Logistics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words - 2

Logistics - Essay Example The essay intends to determine how supply chain capabilities of Johnstons of Elgin, a company dealing with manufacturing and retailing woven as well as knitted products, have enabled it to attain a competitive advantage. Moreover, the extent up to which the business model of Johnstons can be applied to companies in other industries would also be described in the essay based upon the provided case study. Organisations functioning in this modern day context often have to face challenges in developing and delivering quality and innovative products/services to their customers globally with the aim of attaining superior competitive position. Several factors can be found associated as a cause of these challenges. These include increased level of globalisation, pressure created by the competitive forces to innovate technologically advanced production or supply systems and growing complexities in managerial ideologies among others (CEVA, n.d.). In this similar context, supply chain capabilities support the business organisations to attain a superior competitive positioning in the form of offering quality products to the customers by way of focusing more on main competences, recognising the outsourcing trends and following the procedure of vertical disintegration in the operational strategies. As generally believed, proper and effective utilisation of various sorts of supply chain capabilities can certainly aid in making quality procurement decisions, which in turn can enable the modern business organisations to attain a superior competitive positioning over their chief rivals (Crown, 2012). It would be vital to mention that the prime facets of supply chain capabilities not only support the modern business organisations to attain superior competitive positioning but also enables their respective business to sustain in this competitive landscape. In this regard, the characteristics of supply chain capabilities fundamentally

Multilateralism and the International Organizations Essay

Multilateralism and the International Organizations - Essay Example The first modern instances of multilateralism occurred in the nineteenth century in Europe after the end of the Napoleonic Wars where the great powers met to redraw the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna. The Concert of Europe, as it became known, was a group of great and lesser powers that would meet to resolve issues peacefully. Conferences such as the Conference of Berlin in 1884 helped reduce great power conflicts during this period, and the nineteenth century was one of the Europes most peaceful. This system, however, was destroyed by the First World War and consequently, the League of Nations was created by the conflict world leaders in order to try to prevent any other form of conflict. Still, after the Second World War, the leaders saw the League of Nations failure and decided to create the United Nations in 1945 with a structure intended to address the weaknesses of the previous body. Unlike the League, the UN had the active participation of the United States and the Soviet Union, the worlds two greatest contemporary powers. Along with the political institutions of the UN, the post-war years a wide array of other multilateral organizations such as the GATT (now the World Trade Organization), the World Bank and the World Health Organization developed. The collective multilateral framework played an important role in maintaining world peace in the Cold War. Moreover, United Nations peacekeepers stationed around the world became one of the most visible symbols of multilatera lism in recent decades. Today there are so many   multilateral institutions of varying scope and subject matter, ranging from the International Telecommunication Unit (ITU) to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and Organisation For the Prohibition Of Chemical Weapons(OPCW); although many such organizations were founded or are supported by the UN, they are   by no means maintained within the UN system.  Ã‚