Hubs and nodes is a geographic model explaining how linked regions can cooperate to fulfill elements of an industry's value chain and collectively gain sufficient mass to drive innovation growth. The model of hubs and nodes builds on Porter's cluster model which served well in the past, but as businesses and regions around the world have adjusted to the realities of globalization, the concept of clusters is becoming outdated.
Companies are realizing that they may not require a particular stage of production to be in close geographic proximity. As barriers to long-distance national and global transactions have fallen through advances in technology and logistics, such as the growth of the Internet and overnight package services, it has become increasingly possible to relocate operations such as research, product development, and manufacturing to countries and regions with relevant expertise and lower costs. It is common among consumer goods, for example, to have concept generation centered in one locale, product testing and refinement in another, and manufacturing and distribution in still others. Elements of development, production and distribution are being more and more completed beyond the borders of historical clusters.
As more companies progress beyond the cluster model, they increasingly expand and diversify their operations to locations where their investments will be most profitable. For companies adequately prepared for the rapid globalization process, their research and development, manufacturing, and distribution stages fare better as these businesses can reduce their costs and potentially realize new efficiencies, and increased speeds of product development. The spirit of the cluster model may remain intact, and the various stages of production will still be shared by several different entities, but geographical proximity need no longer bind the entities together
In commerce, supply chain management (SCM) deals with a system of procurement, operations management, logistics and marketing channels, so that the raw materials can be converted into a finished product and delivered to the end customer. A more narrow definition of the supply chain management is the "design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronising supply with demand and measuring performance globally". This can include the movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, finished goods, and end to end order fulfilment from the point of origin to the point of consumption. Interconnected, interrelated or interlinked networks, channels and node businesses combine in the provision of products and services required by end customers in a supply chain.
Economic geography is the subfield of human geography which studies economic activity and factors affecting them. It can also be considered a subfield or method in economics. There are four branches of economic geography.
A supply chain, sometimes expressed as a "supply-chain", is a complex logistics system that consists of facilities that convert raw materials into finished products and distribute them to end consumers or end customers. Meanwhile, supply chain management deals with the flow of goods within the supply chain in the most efficient manner.
In economics, internationalization or internationalisation is the process of increasing involvement of enterprises in international markets, although there is no agreed definition of internationalization. Internationalization is a crucial strategy not only for companies that seek horizontal integration globally but also for countries that addresses the sustainability of its development in different manufacturing as well as service sectors especially in higher education which is a very important context that needs internationalization to bridge the gap between different cultures and countries. There are several internationalization theories which try to explain why there are international activities.
One of the major subfields of urban economics, economies of agglomeration explains, in broad terms, how urban agglomeration occurs in locations where cost savings can naturally arise. This term is most often discussed in terms of economic firm productivity. However, agglomeration effects also explain some social phenomenon, such as large proportions of the population being clustered in cities and major urban centres. Similar to economies of scale, the costs and benefits of agglomerating increase the larger the agglomerated urban cluster becomes. Several prominent examples of where agglomeration has brought together firms of a specific industry are: Silicon Valley and Los Angeles being hubs of technology and entertainment, respectively, in California, United States; and London, United Kingdom, being a hub of finance.
A value chain is a progression of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product to the end customer. The concept comes through business management and was first described by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.
The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing organization as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources – money, labour, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects profits.
Purchasing is the process a business or organization uses to acquire goods or services to accomplish its goals. Although there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between organizations.
International business refers to the trade of goods, services, technology, capital and/or knowledge across national borders and at a global or transnational scale.
The business terms push and pull originated in logistics and supply chain management, but are also widely used in marketing and in the hotel distribution business.
A business cluster is a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated institutions in a particular field. Clusters are considered to increase the productivity with which companies can compete, nationally and globally. Accounting is a part of the business cluster. In urban studies, the term agglomeration is used. Clusters are also important aspects of strategic management.
A business network is a complex network of companies, working together to accomplish certain objectives. These objectives, which are strategic and operational, are adopted by business networks based on their role in the market. There are two categories of business networks — business associations and company aggregations — that help small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to become more competitive and innovative.
Creating shared value (CSV) is a business concept first introduced in a 2006 Harvard Business Review article, Strategy & Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility. The concept was further expanded in the January 2011 follow-up piece entitled Creating Shared Value: Redefining Capitalism and the Role of the Corporation in Society. Written by Michael E. Porter, a leading authority on competitive strategy and head of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School, and Mark R. Kramer, of the Kennedy School at Harvard University and co-founder of FSG, the article provides insights and relevant examples of companies that have developed deep links between their business strategies and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Porter and Kramer define shared value as "the policies and practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing social and economic conditions in the communities in which it operates", while a review published in 2021 defines the concept as "a strategic process through which corporations can turn social problems into business opportunities".
EPG Model is an international business model including three dimensions – ethnocentric, polycentric and geocentric. It has been introduced by Howard V. Perlmutter within the journal article "The Tortuous Evolution of Multinational Enterprises" in 1969. These three dimensions allow executives to more accurately develop their firm's general strategic profile.
Management accounting in supply chains is part of the supply chain management concept. This necessitates planning, monitoring, management and information about logistics and manufacturing processes throughout the value chain. The goal of management accounting in supply chains is to optimise these processes. This strategy focuses on supporting management.
Networks are crucial parts of any action taken in a marketplace. Peter Drucker even described the future economy as one of a society of networks. Companies embedded in such networks stand to gain a lot. There are a number of different network models, which have distinct relevance to customers, and marketing initiatives. A network in marketing can be formed either strategically or completely randomly. Marketing channels and business networks have been referred to, by Achrol & Kotler as:
“Interdependent systems of organizations and relations that are involved in carrying out all of the production and marketing activities involved in creating and delivering value in the form of products and services to intermediate and final customers.”
Distributed manufacturing also known as distributed production, cloud producing, distributed digital manufacturing, and local manufacturing is a form of decentralized manufacturing practiced by enterprises using a network of geographically dispersed manufacturing facilities that are coordinated using information technology. It can also refer to local manufacture via the historic cottage industry model, or manufacturing that takes place in the homes of consumers.
Innovation districts are urban geographies of innovation where R&D strong institutions, companies, and other private actors develop integrated strategies and solutions to develop thriving innovation ecosystems–areas that attract entrepreneurs, startups, and business incubators. Unlike science parks, innovation districts are physically compact, leverage density and high levels of accessibility, and provide a “mash up” of activities including housing, office, and neighborhood-serving amenities. Districts signify the collapse back of innovation into cities and is increasingly used as a way to revitalize the economies of cities and their broader regions. As of 2019, there are more than 100 districts worldwide.
Global Production Networks (GPN) is a concept in developmental literature which refers to "the nexus of interconnected functions, operations and transactions through which a specific product or service is produced, distributed and consumed."
Visakhapatnam–Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC), also Vizag–Chennai Industrial Corridor, is a key part of the East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC), India's first coastal corridor. VCIC is aligned with the Golden Quadrilateral and is poised to play a critical role in driving India’s Act East Policy and Make in India campaign. The nearly 800-kilometer corridor links India with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asian economies that form the bedrock of global manufacturing economy. The corridor traverses nine districts of the state of Andhra Pradesh. VCIC intends to complement the ongoing efforts of the Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) to enhance industrial growth and create high quality jobs.
The East Coast Economic Corridor (ECEC) is India’s first coastal economic corridor covering 2500 km of India's coastline, to be developed with the help of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The ADB is to invest $500 million in infrastructural development of the project. Since late 2013, ADB has been supporting studies on transport corridors in India. Phase 1 of the ECEC is Visakhapatnam-Chennai Industrial Corridor (VCIC) which had been approved by the ADB board in October 2016. The ECEC running along the entire east coast of India from Kolkata to Kanyakumari, is a multimodal, regional maritime corridor that can play a vital role in unifying the large domestic market, as well as integrating the Indian economy with the dynamic global value chains of Southeast and East Asia. It would play a crucial role in the Government of India’s (GoI) Make in India campaign and also supports the port-led industrialization strategy under the Sagar Mala initiative and the Act East Policy by linking domestic companies with the vibrant global production networks of East and Southeast Asia.