Supply chain partners : virginia mason & owen minor

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Pros and Cons of Virginia Masons Alpha Vendor Strategy
A key advantage of Virginia Masons’ alpha vendor strategy is that it allows the company to deal with a single vendor. It saves time in the procurement process by ensuring that the company only works with a single point of contract. The strategy guarantees that the vendor takes more responsibility for the quality of products, as well as the consistency in the delivery process (Chick and Handfield 29). Since Virginia Masons deal with sensitive medical and health care products, the alpha vendor strategy makes it easier for the company to implement standards that should be observed by vendors. In addition, costs are significantly reduced because the company only deals with a single system. Adding new features to the system is easier because the company does not have to deal with multiple vendors at the same time.
Another advantage of the alpha vendor strategy is that it ensures seamless service, which allows Virginia Masons to effectively address demands pertaining to capacity building and functionality so as to ensure high performance of the supply chain process (Chick and Handfield 32). The alpha strategy allows the company to maximize delivery of products and reduce operational expenses while providing support for innovations critical to the efficiency of the supply chain system. In addition, the vendor’s platforms can be made to match with those of Virginia Masons. Compatibility becomes critical in complex supply chain system like that of Virginia Mason.

It is because the vendor can design their systems and products to work to work on the company’s platform. In turn, this promotes enhanced cross-application features and faster processing of demands.
Despite the above benefits, the alpha vendor strategy has its fair share of weaknesses. The most important disadvantage of this system is that it leads to over-reliance on the supply chain decisions of the vendor, which in turn causes less power in price negotiations (Chick and Handfield 51). Although Virginia Mason will give specifications regarding what is expected from the vendor, there are high chances that the vendor will attempt to make the system to conform to the established supply chain process requirements. For large and influential vendors, Virginia Masons will lose the bargaining power and may find it difficult to negotiate price discounts. In effect, Virginia Masons will have to abide by the solutions offered by the vendors even if these they may not be capable of addressing certain issues such as flaws in the supply chain process.
Another disadvantage of the alpha vendor strategy is that the vendor may have limited incentives to deliver the best products and services to Virginia Masons. It is because the alpha strategy focuses on a single or selected number of vendors, which eliminates competition among suppliers (Chick and Handfield 32). The vendor can likewise increase prices of products supplied to Virginia Masons, making the latter to incur high overhead costs. Moreover, the alpha vendor strategy does not provide the same level of variation in products as other strategies can offer. This limitation means that it can be difficult for Virginia Mason to offer the benefit of product variation to its customers. In addition, the alpha vendor strategy may compel Virginia Masons to contend with unforeseeable delays in the supply chain, which may lead to loss of revenue and decreased customer satisfaction.

Work Cited
Chick, Gerard and Robert Handfield. The Procurement Value Proposition: The Rise of Supply Management. London: Kogan Page, 2014. Print.