Bavarian Wood (BW) is a manufacturer of high-quality Wood and Antique furniture. Their product portfolio mainly comprises of all types of furniture made from natural wood. BW's is a Premium (Mid to Very High-End) manufacturer & supplier of wood furniture. Their product pricing ranges from 1000 USD to 50,000 USD per piece. For over 3 decades they enjoyed a 50% market stake with No 1 position in the market. However over last five years the competition caught up and their market share is dropped to 40%/ still No 1. The second competitor is fast catching up with 29% market share and third competitor is at 19% market share. Since raw tree wood is the main ingredient of BW products, the procurement of different kinds of this natural ingredient is critical to the performance and success of BW operations. Procurement Costs and Lead Times make a large portion of BW's product costs. A large amount of such wood is bought from overseas markets/ suppliers in Asia. After having selected the trees (type & quality) leaders from BW procurement department select those trees that will be used as wood/ raw material suppliers. Local farm workers fell the trees, clean them roughly and load them on to containers. These containers are ocean shipped directly or transhipments to 4 manufacturing sites located in Germany. Due to weather conditions in the Asian supply region and Vessels schedules to Germany, it is difficult to maintain a consistent supply lines to Germany. 100% of their Raw Materials are shipped via Ocean Containers to factories resulting in long lead times and high inventories. As a result, BW is forced to Air ship 75% of Customer's demand for Finished Furniture Orders from Customers. While they are a Premium manufacturer and their Manufacturing technology is advanced, their Supply Chain is 100% Manual using Excel Sheets as primary mode of all analysis and decisions. Their competitors have re-designed their supply chains using high-end technology which has helped these two organisations to be super competitive and gain market share. BW leadership is concerned at last few years' Results and decided to hire AT Kearney as their consulting partner to analysis and study of BW Supply Chain Processes. After a detailed 3 months study ATK provided following problems and possible solutions ... Issues in BW Supply Chain that AKT highlighted (20K feet view) - BW supply chain is manual with no real time data visibility end to end - PO to Good receipt time for Ocean shipment is high - 60 days - BW holds 200 (Days of Sales on hand) as total cost of Inventory on an average - High forecasting error (75%) resulting int wrong products are being made by factory - High expedited Air Freight Cost to meet Customer Requested Date for delivery - Zero end to end visibility into Supply Chain operations & their assets - Each year they are losing 20% existing Customers to competition - At this rate ATK indicated, BW will be bankrupt in next 2-3 years. High Level solutions provided by ATK - Invest in eProcurement methodologies integrating 20 major suppliers / vendors - Invest in Manufacturing Planning Algorithm, plan for Mfg Plan for 6-12 months - Invest in Technology in Logistics (Freight) and Warehousing (Storage and fulfillment) - Re-define freight contracts (International inbound / Outbound ad Domestic customer deliveries infrastructure. - Invest in Financial Planning , reporting and Invoicing processes - Design and institute various Leadership development programs at all levels of the management to train them on Cost/ Quality / Service and Processes - Re-define / design KPI (Key Performance Indicators) and a set a cadence of performance reviews at regular interval. Your Scope - BW appoints an end to end system implementation project. You are part of the team. Get into teams of 3-4 members and suggest your action plan for each of the operational streams (as under). - Supplier Management / IT system upgrade - Procurement management / Inbound Logistics services - Demand Forecasting / Supply planning / New Product Introduction - Manufacturing Planning & Visibility - Outbound (Domestic and Overseas) Logistics Services - Warehousing Fulfillment management - Learning and Development of BW Staff Your recommendations.

Q. Give your suggestions (action plan) for each of the functional streams above (NOT more than 2-3 bullets. Keep at high level, no need for 2nd level bullets.

Q. Your recommendation will include Process, IT / System enhancement / People training / change management) You can make your own assumptions without any Limits. Please adopt / embed following efficiencies when you create plan.

Q. Design Thinking / Artificial Intelligence / Block-Chain / eCommerce / Leadership Habits