Supply Chain

Not all Suppliers contribute equally. The hunt for the “right” suppliers begins in your own backyard.

I’m finding that most 1st and 2nd tier OEM’s are reducing their supplier bases by 50 percent or more. How is reducing your supplier base efficient if you’re not keeping the “right” suppliers? Conversely, operation and supply chain managers who fail to initiate supplier operating partnerships with their best vendors run the risk of their company’s customers, and their company's profitability, to competitors who move first.

Supplier operating partnership- arrangements that involve tightly linked extended supply chains- should be the supply chain goal. They offer tremendous gains for both the supplier and the OEM including; (1) decreased costs (2) a shift to a strategic positioning as a highly service-differentiated supplier [even for companies who are stuck as commodity providers and subject to constant price wars]; (3) a direct relationship with “value-oriented” top vendor executives, rather than “price-oriented” insides sales and field sales reps and (4) a highly defensible competitive position with switching costs.

Model a supplier. Choose a few suppliers and products that are reasonably representative of your current vendors and look carefully at their offerings. Try choosing a large and small vendor, each from a few key commodity segments and volume moving products, from each of the few key product families. Ideally you should have six to twelve representative situations to examine.

Look at the cost drivers for different products. Try different business model configurations such as order frequency, service interval, direct or distribution advantages. Look at cost level and mechanism- altering the product mix and developing a substitution program- this can provide valuable cost levers for cost improvement. Once you found effective cost levers, check your other vendors to make sure you can generalize your findings.

Modeling the effects of cost levers on representative suppliers works well for three reasons: (1) it will identify order pattern; (2) you can call one of your vendors to see what their reaction to the potential change would be and;(3) it can be easier to explain the changes using specific examples when you “sell” the initiative to your colleagues and superiors. Bringing in the wrong supplier will add incremental cost and subsequently decrease profits.

OEM’s should be seeking more intensive operating partnerships with fewer, more capable suppliers. Price should no longer be the primary deciding factor. Companies who develop and offer these arrangements will equally benefit from such planning. Flexibility is the new value-add.

The “right” supplier should try to help evaluate the OEM’s supply chain to see if a tightly linked partnership is probable, the OEM should be asking the right questions and providing information as warranted by the potential supplier. This only helps the OEM and leads to an (eventual) cost productive relationship.

If tightly linked partnerships are available at the distribution level, why would 2nd tier OEM’s want to be direct? Is the decrease in cost from direct to distribution that beneficial?

How can a strategic position help the supply chain? Are large distributors headed towards a CM model? Stay tuned…

Mass Media

I have a very sarcastic approach to Mass Media. I believe that the mass media is controlled by the government. Everything seems to be censored. Whether it’s the radio, TV or newspaper it’s all censored. It’s almost like there is a paradox. The paradox here is; freedom of speech. You should be able to speak your mind and not have the government control what we do. We say we’re a free country but then why can’t we speak our minds through the mass media. I guess my question is, what’s the real story? How much does the government sensor? Here is a solution to my problem with mass media. Come up with an adult channel for the news. You have to subscribe to it but you get uncensored news, advertisements and TV shows. If we did that, then TV would be a cool medium. I know I combined two concepts of mass media, cool mediums and government conspiracy but not a bad idea, right?

Television is a Cool Medium

I guess there are a few points. First, I agree and disagree with McLuhan. I agree because the medium could articulate the message better. I disagree because the message could be distorted. Basically, the format and logic of the medium are just as important as the content. It’s just as important because the medium reaches the end user and affects the overall message. To answer the entire question, yes-the medium can determine the entire message.

In evaluating TV’s affect on the medium and the idea that television is a cool medium, it’s difficult to agree with Mcluhan’s, “hot distinction.” People are stimulated by, “changing images,” however the message isn’t always correct. Even more so than ever, people have more control over the content they view. Although our definition of information has changed, the medium isn’t cool it’s just incorrect. Now that audiences have more control people are demanding more out of their media sources.

Cyber Relationships

I’m a member of the LinkedIn network. I have 107 connections. I have not met half of the 107 connections. In my position, I receive a lot of sales calls. When I get those calls, I try and add those people to my LinkedIn network. By expanding my network I can see more people when I do a ‘people search on LinkedIn.” I use LinkedIn as a tool. LinkedIn helps me find names of contacts for people that might be interested in my company’s products and services. The relationships I have are very business oriented. The concept of, “if you scratch my back, I scratch yours” is a major concept. The concept of adding each other to LinkedIn is mutual. Each person opens up their network to each other and there is a benefit to that.

To expand on cyber relationships, I believe there are different levels of cyber relationships. Sometimes you meet someone and you use cyber-ing as a tool to maintain that relationship. I work 50 hours a week, so I can not meet everyone for lunch, but I can write an email.

Online Relationships

I did an online study on Facebook which drew my interest to the characteristics of electronic relationships. Electronic relationships have always fascinated me. I have online accounts at Linkedin, Facebook and Myspace. All my online classes provide different things. However, according to the study the number one reason why people join these websites is to meet people. Relationship development online is something where people involved in the relationships “overestimate one another’s attractiveness.” On Facebook there are pictures that people can browse in addition to online conversations. Disinhibition is when people feel like they have the freedom to express “our emotions in a nonnormative way.”

One thing I failed to accomplish in my study is to capture these two concepts. As it seems there is a reason why online relationships are more appealing to people than face to face interaction. I believe it’s easier for people to be social online but I think there is a reason why people have social anxiety. It’s because they don’t practice enough.

Attraction

When I was young, I did not have filters. I didn’t understand what I wanted and to describe my behavior, “I was all over the place.” When I aged, I realized that I wanted things out of life. I realized I wanted a career and I wanted different things in life. As I began to go through a series of trial and air I started to filter out what I wanted and didn’t want.

Characteristics or behaviors that lead me to judge others as unattractive are things that don’t align with my values. More specifically my classes have taught me that people have different beliefs and attitudes. However if their values don’t align to mine those are the things I find unattractive.

Ducks theory makes sense to me. I can not say that I have eliminated someone by using a sociological or pre-interaction. I never knew about the theory up until now. The theory works in 4 stages of theory starting from sociological to preinteraction cues, to interaction cues and ends with cognitive cues.

Rigid Role Relations

I believe submissive symmetry is the most difficult to change. I believe it’s the most difficult to change because “both parties struggle to relinquish control.” It seems to be an unhealthy relationship because the contributors in the relationship are trying to manipulate each other by forcing the other to make a decision. I think that type of behavior is something people can’t control. That it’s something people began when they were kids and they were trying to manipulate their parents to buy them a toy.

Conversely this can be very damaging to the relationship as it forces each other to not take control yet still be satisfied. It seems to be a paradox between give and take but nonetheless can’t be healthy.

I believe the most damaging of the self esteem is competitive symmetry because both members fight for positioning. Similar to athletes competition is something that can be good to increase performance but when you lose, it can’t be good for your self esteem.

Adapting to New Cultures

Adapting to new cultures is vague area. There are many different cultures that you could adapt too. For example; a baby boomer adapting to the social networking sites. Another example is someone moving from the U.S. to Asia. Nonetheless, adapting to cultures is stressful. A number of factors go into adapting to the culture. One of the things that are most important is cultural distance. Cultural distance is “the extent to which two cultures differ, affects ease of communication.” Two other main concepts are personal predispositions and communication bonds. Personal predispositions is having an open mind. It’s also about having training in regards to adapting to be more prepared. Communication bond is a mix of topics between acculturation-become part of a new culture-and host social communication. Host social communication is about relationships with members from the home culture. Nonetheless, developing an open mind and communication bonds are essential in adapting to a new culture.

Self Premise

Communication experts argue that there are three “beliefs about human nature.” The three beliefs are rationality, perfectibility and mutability premise. Rational premises is best defined that “people are capable of discovering truth through logical analysis.’ Perfectibility is based on the idea that humans are born into sin but they have the capabilities of achieving righteousness through “effort and control.” The last of the beliefs is mutability which declares humans are defined by the environment and that if you improve the environment you can change humans.

Personally, I can’t believe that all humans have theses three characteristics. Maybe humans have one or two premises but to make a definitive statement that “humans are perfectible” isn’t talking about one premise. From my chair, I’ve seen news broadcasts, and read newspaper articles’ that has made me believe if people were perfectible then we wouldn’t need jails or a justice system. Because we could send all the non-conforming people to schools to learn how to logically analyze. Then we could send Ted Bundy to Church because that institution can help his perfectibility premise. And lastly we can send everyone that lives in south central Los Angeles to a home where they can receive mental help.

What’s most interesting to me is the underlining belief that “an education follows from” the assumption of these premises. Well, if that’s the case, then in California, we’ve really messed up. Not only do we not have money for schools but are finding ways to cut after school programs and send kids back to the environment that they wake up in. So please experts save me the time and don’t put this section in a communication text books.

Ruth Benedict

Ruth Benedict made contributions to the fields of folklore, anthropology and sociology. Benedict was one of the first people to emphasize that our culture, as opposed to genetics, was a great influence on the formation of people’s personalities. In addition, Benedict had a theory that society was responsible for labeling what was considered “normal” and “abnormal” as opposed to biology. Ruth also expressed her concern about negative effects that the labels of “normal” and “abnormal” could have on people. Ruth Benedict was an advocate against anti-Semitism and race.
Ruth Benedict made contributions to the field of folklore and psychology. In psychology Ruth inspired extensive testing of hypotheses instead of the creation of new hypotheses. Ruth Benedict observed that culture is a learning process. I do agree with the anthropologist Ruth Benedict's belief that we are "creatures of our culture" and that our habits, beliefs, and impossibilities are shaped by our culture. Culture is socially constructed and our society shapes how we see the world, what is socially acceptable and what is okay to believe. Our society which creates our culture tells us what behaviors are acceptable, what type of people can succeed in certain roles and which people can not. We can break through the limits of our culture by exploring other ideas, investigating other ways how people view the world.

Kinesic Code II

I was walking through San Jose Bar and Grill, a popular hangout for college student on Thursday night, and was told I had really kind eyes. I talked to this person for hours and realized that facial expressions are something that influence the way character is shown. Looking over my communication book I realized, Kinesic code 2 is an area that evaluates this topic.

Kinesic Code 2 discovers facial expression and eye behavior. The face is an area that “most people” look to for information. Facial expressions can be intensified or deintensified. Intensifying emotions can be showing happiness when your friend got into Harvard and you didn’t. However, there are a number of other display rules such as professional, personal and cultural that dictates the way we’re supposed to be perceived.

Eye behavior can show many different things. For example Eye behavior can indicate “both positive and negative emotions.” It can also show, “willingness to relate to one another.” However what people don’t know is that “eye behavior serves to maintain social position.” For example, Barrack Obama making a speech in regards to his healthcare bill and commanding respect as he address the U.S. Commanding that respect is the enhancement in social position.

Examples of Nonverbal Meanings

Some examples of non-verbal displays that take different meanings in other countries are; the peace sign in England, it’s the same as flipping someone off. Another example is, in Costa Rica it’s rude to make a thumbs up. It’s also rude to fidget your hands and feet. Slurping is appreciated in Japan. Actually being as loud at the dinner table as possible is appreciated.

I’ve never had the opportunity to move around the country. All of the non verbal displays I listed were things that my roommates had told me about from their travels.

I have encountered local regional differences in nonverbal meaning. One of the differences I encountered was slurping. I’ve sat in many Japanese restaurants and have sat near people that slurp their food and make (in my opinion) obscene noises. Come to find out, it’s appreciated. Of course I didn’t find out it’s appreciated until I actually started in on the idea of meanings behind nonverbal messages.

Interpreting nonverbal messages

Yes, I’ve been wrong about the meaning of someones nonverbal messages. Whether it’s socializing or just hanging out with friends, I’ve misinterpreted non-verbal messages on many occasions. I have a tendency to talk a lot and I’ve tried to be more conscious of being verbose. One of the things I do is repeat my point in different ways. During a presentation in fall semester of 2009, I felt the class was bored and had lost engagement in my presentation. At this point, I had explained all my main points and I was slipping into my routine of repeating myself. Reading the class’s body language, I realized that I was being too talkative and smoothly ended my presentation. After the presentation my teacher gave me a few comments, one of them being, ‘why did it seem like you suddenly ended your presentation?’ I explained my bad habit to the teacher at which point he replied and said, ‘it’s a persuasive argument, you’re supposed to go over your main points so your audience remembers.” I believe people can increase the accuracy with which they interpret non-verbal messages by looking for “regulators.” Regulators are a tool that can be used as “traffic signals” during interaction. By being aware of regulators we can further increase our accuracy in interpreting nonverbal messages.

Designing Messages

Designing messages that are easy to understand and listen too can augment persuasive communication by capturing perceptive and remembrance. There are four elements that further evaluate this. The four elements are; capturing attention, ensuring acceptance, enhancing storage and retrieval/guiding interpretation. To increase acceptance you have to give your audience something to listen to and create compelling messages by using imagery. Ensuring acceptance is showing your audience something new. Offering “incentive,” can also help ensure acceptance. To enhance storage and retrieval of messages you have to continually use ‘repetition” within the message and build rapport by personalizing the message. Guiding interpretation is difficult. But by creating metaphors and patterns, you can guide the audience. Also the use of feedback is a good tool to offer more or unique information. Nonetheless, most of these elements seem to tie in with being a good persuasive speaker. However, designing messages can also make sure your audience is not confused and that they clearly understand your message.

Gender and Communication

This post might be longer than most. Yes. I believe men and women use language a lot differently. I believe women are more intuitive and can read non-verbal communication a lot differently. How am I going to support my personal belief? Well, when boys and girls grow up they learn “expectations’ that run parallel with their gender. Women tend to use language inclusively. Examples of inclusivity works from small signs. I believe small signs are things such as body language. Of course men, who are structured to draw from more exclusivity don’t use inclusivity. So we believe the small things don’t matter as much. Which means, even though men don’t realize what they’re doing, they might be sending the wrong signals to women. Going back to my man point, women are more intuitive and read non-verbal communication by looking at body language, or non-verbal indicators to communicate with other people based on inclusiveness behavior research.

Judging Information

When critically listening to information, it’s easy to make judgments. Being suspicious of new information is taking a look at the source. The sources beliefs, attitudes and values play an important role in the information that’s being discussed. With that being said, I don’t think it’s possible to not judge or categorize people. We are continually try to be suspicious of new information and are therefore evaluating the credibility and trustworthiness of the person who is telling us information. We can make judgments fair by trying to interpret what’s personal and what’s factual in the information being transmitted. Although it’s difficult to be subjective you can still cross-reference information through trustworthy sources. By cross referencing, you can take; beliefs, attitudes and values out of the information and make the overall content more objective. In this case, critical listening becomes a memory process so you can reference data and make sure it’s accurate.

Concepts in Defining Communication

Defining communication calls for two different approaches. The two approaches that communication is defined by is; discovery and constructionist. Discovery looks at the world through different phenomena. Observing objects and their features is describing something that already exists as “objective” in its process and is called discovery. The opposing view point looks at the world that assumes that human try to define everything, and don’t live by independently acquiring human knowledge. This view is defined as subjective constructionist. The problem with defining communication is there are many definitions. It seems like there is no one singular definition that can cover all the different perspectives on what communication is. There are many questions that surround how to define communication but as it seems the best route is whatever the style of the sender is. More so, models can help us describe but defining communication seems like a difficult task. Communication is not always intentional because we’re always communicating, whether it’s non verbal or verbal so to determine if communication is a persuasive/ audience oriented act would be too difficult.

The Pragmatic View

The pragmatic perspective takes a different view. The pragmatic view is an interlocking system that contributes different or individual behaviors that pattern “over time.’ The problem I see with patterns is that it’s not always a fit. Having a destructive pattern is never a fit. For example, being a drug addict is a destructive life form. The same exists with communication. There are patterns in the way people communicate and the pragmatic perspective views communication through those patterned interactions. In a lot of ways the perspective is like a game as it looks at games as a pattern. For example a quarterback’s pass being knocked down at the line scrimmage because he through side arm. In addition, games have structure and are organized systems. In general communication is like a game that has participants and end act sequences. It’s not like a game because communication is not competitive as much as it is ‘norm.’

Social Constructionist Theory

The social constructionist perspective views communication as a “process” where people utilize “tools” that are supplied by culture which creates “collective representations of reality.” Basically, it’s an intercultural communication between “culture and communication.” Some ideas of culture are domestic family orientation. Whereby other cultures and countries represent stronger family orientation and strong core values including arranged marriages. In lot of cases, people identify with what society drives. I believe there is a close tie between geographies and culture. For example if you’re in the Midwest there is a greater emphasis on farming. However in California there is a greater drive towards being money driven. In Mexico there is a greater drive towards freedom. In other words, it’s what surrounds us that drive representation to reality. The cultural tools that the model specifies are symbolic codes, cognitive customs, cultural traditions and sets of roles and rules. Each plays a different role in the social constructionist perspective.

My Most liked Concept

The classical period is one of the most fascinating periods I’ve read about. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m Italian or if it’s because of all the history that went on during that time. Nonetheless, the classical period has proven to be one of the greatest study of western communication. During the classical period, public speaking became one of the most popular source for entertainment and study. Many theories have come out in regards to this popularity. One of the most interesting and common concepts discussed in this period was the relationship between a speaker and their audience. George Campbell, a classic rhetorician, wrote about this concept and believed that “receivers were active participants in the persuasion process and that the effective communicator studied the inner workings of faculties of the human mind.” What Campbell discovered is that persuasion begins with both the speaker and audience involved-placing the audience as the center of interaction. Although this concept is very important in communication it’s important to still try and understand the “experiences and motivations of individual receivers.”

An Orator's Morality

I believe the Greeks were correct; an orator has to be morally good. Orator’s can influence opinion and therefore need to send a message that is morally superior. A good example of morality with public orators is censorship. The U.S. government has constantly monitored and censored various media aspects to make sure that people are not negatively influenced. More specifically, media has become of great influence in persuasion. With all the different forms of media, people are constantly influenced by things they identify with. However, topics audiences identify with are not always good for society and therefore could cause harm to society, such as crime. The connection between goodness, truth and communication is the same connection I share with admiration to Steve Jobs. If we exchanged the idea of Steve Jobs with an immoral leader, such as Hitler, you would then be able to see the importance of goodness and truth within public communication.

The Speaker I Admire the Most

The speaker I admire the most is Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is the President and CEO of Apple Computer. Job’s speaks with great passion towards the product and brand his company represents. I believe it makes his audience as passionate as he is about the same products. I believe his power to persuade stems from pathos because it seems like everything he says has a lot of emotion behind it. I sell computer products, so my ability to persuade others comes at being more ethos and logos. I have to, not only be credible, but I have to be logical as I’m trying to solve business problems. Of course, professionals don’t buy into people without credibility which is why I have to be more credible. I believe that I have a very open way of communication that builds trust with in my audience. Aristotle’s classification works well for not only me but for the speaker I admire the most, Steve Jobs.

Class Introduction

Hi Everyone! My name is Chris and I'm a Junior at San Jose State University. Although, I'm originally from San Jose, I recently transferred from Boise State University (BSU). I use to wrestle for them, thus my blog name. Hopefully this turns out to be a successful semester for all of us!