Saturday, May 7, 2011

Approach and Implementation of Single Sourcing


Author: Abhirup Das, Debesh Majumdar, Devdut Saha, Ungratwar Sujeeth

Sourcing

The company decides to outsource the materials when it cannot produce it in-house or has insufficient in-house capacity. The different types of sourcing possible are





Companies follow one of the two sourcing strategies-single sourcing or multiple sourcing. Single sourcing is fulfilling all the needs of organization of a particular purchased item from one vendor by choice. When there is monopoly of the vendor then it is called as sole sourcing. In sole sourcing the company does not have choice but is forced to purchase from that vendor. There are many vendors in the market place in case of single sourcing but the company chooses just one of them to satisfy its requirements of a particular item. Multiple sourcing is fulfilling the requirement of a particular purchased item from more than one source. When a particular item is purchased from two sources then it is a special case of multiple sourcing called as dual sourcing.
In Deming’s 14 point for management, the fourth point requires that companies should purchase from single source rather than multiple sources. The Deming’s fourth point states “End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long term relationship of loyalty and trust” This has motivated some firms to follow single sourcing.

Single Sourcing

Some of the definitions of single sourcing are given below:
·         Single sourcing is purchasing all the needs of the organization from a single production facility.
·         Single sourcing is point of establishment of a relationship.
·         Single sourcing is fulfillment of all the needs of the organization of a particular item from a single vendor.
·         Single sourcing is having one source by choice while sourcing is having one source as no other option is available.
Many firms have started using single sourcing after getting influenced by the Deming’s 14 points for management. However selection of inadequate supplier can produce disastrous results for a firm which has decided to purchase all its needs from this supplier. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of single sourcing are discussed below
Single Sourcing Advantages
Advantages of single sourcing are
·         Better pricing through higher volumes: By following single sourcing strategy one will be placing the entire order to only one supplier. The supplier will provide discounts or provide the items at a lower cost because of the increased order size.
·         Inventory and Scheduling: The ability of the organization to schedule the delivery purchased item increases as the number of suppliers reduces to one. Improvement in scheduling of deliveries helps the organization to carry fewer of each item in the inventory.
·         Quality Improvement: Managers recognize this as the main reason for moving towards single sourcing. Due to single sourcing quality is improved in various ways. Quality improves during the selection process and due to the stringent quality requirements of the vendee.
·         Build long term relationship: As there is only one supplier the communication between the two will increase leading to better coordination. This will help in building long term relationship.
   
Single Sourcing: Disadvantages
The disadvantages of single sourcing are
·         Price escalation: Price escalation is the most common risk in single sourcing. Vendor increases price once it becomes the single source of the vendee.
·         Default Risk: The vendee can default because of one of the following reasons-fire, strike, natural disaster, vendor prerogative, etc. This will cause disruptions in the vendee organization. This may bring the operations in the vendee organization to a halt.

Selection Criteria for Single Sourcing

Classification of items/material:
A purchased item can impacts in terms of the volume purchased, percentage of total purchase cost, criticality on final product assembly or business growth. Availability, number of sup­pliers, competitive demand, make-or-buy opportunities, and storage risks and substitution possibilities are the parameters for assessing supply risk. Using these criteria, the company sorts out all its pur­chased items into the categories: strategic (high profit im­pact, high supply risk), bottleneck (low profit impact, high supply risk), leverage (high profit impact, low supply risk), and noncritical or commodity (low profit impact, low sup­ply risk).
The purchasing approach of organization is not same across the type of item it purchases. The company may need to support supply decisions of strategic items with a large battery of analytic techniques, including market analysis, risk analysis, optimization models, price forecasting and various other kinds of microeconom­ic analysis. Bottleneck items may require specific market analy­sis and decision models for resolution, while vendor and value analysis, price forecasting models, and decision models may come into play on issues affecting leverage materials. Where commodity items are concerned, simple market anal­yses, decision policies, and inventory op­timization models will normally suffice. Alteration in supply or demand patterns can alter a material’s strategic category. In many companies over the past few years, for example, coal has graduated from noncritical to strategic. Therefore, any purchasing portfolio classification is not static, rather dynamic in nature.

Market Analysis:
Subsequently the company weights the negotiation power of suppliers against its own strength as a customer It systematically reviews the supply market, assessing the availability of strategic materials in terms of both quality and quantity, the relative strength of existing vendors as well as its own needs and supply lines to gauge its ability to get the kind of supply terms it wants. Some of factors considered here:

Suppliers’ capacity utilization: This criterion indicates volume commitment and the risk of supply bottlenecks.
Supplier’s break-even stability: A supplier that achieves break-even at below 70% capacity utilization can ultimately deliver at lower cost than one who breaks even at 80% utilization. For the same reason, however, the first supplier will prove a tougher bargainer, for it can more easily delay negotiations and accept capacity underutilization.
Uniqueness of suppliers’ product: This is a function of natural scarcity (as in certain strategic metals and minerals), high technological sophistication, and/or entry barriers.
Annual volume purchased and expected growth in demand: Volume, the main determinant of the company’s overall bargaining power, is critical because economies
of scale in purchasing often yield a decisive competitive cost advantage.

Other Criteria:
A study (conducted with 2000 members of the National Association of Purchasing Management, US, representing  wide range of industries) which examines the supplier selection criteria of purchasing managers who have a preference for single sourcing and those who have a preference for multiple sourcing. The study shows that dependability and price are composite criteria have significant importance for choosing single sourcing over multiple sourcing. As firms rely on only one supplier, supply risk increases. Firms must be certain that the supplier can be depended upon. Within the dependability criterion, technical support available was a significant attribute. Also, purchasing managers having preference for single sourcing, place more emphasis on product reliability than those who prefer multiple sourcing. In single sourcing, relationship oriented attributes become more important than issues such as low price.
Not-so-significant attributes are product related attributes like ease of operation, impact on energy utilization, Cost of service contract; availability related attributes like breadth of product line, geographic proximity, warranties etc. Lowest price alone or previously proved ability to keep delivery promise also does not matter much for the proponent of single sourcing.




Figure: Significant Criteria for Single Source

Decision Making:
In the short term, for strategic items where the supplier’s strength outweighs the company’s and the indicated strategy is diversification, the company should consolidate its supply position by concentrating fragmented purchased volumes in a single supplier, even with a high price, and cover the full volume requirements through supply contracts. Same decisions apply for bottleneck items also; but to reduce the long-term risk of dependence on a single source, the company should also search for alternative suppliers or materials or even consider back-ward integration to permit in-house production. On the other hand, if the company is stronger than the suppliers, it can spread volume over several suppliers, exploit price advantages, increase spot purchases, and reduce inventory levels; these are the suitable policy for other two kinds of items.

Hindrances in Single-sourcing


The single sourcing procurement is a difficult procurement process to be implemented. There are certain hindrances in implementing a single source procurement initiative. These are as follows:
·         Corruption: The single sourcing procurement may lead to corruption. There is no competitive bidding process and hence the supplier chosen can be a bias. The buyer’s procurement department needs to show discipline in selecting the right supplier to single source the items. There are examples worldwide about the corruption involved in the single source supplier selection mainly in the government bodies like defense. It is very essential that the respective departments like engineering, manufacturing and procurement takes a unanimous decision on the selection of single source.
·         Large purchase volumes: One of the underlying ideas behind the single source is to order large volume to get the price advantage that would have been there in case of competitive bidding. The volume here refers to the total sales of the single source supplier to the buyer. The sales can be high if the no. of units ordered are high or the item is a complex one and hence expensive. The absence of large volume will not make the supplier motivated to become single source.
·         Skilled supplier: The single source supplier should be of high skilled to undertake the manufacturing of complex items. The skill is also required to produce the desired quality required which is the right product at the right price. The supplier should be able to cut down the cost of the production over time. The search and availability of such supplier is difficult and most of the time the companies had to undertake the vendor development process.
·         Time required for vendor development: Most of the time the companies had to undertake the vendor development process to develop the single source. The process takes long time and investment from the buyer side also. This process is not suitable for companies who are not doing well financially. Vendor development also requires expertise in the relevant field from the buyer side.
·         Total reliance on single source: The buyer has to rely fully on the single source for the supply of the items. Any setbacks to the supplier in terms of financial or natural calamities like earthquakes, fire, flood etc will have direct impact on the buyer which may result in loss of sales.

 

Characteristics of the single source


            Single sourcing demands some characteristics from the supplier to make the process successful. The characteristics of the single source are listed below:
·         Motivated and committed: The single source process design should have enough for the supplier to gain so that he is motivated and committed to the relationship. The motivation comes from the acknowledgement of the effort put in by the supplier and commitment of sales volumes. The relationship between the buyer and the seller should be a long term based on trust.
·         Flexibility in production: The order from the purchaser to the seller may vary in different periods and hence the single source supplier is expected to absorb the variation in the order with the flexibility in its production.
·         Innovation capabilities: The single source is expected to possess innovation capabilities which will help in improving the quality of the items produced and should be able to suggest improvements regarding the items procured by the buyer from him.
·         Reduce cost over time: The cost of the production should be reduced by the single source continuously over time. This will benefit both the buyer and the seller. This requires the involvement of the buyer also with the expertise or know how and information and financial support to the single source.
·         Take manufacturing of other related parts: Over a time the single source should be able to take the production responsibility of the other related parts. This will reduce the follow up required by the buyer with the different vendors and will also benefit the single source supplier with the increased revenue.

Transformation from Multiple sources to Single source


            This section provides a checklist for transformation from the multiple sources to the single source procurement model. The following steps need to be done:
Ø  The buyer must be able to identify the materials/items for which they want to go for single sourcing. This must take into account the cost-benefit analysis of multiple sources and single source for the items to be procured.
Ø  The vendors must be identified on the basis of their present capability and future potential. The best fit vendor should be chosen from the available set.
Ø  Sometimes the item may be a complex one and the vendors may not be available in the market. In such cases, the vendor must be developed by the buyer. The vendor should be technically competent and add to the competitive advantage.
Ø  The single source vendor should be given support from the purchaser. These support can be classified into the following:
o   Emotional/ Handholding: The buyer should have faith on the capabilities of the supplier and should have patience till the supplier develops.
o   Information/know how: The buyer should pass on the information related to the items and the processes to the supplier.
o   Financial: The single source supplier should be given financial support to develop its capabilities so that it can add competitive advantage to the buyer.
o   Technical: The technical expertise of the buyer regarding the items should be shared with the supplier so that the quality requirements are met.
o   Market: The buyer should be able to commit sales for the supplier so that it keeps the supplier interested in the relationship. The motivation of the single source is very essential in developing this procurement strategy.



References


  1. Wilson, Scott and Pyman, “The extent of single sourcing and attendant corruption risk in defense procurement”
  2. http://www.purchasing-procurement-center.com/single-source-procurement.html
  3. http://www.defenceagainstcorruption.org/diagnosis/single-source
      4.   Swift, C. “Preferences for Single Sourcing and Supplier Selection Criteria”,    
Busnres 1995. 32.105—111
  1. Kraljic, P.” Purchasing Must Become Supply Management”, Harvard Business                     Review September-October 1983
  2. Mark, T and Sharon, B“A Risk /Benefit Analysis of Sourcing Strategies: Single vs. Multiple sourcing” Journal of Operations Management, vol 7, no 4, December 1998

Web Broadcasting: Present and Future

Author: Abhirup Das, Devdut Saha, Amit Sarangal, Ashutosh Sinha

Web Broadcasting

Internet has become an important source of information sharing and gathering medium. Information technology is most probably one sector that is changing rapidly with time. Everyday new technologies are coming into the scenario which are making our work simpler and eventually making us dependable on them. Initially we used to gather information through the internet in the form of texts and now with the advancement of technology, the information is supported with photos and videos. Now in the era of web2.0 users can contribute to the content of the websites that are on web2.0.
            Streaming has become an important feature of the web2.0. Streaming media are multimedia that are constantly received by, and normally presented to, an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself. The distinction is usually applied to media that are distributed over telecommunications networks, as most other delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g., radiotelevision) or inherently non-streaming (e.g., booksvideo cassettes, audio CDs). The verb 'to stream' is also derived from this term, meaning to deliver media in this manner. Internet television is a commonly streamed media.

History:
            Attempts to display media on computers were made date back to the earliest days of computing in the mid-20th century. However, little progress was made for several decades, primarily due to the high cost and limited capabilities of computer hardware.
From the late 1980s through the 1990s, consumer-grade personal computers became powerful enough to display various media. The primary technical issues related to streaming were:
·         Having enough CPU power and bus bandwidth to support the required data rates.
·         Creating low-latency interrupt paths in the operating system (OS) to prevent buffer under run.
However, computer networks were still limited, and media was usually delivered over the non-streaming channels, such as by downloading a digital file from a remote web server and then saving it to a local drive on the end user's computer or storing it as a digital file and playing it back from CD-ROMs.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Internet users saw:
·         Greater network bandwidth, especially in the last mile
·         Increased access to networks, especially the Internet
·         Use of standard protocols and formats, such as TCP/IPHTTP, and HTML
·         Commercialization of the Internet.

These advances in computer networking combined with powerful home computers and modern operating systems made streaming media practical and affordable for ordinary consumers. Stand-alone Internet radio devices offer listeners a "no-computer" option for listening to audio streams.
In general, multimedia content has a large volume, so media storage and transmission costs are still significant; to offset this somewhat, media are generally compressed for both storage and streaming.
Increasing consumer demand for streaming of high definition (HD) content to different devices in the home has led the industry to develop a number of technologies, such as Wireless HD or ITU-T G.hn, which are optimized for streaming HD content without forcing the user to install new networking cables. Increasing consumer demand for live streaming has prompted YouTube to implement their new Live Streaming service to users. In 2008 Steve Chen reported to Sarah Meyers of ‘Pop17’ that "Live video is just something that we've always wanted to do, we've never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually do it this year." 
A media stream can be streamed either by live or on demand. Live streams are generally provided by a means called true streaming. True streaming sends the information straight to the computer or device without saving the file to a hard disk. On Demand streaming is provided by a means called progressive streaming. Progressive streaming saves the file to a hard disk and then is played from that location. On Demand streams are often saved to hard disks and servers for extended amounts of time; while the live streams are only available at one time only (e.g. during the Football game).

Web broadcasting:
      The concept of web broadcasting is derived from the advancements in the streaming and is becoming popular day by day and who knows it can substitute the television in our home if the technology becomes more advanced and cheaper.
            The web broadcasting can be classified primarily into two categories:
·         Live broadcasting
·         On-demand broadcasting

The live broadcastings are the videos, audios or any multimedia items that are uploaded into the website and received at the same time. Examples of such can be a live telecast/broadcasting of the cricket match, football match or IPTV. The content of the live broadcasting is lost after the broadcasting period is over.
On-demand broadcastings are the videos, audios or any multimedia items that are uploaded into the website and can be accessed at any later point of time. Examples of such can be YouTube. This service provide the user with a large subset of  functionality including pause, fast forward, fast rewind, slow forward,  jump to previous/future frame etc.

The broadcasting service is based on offerings of different tools and services to the customers. The tools and services used in broadcasting can be classified as follows:

o   Live broadcasting: Refers to various types of media broadcast without a significant delay.
o   Scheduled broadcasting: Planned & timed broadcasting.
o   On-demand broadcasting: Get at your preferred time.
o   Embed live video/recorded video: Video as a part of a webpage.
o   Integrated text/video chat: Text & video chats occur in parallel.
o   Webcam/mobile capture: Live stream of video data.
o   Images
o   Music
o   Add titles
o   Multiple participants: Conferencing option.
o   Import video: Get the video for use on your web page or local disk.

Let us look at different players in the market in terms of the services that they offer.

Players
Live broadcasting
Scheduled broadcasting
On-demand broadcasting
Embedded live video
Mobile phone capture
Operator11
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Stickam
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Recorded
U Stream
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Kyte

Yes
Yes
Yes
Live-images
Youcams
Yes


Yes

Splashcast

Yes
Yes
Yes
Recorded


   
Players
Import online video
Pre-recorded video
Still images
Music
Multiple Participants
Add titles
Operator11

Yes


Yes

Stickam

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

U Stream






Kyte

Yes
Yes
Yes

Yes
YouCams
Yes



Yes

Splashcast
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Yes


A video hosting service allows individuals to upload video clips on internet website. The video host will then store the video on its server, and show the individual different types of code to allow others to view this video. The website, mainly used as the video hosting website, is usually called the video sharing website.
The Purpose of video hosting is to save on bandwidth costs, often eliminating costs entirely. It creates a common place and makes a hassle-free experience, where uploading a video and streaming or embedding would normally require advanced programming knowledge. It is now commonly achieved through a web browser, with little or no programming experience.
The next stage of broadcasting saw the entrance of the live streaming on web. A mobile live streaming software called Qik allows the users to upload videos from their cell phones to the internet. The videos will then be stored online and can be shared to various social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Videos will be stored on the servers and can be watched from both the mobile devices and the website. Later on Bambuser has made strides into the live streaming and outperformed Qik . It streams live video from mobile/webcam using 3G /WiFi network. It also interact and communicate through web to mobile chat and provide feature of Geo-tagging via cell-ID or GPS.
The advantage of Bambuser over Qik is that it has lower latency in transmitting the video to the web due to superior technical approaches adopted by Bambuser. With Bambuser streaming can be done from both mobile and computer and to Facebook wall. The challenge with live streaming to web from mobile was the poor mobile network but Bambuser has overcome the challenge by transmitting as much as data possible and simply skipping the data that can’t get through the networks and saving it for later. Data dropped during broadcast is uploaded afterwards and the video is completed and is provided on demand.

The application ( Bambuser/Qik) has to be installed on your mobile and has to be used in place of the normal video capturing tool. The application uses the networks (EDGE, GPRS, 3G or WiFi) to transmit the video data from bambuser servers to the web and needs operating systems like windows, Symbian S60, Mac OSx.

Business Model:
On-demand broadcasting:
The user accounts are created for free in the on-demand broadcasting sites like YouTube, Metacafe etc. The source of revenue for this type of service providers are the advertisements on their website. Video on demand sites have advertisements flashing on the homepage along with the video. For e.g. let us take the case of YouTube which is the 2nd most visited site in the world has different subscriptions rates depending upon the number of ads as well as the duration of the ads on YouTube.

Live streaming:
            The live streaming sites provide the user with two kinds of accounts: free account and premium paid account. The free account user gets the basic streaming services and the revenue is mainly through the advertisements in the websites. The premium account holders pay for the extra services provided by the service providers. The extra services includes the ad-administration system for the account holder, supporting services, editing functions on the videos uploaded, a dedicated higher bandwidth for the upload and viewing of the videos and extensive management tools for various activities.

The above diagram is a pictorial representation of the business model of the live streaming service providers.

Threats:
The threats to the On-demand broadcasting service are the upload of the copyright and pirated videos or contents and also there can be inappropriate contents that can be uploaded to the website. Now many sites are coming up for on demand videos and it has increased the bargaining power of the advertisers. The websites has to show the number of hits to get the ads. Another challenge to the On-demand broadcasting is that they have to support as many audio and video formats as possible to attract users.
On the other hand the live streaming websites has problems with the network coverage of the telecom service provider. There are also substitutes available for different services like Television for IPTV, which indicates that if a person s in home then he/she will prefer to watch TV than IPTV. The live streaming service providers has to continuously update the technology they are using to survive in the business and they have a huge dependency on the mobile devices on which their software can run. They have to compete on latency with the other players in the market.

Future:
          The future of Web broadcasting seems promising as technology is getting better and cheaper day by day. The mobile live streaming industry is growing at a rate of 99% year on year basis in 2009 according to Gigaom. More and more people are using internet and high-end mobile sets which has enhanced the chances of web broadcasting industry to attract these people as user. The important thing to notice in the future is the competition on the basis of technology. The one who has the better technology will outclass the others.

References:
  1. http://www.wikipedia.com
  2. Bambuser: Live from your mobile presentation
  3. http://gigaom.com/
  4. http://www.go2web20.net/