Assignment Sample on 7BUS2002 Business Research Method
Introduction
Research concept
The use of the Internet of Things (IoT) is vital for the modernization of business in the line of industrial revolution 4.0 which integrates the business process with transparency and accountability to detailed planning and control. The use of the latest technology in the SCM of the pharmaceutical industry will be fruitful to plan, implement and control the flows and storage of medicines from the point of origin to the point of consumption for increased customer satisfaction. IoT will ensure the real-time connection with the physical and digital world through improved communication, acquiring and transferring data for information sharing to enable an effective decision-making process based on market analysis and supply chain performances.
Background of the research
The pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom (UK) has emphasized the use of IoT in Supply Chain Management (SCM) to correctly coordinate the need of the market with the right quality, quantity at the right place and customers along with optimum cost and consistency. The use of smart objects, sensors and devices will conceptualize the worldwide network through sense, monitor and interact between partners of SCM as well as within the company with increased agility, visibility, tracking and information sharing. The interconnectedness of SCM gave a pathway to the operational excellence of SCM in Pharmaceutical companies of the UK for timely planning, control and coordination to deliver the market expectation with positive profit margin.
Rationale of the research
It may be opined that, the SCM of pharmaceutical companies in the UK is struggling to deliver efficiency positively wherein the incorporation of IoT will embolden the organizational work process with data-driven decision making for marketing supremacy. Technological outfits allow the pharmaceutical industry to acknowledge the safety, security and reliability of the medicines which will effectively help to gain competitive advantages. The technology will enable the organization to monitor, supervise and optimize the efficiency in different units with real-time communication and information sharing to integrate the whole process into organizational productivity for better visibility and practice (Sharma et al., 2020).
Research aims
The research aims to integrate the SCM of the Pharmaceutical industry with hyperconnectivity through innovation, transparency and agility for better market competitiveness and customer support. It also aims to transform the supply chain structures in accordance with modernizations and industrial automation to made the company digitally capable to meet the market demand with greater visibility and accountability.
Research Objectives
The research objectives are as follows: –
- To improve the supply chain efficiency in the pharmaceuticals industry for better market orientation
- To enhance the organizational capability through the use of IoT in SCM for proper interdependency and transparency
- To develop the decision-making process in SCM through data-driven technology
- To systematically implement the organizational change for digital transformation and engagement of partners and stakeholders in a collaborative way
Research questions
The research questions are as follows: –
- How will IoT make the pharmaceutical industry more competitive and effective to generate social economic and environmental benefits?
- Why does IoT gain the market confidence of the industry to strategically integrate the SCM?
- What is the use of IoT in the SCM to enable the flexibility and optimization of infrastructure to enhance business perspectives?
- How will the organization effectively change the organizational structure to manage and coordinate the SCM with better magnitude?
Literature review
Research problem
The current structure of the SCM in the pharmaceutical industry in the UK is not properly equipped with modern technologies where it lacks the coordination among the several partners to effectively deliver the business result and gain a competitive advantage. The lack of information, cooperation and visibility on the developments in the SCM has slowed down the organizational efficiency to meet the market demand and devise a proper business plan to achieve the best result and gain market confidence (Singh et al.,2020). However, the differences in supply and demand, increased drug abuse and fraud have articulated the negative responses in the market of the pharmaceutical industry where people are looking for more strategic changes in the organizational structure to make a convenient flow of supply. In order to resolve the issues in the SCM and make it more market-oriented the research on the impact of IoT in the pharmaceutical industry in the UK has been carried away to make it excellent.
Analysis of the use of IoT in the SCM of Pharmaceutical industry of UK for effective decision making and collaborative engagement of stakeholders
Internet of things is commonly termed IoT which comprises the smart physical devices to sense and actualize the various work progress with a secure way to get connected in a real-time scenario. The incorporation of IoT in the SCM has integrated the whole discrete process through the use of smart objects, devices and the internet to supervise, control, automate and make information available at any given point of time in the cloud server. Data analytics, machine learning and responsive user interfaces make the IoT technology more apprehensive for everyday use and cooperate for business perspectives. Further, it has optimized the cost-effectiveness of cooperation among the SCM operatives with increased security, privacy, standard, regulation and innovation to seize the opportunities for competitive advantage (Abdel et al., 2018). It allows the SCM to become more attractive with innovation and information sharing which facilitated inter and intra organizational communication, interaction in a collaborative way with increased traceability of medicine and shipping details. (Rejeb et al., 2020). Moreover, IoT has changed the business perspectives with customized, responsive, agile and transparent customer service which enhances the customer experiences to earn the market confidence with better demand planning and cash flow operation.
It may be argued that the IoT has greater capability to minimize the geographical distance with real-time accessibility to acknowledge the paradigm shift in the pharmaceutical industry with data management and distribution. The organization’s management is getting real-time data of any developments which connect the overall SCM operation in an integrated manner to efficiently address any issues among the partners and stakeholders (Ben et al., 2019). The degree of cooperation and collaboration has increased excessively which interacts with the partner’s contribution with developments in price, location, materials, standard quality, with the enactment of rules and regulation. It positively influenced the Supply chain with predictive maintenance, supporting the logistics and effective routing to direct the value chain creation with correlating the business objective and partner’s learning on the business development. Product tracking, inventory management, smart warehousing, routing delivery, creating visibility has increased the agility of the SCM which enhances the business quality to make effective decisions based on available data and information for coordinating the SCM operation more efficiently (Pargaien et al., 2022). The technology also enables the pharmaceutical industry to invalidate the risk factors associated with the pharmaceutical industry with well-developed technology and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) devices to accommodate the network in a decentralized way (Shi and Kuang, 2019).
It paves the way to design an accurate infrastructure for SCM to improve the performance through hyper-connectivity among the stakeholders to improvise the business planning respective to market demand and organizational business perspectives in a collaborative way with efficiency (Aryal et al., 2018).
Evaluation of supply chain efficiency through the use of IoT with increased interdependency and transparency
It has been mentioned that the use of drugs is essential to diagnose and treat the patients where the fraud and abuse of drugs are apparently increasing and the successful implementation of IoT technology has marginalized drug abuse and fraud with improved drug governance along the supply chain (Ahmadi et al., 2020). It has helped the healthcare system to be efficient and reliable with the widespread network of information accessibility. Other than that, IoT has given confidence in the organizational framework to manage the drug supply in the market in accordance with customer demand. It has enabled real-time communication, information exchange, tracing and protection of drugs from illegal use and connects all members of the supply chain to coordinate the issues and cooperatively resolve any complexity quickly (Evans, 2018). It has the capability to enable the availability of key drugs in all health facilities by strengthening order processing, monitoring, streamlining of medicine, improving delivery times, minimizing stock out, regularly updating the market demand and redistribution of product in the field.
The IoT has a strong feature of interconnectedness to prosper along strategic change management to influence the organizational efficiency through real-time supervision with the help of technology-driven decision making. Specifically, the value management and information exchange have increased the trust and loyalty of SCM members for better collaboration with several options of payment and distribution offerings to enlarge the market share within the capacity in a transparent manner (Zhang et al., 2019). It also progressively enhances the SCM capability with innovation and technology which builds organizational excellence in operational activity with lowering cost, improved security and convenience to deliver the market requirement without uncertainty. On a broader note, the organizational efficiency largely depends on the management practice and supply chain operation where management will effectively coordinate the technological advancements into the SCM operation to enhance the reliability with productivity and supply of medicines in the market with customized features to gain popularity with customer satisfaction. The implementation of IoT has been beneficial to the SCM of the pharmaceutical industry of the UK to meet the market competitiveness with increased monitoring and supervision of real-time progress of the SCM operation. It enables the close interaction among the members to cooperate in manufacturing, enhancing inventory capacity, smart warehousing, logistics support and driver coordination (Razak et al., 2021).
On the contrary, use of IoT has improved the environmental concerns in the SCM with innovative practices, close monitoring of waste, reducing human susceptibility and effects of climate change with the commitment of net-zero carbon emissions and environmental degradation (Shah et al., 2019). It has become a more secure and trustworthy organizational change to rely on the IoT technology in the SCM for better coordination, susceptibility, error detention, pragmatic solution, resources optimization, lowering the cost, better engagement and support to all the stakeholders in every level of the SCM.
Research design
Research philosophy
Positivism research philosophy will be taken to conduct the research process which is objectively
Made the scientific interpretation of observational data to enhance the readability with credible sources. It is significant to use positivism in the research process to accurately establish the conclusion upon the findings and correlation among the information.
Research strategy
It may be opined that the research strategy gave the step-by-step plan of action to direct the researcher’s thought process to make the research content inclusive. Qualitative interviews will be undertaken as the research strategy to conduct the research progressively from personal experiences with authentic resources.
Data collection
According to Saunders research onion, primary data collection will be done as the data collection method through the use of a specific questionnaire in the interview to relate the individuals’ views in the research which will enlarge the research content in a pragmatic way. The data collection is the most important for the research process to conduct and organize data and information securely to enrich the content with reliability.
Data analysis
Data analysis will help to organize the data correspondingly for the research topic to witness the correlation among the collected information in the research topic for a better view and suitability. Qualitative data analysis will be undertaken to process and formularise the collected information on behalf of the maintaining authenticity of the research (Mihas, 2019).
Research limitation
The Covid-19 pandemic has restricted the research process for online interviews of business personnel in the related industry which has limited the whole process with only formal interaction without in-depth knowledge sharing. Lack of funds and equipment also limited the research process to a large extent to carry out a sustainable research completion.
Ethics
No person was threatened or pressured to give personal views on the research subject as well as respect and dignity of the individuals will be restored predominantly which is ethically and morally acceptable for the research. Collected data will be kept confidential with multilayer security for avoiding data theft and fraudulent use along with all the information givers will be given due credit for keeping the genuineness of the research.
Timeline
| Research actions | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 |
| Aims and objectives | |||||
| Literature review | |||||
| Sampling | |||||
| Data collection | |||||
| Data analysis |
Table 1: Gantt chart
(Source: Self-Created)
Summary
The research proposal will need to accommodate the brief descriptions of the use of IoT in the SCM of Pharmaceutical Industry of UK to help the organizational management for integrate the operations and collaborative functionaries through antiredundancy. It will be done through the primary data collection and qualitative data analysis to organise the research in a pragmatic way for establishing the research objectives. This will accommodate the interview of business personnel of the pharmaceutical industry of UK to incorporate the personal ides, views and experiences to gather strong evidence for the research content. It will accompany the SCM of Pharmaceutical industry to implement the necessary IoT tools and device with specific skill development of employees to enable more interactive man-machine communication for decision making and business planning for further growth.
References
Abdel-Basset, M., Manogaran, G. and Mohamed, M., 2018. Internet of Things (IoT) and its impact on supply chain: A framework for building smart, secure and efficient systems. Future Generation Computer Systems, 86, pp.614-628.
Ahmadi, V., Benjelloun, S., El Kik, M., Sharma, T., Chi, H. and Zhou, W., 2020, February. Drug governance: IoT-based blockchain implementation in the pharmaceutical supply chain. In 2020 Sixth International Conference on Mobile and Secure Services (MobiSecServ) (pp. 1-8). IEEE.
Aryal, A., Liao, Y., Nattuthurai, P. and Li, B., 2018. The emerging big data analytics and IoT in supply chain management: a systematic review. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal.
Ben-Daya, M., Hassini, E. and Bahroun, Z., 2019. Internet of things and supply chain management: a literature review. International Journal of Production Research, 57(15-16), pp.4719-4742.
Evans, J.D., 2018. Improving the Transparency of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain through the Adoption of Quick Response (QR) Code, Internet of Things (IoT), and Blockchain Technology: One Result: Ending the Opioid Crisis. Pitt. J. Tech. L. & Pol’y, 19, p.35.
Mihas, P., 2019. Qualitative data analysis. In Oxford research encyclopedia of education.
Pargaien, A.V., Kumar, T., Maan, M., Sharma, S., Joshi, H. and Pargaien, S., 2022. IoT: A Revolutionizing Step for Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Management During and After Covid19. In Intelligent Sustainable Systems (pp. 349-360). Springer, Singapore.
Razak, G.M., Hendry, L.C. and Stevenson, M., 2021. Supply chain traceability: A review of the benefits and its relationship with supply chain resilience. Production Planning & Control, pp.1-21.
Rejeb, M.A., Simske, S., Rejeb, K., Treiblmaier, H. and Zailani, S., 2020. Internet of Things research in supply chain management and logistics: A bibliometric analysis. Internet of Things, p.100318.
Saunders, M.N., Lewis, P., Thornhill, A. and Bristow, A., 2015. Understanding research philosophy and approaches to theory development.
Shah, S., Musonda, T. and Menon, S., 2019. To examine the impacts of IoT on pharmaceutical supply chain management in Zambia. International Journal of Internet of Things and Web Services, 6.
Sharma, A., Kaur, J. and Singh, I., 2020. Internet of things (IoT) in pharmaceutical manufacturing, warehousing, and supply chain management. SN Computer Science, 1(4), pp.1-10.
Shi, J., Yi, D. and Kuang, J., 2019, October. Pharmaceutical supply chain management system with integration of Iot and blockchain technology. In International Conference on Smart Blockchain (pp. 97-108). Springer, Cham.
Singh, M., Sachan, S., Singh, A. and Singh, K.K., 2020. Internet of Things in pharma industry: possibilities and challenges. In Emergence of Pharmaceutical Industry Growth with Industrial IoT Approach (pp. 195-216). Academic Pres
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