Research Questions, Scope, Case, and Charter Assignment

BMIS 580 Human Computer Interaction and Emerging Technologies

July 7, 2021

Table of Contents Company description……………………………………………………………………………...3 Problem Statement (Opportunity Statement)……………………………………………………... 3 Purpose Statement…………………………………………………………………………………5 Project description………………………………………………………………………………... 6 Identify the User…………………………………………………………………………………..7 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………...7 References………………………………………………………………………………………… 8

Company description

Ford Motor Company is an automaker. The American company is among the top firms in the automotive industry. The headquarters of the company is located in Dearborn, Michigan. The company's founders are Henry Ford, who founded the organization in 1903 at the age of 39 years old. The company started with a simple car engineered in the home workshop of Henry Ford. After a century, the company has grown from a moving assembly line and 5-dollar workday to aluminum truck bodies and soy foam seats (Ford Motor Company, 2021). They grew with the esteemed legacy of innovation, perfection, and luxury. Some of the subsidiaries of the company include Lincoln, Volvo Cars and Ford Motor Credit Company. Ford Motor Company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company is controlled by the Ford family, having mainly voting power (Our History, 2021).

The company recorded total revenues of 127.1 billion USD in 2020. The company has been one of the pioneers in community relations and focuses on the sustainable side of the business. Currently, the company is under the leadership of Jim Farley. The stock price of Ford is 14.45 USD.

The company revenues were 19% lower as compared to that of last year. The net income of the company was also -1.3 billion USD. There has been a decrease in the demand and supply of the company's products (Ford Motor Company, 2021). The company is facing some problems with their suppliers. The issue lies in supplier relationship management. The matter at hand is to uphold a trusting relationship with the suppliers. Business operations must be smooth and successful; the relationship between suppliers and the company must be strong.

Supplier relationship management involves considering the supplier in purchasing decisions made by the buyer, whether they occur before the launch of the call for tenders or in monitoring the execution of the contract through the performance measurement. The attractiveness of purchases, the security of sources, the diversity of the supplier panel as well as the good understanding of the quality requirements expected by the contracting authority from its suppliers requires that particular attention be paid to the quality of the relationships maintained. . The supplier management phase is characterized by several stages which include market analysis, the animation of the market, panel management and evaluation (Hofmann, & Langner, 2020).

For contracting entities, intermediate stages should also include approval and referencing/dereferencing. The supplier relationship has long been considered unbalanced, between a customer imposing his will, processes, deadlines, and a supplier having no other choice but to comply. It is reinforced when we know that 25% of business bankruptcies are due to late payments. However, between technological and legislative developments, the supplier relationship is more strategic than ever. Its quality has become much more than a formality: it is now a real competitive advantage.

CSR is now one of the major criteria for improving the value of a brand, demonstrating the importance of integrating Social Responsibility into companies' overall strategy. Societal and environmental responsibility represents an economic issue for companies in a context where consumers are increasingly concerned about societal practices. Thus, Ford needs to integrate a system in the company that includes all these features. The lack of proper relationships with suppliers has caused the company to lose business. By fixing the problem, the company can evaluate the

Customers or downstream suppliers. Every company needs an IT tool, referred to by the generic term of information system, whether it is to pay staff, invoice customers, pay suppliers or manage all upstream flows to customers. Historically, companies have, first of all, equipped themselves with specialized tools to manage the main processes inherent in the company's activity; by way of example, a computer-assisted production management tool or CAPM to manage production flows with its counterpart for the maintenance of equipment with computer-assisted maintenance management. The same option is recommended for Ford Company is the implementation of Oracle Supply Chain Management. The information system can be purchased from a variety of vendors in the market after proper research.

The information system that is recommended can dissolve the problems with its features. For client companies, badly paying its suppliers amounts in a way to sawing off the branch on which it sits because, in many cases, it would itself have a lot to lose by seeing one of its suppliers disappear or even by placing it. In a position where he would be more concerned with his survival than with the good performance of his activity. The resulting new climate of trust promotes supplier engagement and allows the company to fully benefit from its expertise and capacity for innovation (Hofmann, & Langner, 2020).

Large international organizations often have hundreds of interrelationships with suppliers in order for them to be effective and to be able to manage them. Increasingly, these relationships are the subject of scrutiny by regulators, stakeholders (boards of directors), and internal and external auditors. Due to increasing dependence on suppliers, companies may find it difficult to effectively monitor and manage these relationships.

The key to choosing this system is to enhance the relationship with suppliers. It will help in maximizing the company's profits and streamline its operations. The system chosen provides a 360-degree view. With the help of the Oracle Supply Chain Management, the software helps in centralizing supplier data, contracting, certificating, evaluating, transactional histories, and financial scoring. The legal information is integrated into it via platforms for generating official legal documents (Lu et al., 2021).

The supplier database helps the company to save time and efficiency. With the 360 ° view of the supplier information, all the information users need is centralized in one place. No more hunting for documents disseminated in all departments of the company. A system that allows the company to anticipate certain failures or non-conformities linked to the orders reduces supplier risks. They save time and become more efficient (Kot, Haque, & Baloch, 2020).

The system can develop the strategic vision, design and documentation, validation and implementation, reporting, and continuous improvement. Information is collected in collaborative mode. Coupled with the Supplier Portal, the user can accredit the suppliers and update their data or perform certain operations online. They can make fair and relevant decisions as a buyer, member of management, financial, operational. Oracle supplier management software offers them clear, complete, shared, and relevant information (Albizri, Appelbaum, D. (2021).

A tool that allows the company to analyze the situation and make the most appropriate decisions for the purchases of services, products and works. It also optimizes the user journey and decision-making process by customizing the dashboard's display according to the needs. It reduces supplier risk. The supplier database is synchronized with external platforms for generating useful documents for managing “supplier compliance” within the company. Automatic alerts are activated to ensure compliance with legal or regulatory obligations (fight against undeclared work, reporting obligations, etc.) (Kot, Haque, & Baloch, 2020).

The system users are the people who are using the system before, during and after its purchase. Mainly the users are vendors, employees, employers, and other stakeholders. Vendors are the suppliers that will provide the company with the system. They take care of the installation of the system and its maintenance. The employees or employers of the company are the primary users that will use the system daily or as required based on their needs. Their requirements include that the system must be running properly and smoothly. It must be updated regularly. Employees must be trained to operate the system and have the requirement to seek help in case of an obstacle (Cozmiuc, 2020).

The stakeholders are some investors and suppliers of the company. Investors can use the system and can overview the progress. Suppliers of the business will be kind of customers or target audience to the implemented system. They have the same user requirements as that of employees. In addition, they require computability with their already functioning systems in place. The supplier management platform provides both of them with a simplified assessment of their supplier risks. Thanks to real-time notifications, users are informed of the measures to be taken shortly to comply with their legal obligations.

Managing the supplier relationship with a masterful hand is an important issue in controlling risks for the company, but it is also an opportunity. It is true that smoothing out financial disputes and tensions as much as possible by eliminating payment delays, cleaning up relationships and contracts, and strengthening and creating new collaborative ties with suppliers. Ford Motor Company can solve the issues of supplier relationships by integrating the proposed Oracle Supply Chain Management. The 360-degree view will enhance the sales of the company and stabilize its external relationships.

References Albizri, A., & Appelbaum, D. (2021). Trust but Verify: The Oracle Paradox of Blockchain Smart Contracts, Trust but Verify The Oracle Paradox of Smart Contracts. Journal of Information Systems. Cozmiuc, D. (2020). Integrated Supply Chain Management Process Benchmarks For Global Business Services In Romania. In Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE (Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 101-119). Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania. Ford Motor Company. 2021. The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on July 6, 2021, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ford-Motor-Company Fujiwara, T., & Ismail, R. M. (2018). Supplier management system in the halal food supply chain: A case study approach. International Journal of Supply Chain Management, 7(3), 216-220. Hofmann, E., & Langner, D. (2020). The Rise of Supply Chain Viability–Digital Solutions as a Boosting Role. Kot, S., Haque, A. U., & Baloch, A. (2020). Supply chain management in SMEs: Global perspective. Montenegrin Journal of Economics, 16(1), 87-104. Lu, W., Li, X., Xue, F., Zhao, R., Wu, L., & Yeh, A. G. (2021). Exploring smart construction objects as blockchain oracles in construction supply chain management. Automation in Construction, 129, 103816. Our History. 2021. Retrieved on July 6, 2021, from https://corporate.ford.com/about/history.html