Supply Chain Management - Book Review

Supply Chain Management. Prof.N.H Mullick, Prof.Mohd.Altaf Khan. New Delhi, India: Enkay Publishing House, 276 pp, US $30, ISBN 978-81-908499-6-8

BOOK REVIEW

Published by Monika Bhandari, Student. JGBS, JGU.

Prof. (Dr.) N.H. Mullick is a Professor in Marketing at Asia Pacific Institute of Management, New Delhi. He has done his Ph.D in Marketing from Jamia Millia Islamia and an M.B.A from Aligarh Muslim University. He also has more than 24 years of teaching and industry experience. His ten years’ experience has been in teaching Sales and Distribution Management and other Marketing subjects at various reputed management institutes. He has also worked at senior levels in reputed companies like Onida and Zenith Computers Limited. He is also active in research, consultancy and has authored numerous research papers and articles published in national and international journals.

Prof. (Dr) Mohd.Altaf Khan, senior most Professor, Department of Commerce and Business Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia – A central University by an act of Parliament, was born in Bhanjanagar, Orissa in 1959 with a brilliant academic career; with four degrees M.Com, M.Phil, LL.B and Ph.D. He has been associated with Teaching & Research in the field of the Management and Commerce since 1982. In his academic career in Orissa as well as in Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, he distinguished himself as an excellent teacher and a research supervisor and set a new record by successfully guided twenty Ph.D. scholars

Salient features of the book:

Supply Chain Management is an integrating function with primary responsibility for linking major business functions and business processes within and across companies into a cohesive and high-performing model. It includes all of the logistics management activities noted above, as well as manufacturing operations, and it drives coordination of processes and activities with and across marketing, sales and product design, finance and information technology.                                                                                                                                                      This book has topics which are very relevant to the subject matter and has a very simple and unique approach. The author brings to the reader a simplified explanation of Supply Chain Management. Prof. Mullick and Prof. Khan have written this book with an objective to present a well-documented theory on supply chain management. The textbook is a useful, essential, and must-read for students, newcomers, and practitioners, but is, to some extent, of limited assistance to academics seeking to advance theoretical knowledge. The author and the contributors come together to explain how supply chain management has evolved over the years and provide their standpoints with practical and specific application to the concept. Each contributor supports the main author based on their particular area of expertise. While the author has been able to maintain the tone and style throughout the textbook for the most part,

there are slight organizational and consistency shortcomings in this first edition, which can be improved upon. The main emphasis of the book lies in explaining that supply chain management is an integrated system of organizations, technology, people, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from a manufacturer to a customer.

The book is divided into 14 chapters.

The book begins with the introduction of supply chain management. The author uses real-life examples thereby making the text self-explanatory. The author, who is a world authority in the field, describes the tools, core processes, and, even mindsets, needed to create the agile supply chains needed to succeed in the more volatile competitive environment of the 21st century. He discusses the various factors and people that affect the workings of a supply chain like location and geographic decisions, producers, customers and retailers. Furthermore, he mentions the key problems in a data supply chain and provides various solutions. The third chapter brings forth a re-engineered approach. The author defines a virtual supply chain management. He describes a systems project, a systems architecture, and a potential implementation methodology. This next chapter discusses the historical evolution of supply chain management in the government sector and throws light upon: