Managing Automobile Supply Chain for Competitiveness: The Indian Scenario

In the wake of increasing competitive environment, supply chain management (SCM) practices have been adopted by organizations the world over to improve their operational performance and profits. But the results have been mixed. While in some cases effective implementation of SCM practices led to improvement in performance matrices, in others positive results could not be achieved. This research is intended to study the impact of implementing supply chain management practices on competitive potential of Indian automobile industry as this industry has taken the lead in adopting SCM practices in Indio. From the research, it is found that three SCM practices, namely, customer service employee training, improving production processes, and maintaining central information database for supply chain hove positive correlation with the overall competitive potential. Moreover; two SCM practices, namely, customer service employee training and on-site suppliers supplying standardized ports con have significant positive relationship with cost saving and return on assets (ROA) factor of competitive potential. It is well known that quality is no more about quality of product only; quality of information, quality of material flow, and quality of relationships assume high importance in contemporary globally competitive environment where both product life cycle and manufacturing cycle time are reducing at a faster rate than ever before. This study also brings out some SCM practices that significantly affect quality of information, quality of material flow, and quality of relationships in the Indian automobile supply chains.