Paper Title
Mitigating Challenges in Supply Chain Management

Abstract
Supply Chain is a group in the company systems where the flow of information and resources from customer to designers, manufacturers and logistics personnel and back to the customer take place and product delivery depends by and large on its coordinated performance. After 1980s, when the sky opened up and geographic locations started shrinking due to proximity and easier access to electronic media, companies started to relocate to greener pastures and the presence of supply chain became more evident. Companies started switching to a “perform or perish’ mode for existence in a very fierce competitive market. Products started to flow from all parts of the world to reach valued customers with better efficiency and improved delivery times, thanks due to better infrastructure and resources provided by one and all players including various governments. Various challenges do erupt during managing supply chains operations. It is needless to state that these risks range and extend from unpredictable natural threats to product quality to product integrity including cultural diversities leading to endangering of human lives. The best way to mitigate such risks would be to foresee any risk likely to affect the operations in advance by Risk analysts and they should identify, estimate and evaluate risk severity and derive possible means to highlight and take corrective actions by the management. Joint ventures and alliances may give rise to language barriers and cultural differences. Progress linked with encouragement and incentives can bring better results. Supply Chain starts and ends with the customer. Keywords - Supply Chain Management, Risk identification and mitigation, Joint Ventures, Incentives