IBM Supply Chain Concerns

This document considers the various points of correlation between human resources, management information systems, and supply chain management in relation to critical IBM concepts of managing an organization. It identifies how these three areas intersect and their long term value for organizations as a whole. Ultimately, they are vital aspects of operations in the contemporary business world.

There are a number of eminent facets involved in the management of contemporary organizations. Encompassing a wide range of characteristics, the most notable of these pertain to information technology, resource allocation, and varying elements of procurement. Effecting competitive advantage today no longer requires simply being able to create superior products and services. Instead, there is a growing reliance on both operations and operational efficiency which influences an organization’s overall sustainability. Some of the key facets of operations include the prudent management of human resources, information systems, and supply chain. Organizations are not only tasked with overseeing these three areas individually, but also managing the inherent relationships existing between them. International Business Machines (IBM) has delivered a significant amount of insight into how to supervise these aspects of management in a manner that benefits the enterprise as a whole. This report will identify some of the more astute points for successfully managing human resources, information systems, and supply chains elucidated by IBM, as well as critical considerations for implementation.

Organizational Context Individuality is a significant part of most organizations today. It influences factors such as values, company culture, and other points of distinction among competitors. Nonetheless, there are certain similarities between organizations seeking to compete in today’s marketplace regardless of their particular vertical or line business. All of them need to streamline and increase operational efficiency to compete. Operations includes much more workflows and business processes with which organizations can derive value. It also involves keeping the company as a whole performing at optimum levels. Doing so requires refining methods related to human resources, information system management, and supply chain management. The organizational context of these three areas is that they are vital requirements for sustainable operations. Specifically, organizations must align their human resources with their information systems. They need the proper people to not only work such systems but also to do so in a way in which they are able to maximize business value. Supply chain management also correlates to information systems. The latter can impact the successful management of the former; additionally, supply chain management is a necessary component for ensuring that information systems are up to date. The enterprise must manage each of these areas to support its overall operations, which the greater context of human resources, information system management and supply chain management.

Human Resource Management Human resource management plays a valuable role in the overall operations of an organization. Moreover, it is inextricably linked to management information systems and supply chain management since it is ultimately an organization’s people which are responsible for its success (Gerstner Jr., 2008). There are a number of functions that human resources fulfills that are divided into two categories. The first pertains to sustainability; the second relates to competitive advantage. Compensation and benefits packages are required to keep the personnel working for an organization. Similarly, mandates for safety and employee relations are necessary to ensure that employees are able to work together harmoniously. These areas are related to, yet considered distinct from employee retention. Employee retention is based on keeping employees which are valuable to an organization. Human resources is also tasked with staffing and organization and suitably training that staff, which is key part of remaining competitive. Performance management in the form of reviews and feedback is also part of this codification.

One of the principal ways in which human resources correlates to management information systems and supply chain management is through the notion of strategic human resources management. Part of the strategic value found in human resources is allocating the resources needed to fulfill certain job functions and business needs. This requires both short and long term planning for various aspects of management information systems and a dependable supply chain to fulfill these objectives. Implementing strategic human resources management correctly involves determining a human resources value chain fed in part by human capital—which may loosely translate into quantifiable means. Thus, this element of human resources can align with the other needs for supply chain management and management information systems so organizations can ensure that each of these areas is well supported.

Management Information Systems represents the nexus point between human resources and supply chain management. Regardless of how such a system is implemented, it provides valuable financial information for the management of organization wide resources for human resources and supply chain management. It serves to connect people, information and technology together so that managers can ascertain the most effective ways of dedicating those resources to the fulfillment of organizational objectives. In terms of information perspectives, management information systems contain a comprehensive summary of the resources—involving people, technology, and information—at its disposal. The most effective of these tools link this information together in a proverbial knowledge graph (Harper, 2017) that offers varying perspectives of the information contained. Of particular importance is the data about the people, information and technology an organization can access and deploy to its advantage. By having this data in an electronic format users can readily exchange it for a multitude of use cases spanning from supply chain management to human resources. In this way it creates the ultimate decision support tool that is readily reusable for informed insight of common management tasks related to the three areas addressed in this report. Management Information System tools provide unparalleled insight into the relationships and experiences of human capital as they relate to potential facets of supply chain management, human resources, and specific business processes. These systems are able to positively effect decision-making partly because they can elucidate critical information flows within those processes. This knowledge is particularly valuable for larger organizations with multiple data centers, heterogeneous computing environments, and hybrid architectural concerns including both on-premise and cloud deployments. When used in tandem with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, they can pinpoint the downstream consequences of decisions occurring at the managerial level. The resulting discernment penetrates all aspects of the management process, from internal operations to external e-commerce applications.

There are a host of ways in which supply chain management is linked to both human resources and management information systems. As a domain, supply chain management is the means by which organizations account for, maintain, and upkeep business resources outside of human resources. Some of the characteristics of management information systems are readily applicable to supply chain management. Some of the analytics capabilities—especially those which are predictive or even prescriptive—are useful in both of these areas to help control inventory for any number of real time factors related to business needs or customers. These are just some of the pivotal supply chain technologies that correlate to management information systems, which in turn directly relate to human resources. Others involve aspects of Artificial Intelligence for network optimization—which is also of use for optimizing management information systems. There are also technologies in which companies can utilize supply chain games to practice optimizing their networks and accounting for different aspects of inventory.
Traditionally, inventory has played a consequential role in the management of supply chains. Even organizations that do not explicitly focus on procurement still must monitor their inventory and manage its supplies. When accounting for some of the global supply chain factors such as tariffs, taxes, and international shipping, inventory needs directly pertain to the ability of one to manage one’s supply chain. Effectual supply chain management can reduce the instances and severity of the bull whip effect, in which there are distortions in the projections of the demand for supplies (Lee et al, 1997). The proper implementation of management information systems can also help to mitigate the bull whip effect.

There is an abundance of challenges and issues in properly implementing management information systems, supply chain management, and human resources practices. A fair amount of these simply pertain to sufficiently maintaining the information requirements involved. Some of the more advanced capabilities for supply chain management and management information systems in particular rely on infrastructure focused on data. Thus, organizations must contend with issues of security for proprietary data as well as data governance policies for the sustainable reuse of that data. Oftentimes the greater difficulty lies in implementing the latter, since the common reaction is to keep data in silos that obfuscates issues of data quality and reliability when they are used for other purposes than the initial one. Accounting for data governance requires a long term plan for the people, protocols, and practices associated with date in ERP, management information systems, supply chain management systems, and applications such as those for analytics. It requires the oversight to avoid situations in which organizations are faced with the “creation of repositories without addressing the need to manage content” (Fontaine and Lesser, 2002).
Other than technology concerns, organizations must ensure that they attain buy-in from all of their various personnel. Implementing supply chain management, information systems management and strategic human resources must be done on an organization-wide basis. It is not sufficient for a department or two to handle such an implementation. The entire organization must make a dedicated effort to prioritize these aspects of their operations for them to succeed in the long term.