Research On The Effect Of Supply Chain Performance On Customer Satisfaction

Rwanda has negative balance of trade(BOT).in order to boost its market and economic growth Rwanda is enforcing the internal and external investors to invest inside the country in order to reduce imports by promoting export and employment at the same time.However,this will not work if managers and investors will not focus on customers' needs and satisfaction.Customer satisfaction has been identified as the primary concern in business since enhancing inter-management relationships will go a long way to making a company successful.Customer satisfaction is one of the most important issues concerning business organizations of all types and all over the world.Research has shown that in today's competitive business environment,customer satisfaction is an increasingly crucial component of an active organization.Many organizations simply categorize customer satisfaction measurement as a form of “marketing intelligence” instead of using it as a management tool to build the customer into their quality improvement processes and increase profit.Here supply chain performance will be the key to satisfy the customers.Supply chain performance would strive to execute proper strategies to drop costs,shorten delivery time,low inventory level,and improve reliability,which was all intended to boost the SC performance and finally give good results of satisfying customers.The objective of this research was to assess the effect of supply chain performance and customer satisfaction.Our case study was Skol brewery company,which is one of the 2 leading brewery company in Rwanda.Various brands had been delivered in the market by Skol and presenting a refreshing choice to thirsty Rwandan beer lovers.All their beer choices are primarily based on high-quality commitment and made using natural and pure ingredients.But,according to Skol's company's reports,presents that it has problem of losing clients.From 2018 Skol company's clientele started to reduce and buy to other competitors.With the help of customer focused supply chain performance attributes,we studied their supply chain to find out the problem in it.Our research questions were based if there is a relationship between these supply chain performance attributes and customer satisfaction.Primary data(questionnaires)were used for this study.The sampling technique was used to distribute and collect the questionnaire to the skol company and their customers(retailers)in Kigali city.Descriptive statistics,Correlation,and multiple regression analysis were implemented for the presentation and interpretation of the findings.Three indicators of supply chain performance(delivery reliability,responsiveness,and flexibility)were identified,and three customer satisfaction indexes(customer expectation,perceive quality,and perceive value)were used.The Principal Components Analysis(PCA)was used in data reduction,and multiple linear regression was used in analyzing the relationship between independent and dependent variables with SPSS,and then the K-cross validation was used to validate the regression model.Based on the investigation and interview and based on their report,the most prominent company's problem is in manufacturing flexibility.The primary cause of flexibility problem is that productivity of Skol company is less compared to their market need,as customers are high and the sales are low,some customers are shifting to substitute products to the Skol's competitors.Other cause is that in 2019 their machines have broken and it took them 4 to 5 days to repair them,this caused Skol company to face backorder problem,and at that time some customer shift to substitute products.These are the main reasons customers has started to reduce in Skol company.The finding showed that supply chain performance has a highly significant relationship with customer satisfaction,and the current SC manufacturing flexibility performance of Skol company in Rwanda is poor.Therefore,improving supply chain performance practice can lead to excellent performance and better improvement of customer satisfaction and competitive advantages as well.Skol brewery company should build the second plant that would support them to serve the most significant market effectively with accurate demand forecast,and this will help them to retain customers.Also,Skol should be flexible in machines by buying high quality production machines and by hiring a professional person to repair the broken machine as fast as possible.They should also have reserved stock for accident purpose.By being flexible,the supply chain can meet specific customer requirements and enhance the long-term commitment of customers.Skol should be flexible at the market pace.The further research should assess the effect of supply chain performance and business continuity.