

The rise in globalization has increased the importance of Supply Chain Management (SCM). It’s true Nepal is facing issues of coordination between the supply chain members. Primary factors are lack of skilled human capital, information, research, poor capital flow and quality of education. Secondary factors are quite well known; corruption, labor intensive industry, unstable government, poor infrastructure and many more. We must view opportunities in every problem, which is integrating the goals from all dimensions. So, the goal is to create an efficient and effective low cost network of relation between the suppliers, customers and distributors since business has become the strongest point of every nation. And it is complex for the developing countries like Nepal. There are very limited customers and the most awful trend in Nepal is that if something attracts the market then everyone is steeping towards it because no one really likes to take risks and this ultimately leads the economy to backfire like America was once hit by real estate business. In the context of Nepal, Mustang is famous for apples but, guess what, those apples are already bought by some agents who later transport them to India except for some which are processed for wines. Another similar example, gingers produced in Nepal are transported to India just for being washed, and only a few knows about it.The cost of production theory says the product manufactured in the country should lower the price for that country but in the case of Nepal it never worked. Fast food Kurkure made in Nepal costs Rs. 40 and those imported from India also costs Rs. 40. Now how does the rational consumer make a purchase decision i.e. Kurkure is a product of a reputed PepsiCo company and obviously it produces them way better than those produced in Nepal. There is no doubt that a consumer will chose to purchase Indian Kurkure. Another example; Nepal-made hand pickles were in high demand in Japan but due to the ISO and quality factor the process stopped. It’s that we are not updated. For better return we need to take risks and again we must know the difference between the calculated risk and blind risk. It’s high time we focused on creating value for our products and services and maintain the supply chain and make sure the issues don’t defeat us.