Christian Biewald – författare

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Supply, Production, Logistics, grade: 1,0, University of Applied Sciences Kempten (Professional School of Business and Technology Kempten), course: Strategic Logistics Management, language: English, abstract: In future industry competition will be increasingly "e;supply chain vs. supply chain"e;, rather than "e;firm vs. firm"e;. So today, the efficient management of global supply chain networks already has the potential to create competitive advantages for companies. Nevertheless most industrial companies still focus on production efficiency, creating non-market oriented business solutions that disable fast adaption to changing customer requirements. In more and more saturated markets a technology-driven competitive advantage is often quickly compensated by low-cost countries. In contrast high service quality established by efficient logistics processes can hardly be adopted in short time. The ability of fast consumer response allows companies to create an added value the customer is willing to pay for. But empowering companies to offer this added value requires high management attention on logistics processes as well as a clear logistics strategy with defined objectives that meet the company's abilities and the customer requirements. Several management tools like the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model or the Balanced Scorecard provide a structured approach to realize competitive advantages in the management of supply chains. After a short theoretical survey of these tools, a suitable logistics balanced scorecard will be developed for the supply chain activities of Diehl Controls, an electronics manufacturer for home appliances. Based on the company s logistics mission and vision statement, internal and external strategic objectives will be determined. In a further step, the controlling of these objectives will be ensured by creating suitable performance indicators. Finally the Diehl Controls logistics balanced scorecard will be introduced to the company s organization. The term paper ends with a recommendation of future developments and enlargements of the balanced scorecard related to the company s growth within the next years.

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,3, University of Cape Town, language: English, abstract: One of the current megatrends that developed during the last years was the increasing global demand for energy due to a continuous economic growth in the emerging markets. As a consequence, the availability of natural resources declines steadily. Therefore renewable and sustainable energies like solar, wind or water technologies become more and more important, both in industrialized and emerging markets. As a specialized manufacturer for renewable energy systems, Diehl Controls is established in the European market for building up energy-efficient solar energy plants. With regards to the company s growth strategy, emerging markets have become increasingly important, as high market potentials are estimated for countries like South Africa. Therefore, the following term paper describes the development of a marketing plan for Diehl Controls in order to enter the South African solar energy market. Based on an environmental and strategic analysis, the marketing plan concentrates on the SAVE model to describe the strategic implications for the company.

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Supply, Production, Logistics, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Kempten, language: English, abstract: The goal of this master thesis is to provide an analysis of existing supply chain performance measurement systems as well as an evaluation of their suitability for the electronics manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the hypothesis that the implementation of a supply chain performance measurement system in cooperation with supply chain partners will lead to sustainable competitive advantages within the supply chain is going to be proven. As competitiveness in future industry will be increasingly supply chain vs. supply chain , rather than firm vs. firm , holistic performance measurement systems become more and more relevant to global operating companies (Hult, 2008, p.538). Although the efficient management of global supply chain networks already has the potential to create competitive advantages, most industrial companies still focus on production efficiency and selective optimization that disable fast adaption to changing customer requirements. In increasingly saturated markets a technology-driven competitive advantage is often quickly compensated by low-cost countries. In contrast high service quality established by efficient logistics processes can hardly be adopted in short time (Richert, 2006, p.44). Especially in the areas of fast moving consumer goods and the electronics industry, companies need to be able to quickly react on changing consumer demands in order to fulfill the customer s requirements in a flexible way. Cooperative management between supply chain partners creates higher transparency and market-orientation, that allows the entire supply chain network to operate in a more flexible and efficient way. In consequence the supply chain s competitiveness will increase due to higher service value for the customer. But, as most industries still struggle with the development of flexible supply chain structures, suitable management tools are obviously not available or applied yet. Therefore, this master thesis provides in a first step an evaluation of existing supply chain performance measurement systems regarding their suitability for current business environments. In a second step the development process towards a practical implementation of the most suitable performance measurement system in an electronics manufacturing company is described. Based on a defined supply chain strategy a standardized approach leads to the development of a supply chain management system providing the preconditions for creating a competitive advantage.