ESTABLISHING A GLOBAL ONE TIGER COMPANY THAT SUPPORTS RAPID GROWTH ACROSS MARKETS, LOOKING AT BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT TO SUPPORT THE SUPPLY CHAIN – AN ATYPICAL RETAIL COMPANY (This is for a Masters in Engineering Management)

COMPANY BACKGROUND:
ZEBRA A/S WITH THE BRAND NAME ‘TIGER STORES’ IS AN ORGANISATION THAT CONTRACTS OVER 500 SUPPLIERS IN ASIA, AND EUROPE TO PRODUCE DIFFERENT PRODUCTS FOR THEM. ZEBRA HAS OVER 500 STORES ALL OVER EUROPE, ASIA AND USA AND OPEN ONE TO THREE STORES PER WEEK AND ARE EXPANDING TO THE REST OF THE WORLD.
THE COMPANY GREW FROM A POSITION WHERE THERE WERE BARELY 20 STORES TO 100S OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS AND ARE EXPANDING AT A RATE WHERE THE CURRENT SET UP ISNT JUST GOOD ENOUGH.
THE DILEMMAS ARE:
1. THE ENTIRE PROCURE TO PAY PROCESS. HOW CAN WE CREATE PROCESSES AND A SUPPLY CHAIN THAT SUPPORTS OUR GROWTH
2. SUPPLIERS – WHICH SUPPLIERS SHOULD WE SEEK FOR AND HOW, SINCE WE NOW NEED PRODUCTS FOR NOT ONLY EU BUT USA AND ASIA AND OTHER MARKETS?
3. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES – WHICH DEPARTMENT SHOULD DO WHAT IN TERMS OF THE PROCURE TO PAY PROCESSTHERE IS THEREFORE THE LAUNCH OF THE ONE TIGER PROJECT WHICH SEEKS TO ROLL OUT A NEW ERP SOLUTION – MICROSOFT AX, SO THAT AT LEAST THE SAME SYSTEM IS USED ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION. BUT ONE CRITICAL THING HAS BEEN OVERLOOKED – BEFORE ROLLING OUT THE IT SYSTEM, THE PROCESSES NEED TO BE UNDERSTOOD, DEFINED, STANDARDIZED AND THEN THE SYSTEM CAN BE BUILT TO SUPPORT IT.
THIS THESIS WILL SEEK TO FOCUS ON THE FOLLOWING AREAS:
TO ESTABLISH A COMPANY WITH PROCESSES(IF POSSIBLE MAPPING THE ENTIRE PROCURE TO PAY PROCESS) AND UNDERSTANDING WHICH SYSTEMS ARE NEEDED TO SUPPORT A RAPIDLY GROWING GLOBAL COMPANY AND STILL MAINTAIN COSTS AND FOCUS ON THE CORE BUSINESS WHICH IS TO SELL CHEAP EXCITING PRODUCTS IN STORES.
TO GET AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE CURRENT PROCURE TO PAY PROCESSES FOR ZEBRA A/S, AND CREATING A ROBUST FUTURE PROCURE TO PAY PROCESS, TO SUPPORT THE NEW IT SYSTEM, NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND NEW MARKET ENTRY.
DISSERTATION QUESTION:
HOW CAN WE STANDARDIZE THE PROCESSES OF A COMPANY WHERE THEIR UNIQUE SELLING POINT IS TO CREATE NEW PRODUCTS EVERY MONTH?
POSSIBLE CHALLENGES:
TIGHT TIMELINES AND A COMPANY WHERE EVERY PROCESS HAS BEEN CHANGED AT LEAST TWICE THE LAST ONE YEAR! GETTING AN OVERVIEW OF THE AS-IS AND MOVING INTO THE TO BE IS BLUR.

Headings for Thesis:
Table of ContentsChapter: 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
1.1.1 Brief overview of Zebra and its One Tiger Brand
1.1.2 Recording its fast growth across continents since the time of its evolution 6
1.1.3 Rationale behind establishing the ‘One Tiger Programme’ and key issue to be addressed
1.2 Problem Statement
1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study
1.4 Research Questions
1.5 Significance of the Study
1.6 Chapterization planChapter: 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction to Chapter
2.2 Theoretical Overview: The Supply Chain of a typical Retail company
2.2.1 Tiger’s supply chain
2.2.2 Current models and trends for retail company’s supply chainChapter: 3 Business Process Management
3.1 Business Process Management theory and use
3.1.1 BPM for Retail companies
3.1.2 Process Models and Process Interactions
3.1.3 The link between the supply chain management and BPM for a retail company
3.1.4 Methods & Tools to Capture Core Business Processes– BPMN Methodology 3.2 Business Management processes adopted at Zebra
3.3 Summary
Chapter: 4 EMPIRICAL REVIEW & THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 30
4.1 Integrated Supply Chain Management and Business process management lead to effective organizational functioning: Empirical Review 30
4.2 Identification of major elements and Proposed Framework
4.3 Hypotheses Development
4.4 Chapter summaryReferencesComments from supervisor:
I can understand the difficulty you are having with scoping as the whole subject of BPM is enormousness and also described very differently across the most prominent sectors as their process have to support very different product groups and customer expectations. This is where you need to contain the scope and make Retail you main focus and state that early on and therefore refer back to best practice both from Industry and Academia in this field as you main research for the Literrature review and undertanding. Also you neeed to decide early on are you looking from Tiger out or from Customer in the main theme of your invetigations as you will find it very difficult to cover both aspects in enough detail unless you want to end up writing 50K-60K words.
I believe you have made a good start in investigating the relationship between BPM and SCM but again you need to clearly state the focus is on the retail sector and make sure you do not make assumptions all sectors behave or respond in the same way. Cite industrial examples from the retail sector and make the references up to date where ever possible. The link to our guidance on Thesis writing is below:http://www.aral.com.au/resources/cperry.pdfAlso, please use the standard format for a UK top university.please add that the writer should use real industry references and should do some research on Zebra A/S and their Flying tiger brand