Urban Areas:

Coming on to urban areas, the process is certainly different since; it ought not to go through the exercise of moving through bad roads too frequently and poor storage system. Things move more systematically and less time consuming though at times the carriers perforce move through complicated stretches of rural areas, in general a mix of urban and rural areas. What happens in urban areas? Let us see.

• Generally the procurement is done closer home and very close to the towns and cities.
• The supplier's job is to supply the goods in the time frame and price that is initially fixed.
• Generally the company management contact the supplier who has nominated go-downs close to the place of manufacture, for better and even time management.
• Unlike rural areas the suppliers in the fastest mode deliver the material and services to save on time; a combination of rail, air and road at places even waterways.
• Manufacturing takes lesser time in production & distribution thereafter.
• A better market available to the manufacturer for his goods. From the above this is evident that a manufacturer in the rural area stands at a disadvantage position in compare to his urban counterpart as following issues :

o   Movement of raw materials

o   Transport system

o   Production

o   Preservation

o   Storage facility

o   Distance from source to market area

o   Availability of market

o   Communication facility

o   Availability of skilled labour

o   Availability of electricity

In nutshell, managing the supply chain including a firm in a rural area is much more hard than the firm in a urban area.