Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org
[8] “Skype Expands Mobile Push,” Financial Times, March 31, 2009, 20.
[9] Kathrin Hill, “Via to Help New PC Makers Enter the Netbook Market,” Financial Times, May 18, 2009, 16.
8.6 Marketing Channels versus Supply Chains
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Understand how supply chains differ from marketing channels.
- Describe the types of organizations that are part of supply chains.
In the past few decades, organizations have begun taking a more holistic look at their marketing
channels. Instead of looking at only the firms that sell and promote their products, they have begun
looking at all the organizations that figure into any part of the process of producing, promoting, and
delivering an offering to its user. All these organizations are considered part of the offering’s
supply chain.
For instance, the supply chain includes producers of the raw materials that go into a product. If it’s a
food product, the supply chain extends back through the distributors all the way to the farmers who
grew the ingredients and the companies from which the farmers purchased the seeds, fertilizer, or
animals. A product’s supply chain also includes transportation companies such as railroads that help
physically move the product and companies that build Web sites for other companies. If a software
maker hires a company in India to help it write a computer program, the Indian company is part of
the partner’s supply chain. These types of firms aren’t considered channel partners because it’s not
their job to actively sell the products being produced. Nonetheless, they all contribute to a product’s
success or failure.
Firms are constantly monitoring their supply chains and tinkering with them so they’re as efficient as
possible. This process is called supply chain management. Supply chain management is