Introduction
In the current modern world, sports has become a booming business. The amount of proceedings taken from the business opportunities created as a result of sports and sporting events has been attributed to be worth U.S. $67 billion in the North American continent alone (Supply Chain Management Association, n.d.). The massiveness of the sports events defines the number of products and consumers to be catered for. For the purpose of achieving such a near impossible feat, supply chain management and sports have created a link, which might not be that evident to an outsider with little knowledge of the involved aspects. However, the link between these two entities has been reported to be big and evolving each day all over the world.
Major sporting events have a huge and highly considerable impact on various business aspects of a nation including tourism, service industries, and most importantly, entertainment. The excitement of major sporting events, for instance, the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, and Formula 1 are well known all over the world. The cultural and economic significance of such events has prompted more research into the intricate details of how the supply chains aimed at these events are designed and implemented (Mamic, 2005). The major issue that has become the concern of researchers is how different entities of the supply chain interact to provide a quality consumer experience for major sports events. The importance of the information gained from recent research has worked to inform this research paper.
However, the topic of supply chain management with regards to major sports events like the Olympics has been shown to be neglected, despite the important fact that the use of appropriate supply chain design can ensure the sustainability in achieving the success of the Olympic Games (Lu and Swaminathan, 2015). There exists published material about the topic of concern. However, most tend to focus on the different applicable ways to improve the intended effectiveness of supply chains. Therefore, the report paper will focus on explaining the characteristics of supply chain management design implemented in the attaining of sustainability, the importance of quality and end consumers, and the aspect of time and cost with regard to the Olympic Games.
The Overall Design of Supply Chains
The overall design of supply chains refers to the process of attaining optimization of the fit that exists between product designs and supply chain capabilities (Stadtler, 2015). This aspect of the overall design has been witnessed in designs implemented for the purpose of a major sports event, for example, the Olympic Games. However, literature that is specific to the Olympic Games is minimal in the academic world. However, this paper has made use of existing literature concerning major sports events that highly relate in capacity to the Olympic Games (Minis, Paraschi, and Tzimourtas, 2006). Essentially, major sports events take place for a period of one month or more. However, the period can never exceed two months because of the nature of the activity and amount of resources involved.
Consequently, looking at the Olympic Games as a form of a major sports event, the design of the supply chain that is implemented for the purpose of this event has a similarity owed to major construction projects. The overall design that is implemented in construction projects takes the shape of mega-projects with a list of supply challenges that relate to those of major sports events (Christopher, 2016). However, while finding the existing design for the Olympic Games, there are few characteristics that differ from the supply chain of the mega project, for example, construction projects. Moreover, the implementation of these designs is done under the control of an organization committee of experts with negligible knowledge in the organization of sports mega-events. Normally, the organization of the implementation of the supply chain is done with regard to various aspects of the location which include the sports industry, sports federations, governmental agencies, local communities, as well as business enterprises that are defined from a local, national and international perspective (Mangan, Lalwani and Lalwani, 2016.).
The design of the major sports event, the Olympic Games, entails the following aspects of the supply chain management: supplier, manufacturer, distributor, retailer, and customer (Schiffling, Piecyk and Caldwell, 2015). The integration of these independent aspects of the supply chain design for major sports events is significant in understanding the process of attaining of sustainability of the supply chain in ensuring the success of the Olympic Games. The detailed design of the Olympic Games includes the athletes, equipment, event, and venue. The obvious area of focus of the design is on the business side of sports. It is, therefore, significant that the design is discussed in terms of the how business opportunities are catered for in the supply chain.
First, looking at the different aspects of the supply chain design, the athletes are considered to be the manufacturers in the sense that they provide the talent that customers (spectators) will watch. Without the competition between athletes from all over the world, the Olympic Games would not be such a major sports event. Second, equipment needed to help the athletes perform sporting activities are tied together with the athletes at the manufacturer’s level. This has been attributed to the fact that the equipment is an important aspect into attaining quality entertainment deserving a large number of fans witnessed at stadiums hosting Olympic Game events.
Additionally, the paper considers the supplier and the distributor. The suppliers are considered as the people who ensure the given products or services reach different distributors to enable easy access to the consumer. Suppliers may include key companies such as Nike and Adidas who distribute sportswear and sports equipment. However, due to the nature of major sporting events, there is no need for the distributor since the supplier has incorporated all the functions of a distributor and a supplier. This can entail different components of the sporting industries and the venue where the event is going to be hosted. The retailer is considered as the provider of the Olympic Games; the provider in the sense that they provide a given venue and other facilities owing to the success of the major sports events. Therefore, this can largely be stated to be the event and the venue. Furthermore, what entails the suppliers and the retailers also take form in the hospitality industry and other service industries. For instance, the spectators of the sports events will require food, accommodation, and other services and products to make their stay worthwhile and pleasing in the location of event-hosting.
Lastly, the consumer takes the great part of the Olympic Games. The end consumer plays a very significant role that cannot be underestimated. Due to the nature of the major sports events, various industries prepare themselves for the impending business opportunities. Therefore, without the consumer, the sporting event would not be a successful one in the perspective of the prospective revenues it was supposed to generate. The consumer creates business opportunities that make the sporting event of immense value to the business world. The significance of the consumer in the sporting event has more value surpassing the initial business aspect attached to them.
The Importance of Quality and Consumers
While most business entities mainly focus on efforts aimed at improving the efficiency of supply chains, others realize the importance in maintaining quality and end consumers in ensuring the success of the supply chain management process (Fawcett, Ellram and Ogden, 2014). The importance of quality can have a huge impact on speed and efficiency of the supply chain. Essentially, in conventional supply chain designs, quality is regarded from the perspective of the inspection of raw materials incoming to the chain, the in-process work involved and the final product to be shipped to the end consumer (Melnyk, Narasimhan and DeCampos, 2014). However, in this instance, it is important look at the significance of quality from the perspective of a major sports event, the Olympic Games.
With regard to the Olympic Games, the issue of quality is critical to the success of the supply chain. Just as in supply chains for many businesses, the importance of quality is highly depicted in the speed and efficiency of the supply chain. Therefore, all the intricate details that are relevant to maintaining quality in a supply chain are applicable in the case of major sports events. The quality of the supply chain design as implemented in the Olympic Games will be maintained through the normal measures employed in the business world. The importance of the supply chain is defined in the reduction of time and efficiency of completing various activities and operations as defined by the supply chain. Essentially, quality aims at eliminating various aspects that will impact negatively on the Olympic Games. These aspects include the elimination of scrap and defects, external failures and conducting of inspection to ensure product quality (Wisner, 2014).
On the other hand, the consumer is also considered to be an important aspect of the supply chain. The end result of any business enterprise or venture is profit making. The process of making profit entails the selling of products or services to the consumer. What happens when the consumers are not there to buy these products? The business will turn into loss-making which does not work very well with investors. Therefore, after the planning of major sports events, the lack of spectators or an audience will have dire consequences on the business prospects of the entire event. The availability of the end consumer at the end of the supply chain is guaranteed by the provision of best value and high-quality products for them by the service and product providers. This aspect of the quality and value of goods and services will work towards maintaining a supply chain that is resilient to disruption and ethically sound to ensure the provision of service quality (Monczka et al., 2015).
Timing and Cost
Timing and cost have become some of the most important aspects of supply chains in the modern world. The modern business environment is characterized by a range of technologies aiming at making business operations more effective and eventually efficient. Therefore the supply chain can be mad cost-effective and time-efficient. The ability to achieve this aspect in a supply chain is paramount to the impending success (Wisner, 2016). There are many companies which consider these two aspects to be important. Important in the delivering of different services and product in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner thus defining the efficient capacity of the Supply Chain. In essence, time and cost are huge considerations of doing business in the modern world. Therefore, the ability of a business to exist competitively in the modern business environment is by ensuring optimum conditions of time-efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Sustainability
Essentially, every business wants to become sustainable including the profit making major sports event, the Olympic Games. With regard to the nature of the business environment depicted in this research paper, sustainability is a very important aspect of supply chains. To achieve sustainability in supply chains ensures that the expenses of recurring business activities will significantly decrease in the long-term due to reduced wastage of resources (Jones, 2014). Moreover, the move for greater sustainability in the Olympic Games will lead an overall improvement of the efficiency of carrying out the sporting activities and related activities in the aspect of reducing waste in materials used (Lin, 2013). With this consideration in mind, we can prudently state that sustainable supply chains have a great capability to be less resource intensive than their counterparts (Govindan et al., 2014). Consequently, the issue of sustainability will lead to the overall increased brand value of the Olympic Games as the concern for the environment will make the consumer appreciate the environmental conservation and preservation efforts, thus, relating themselves to the brand (Golicic and Smith, 2013).
Conclusion
Major Sports Events (MSES), such as the Olympic Games have a specific and dynamic nature with regard to the location of the event. Moreover, every Olympic Games event is different from the previous one and the next one. Therefore, the design of their supply chains vary according to the needs of the event. However, there has been noticed a common trend in most designs which have prompted an overall design for supply chains with regard to the Olympic Games. Furthermore, there are detailed aspects of the supply chain that tend to have a relatively huge impact on the overall success of the major sports event. These aspects include sustainability, time, and cost. Furthermore, not forgetting the importance attached to the quality of products and services with regard to the design of the supply chain implemented in the Olympic Games. Therefore, the culmination of all these important aspects and how they relate to the overall design of the supply chain in regard to the Olympic Games has been dutifully elaborated in the body of this report to ensure that the reader gets a complex understanding of the topic of supply chain management.
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