Key Stakeholder Examples & Their

Roles
HANNAH DONATO
DECEMBER 15, 2021
UPDATED: FEBRUARY 22, 2022

Introdaction

No project exists in a bubble. Regardless of the size of your project, its success and
implementation will involve individuals or organizations. The Project Management
Institute describes stakeholders as “individuals and organizations who are actively involved
in the project, or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected due to project
execution or project completion.”

If you want to meet your project goals and objectives, you’ll need to know how to manage
your relationships with your key stakeholders. Let’s talk about how you can understand
your stakeholders and set yourself up for success.

ypes of Stakeholders
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY STAKEHOLDERS
A stakeholder’s level of investment in the results and outcomes of your project are going
to depend on their interest in or level of importance to the project.

Primary stakeholders are the ones who receive the most impact from your project,
positively or negatively. These can include your employees, customers, managers,
suppliers, business partners, and more.

Secondary stakeholders are individuals and groups that you and your project don’t
directly affect. They’re more difficult to identify compared to primary stakeholders.
Project teams don’t always consider secondary stakeholders when planning, because they
don’t normally affect project implementation and operations unless they actively involve
themselves and become vocal about their positions. When that happens, their impact can
be massive.

Examples of secondary stakeholders include governments, trade unions, advocacy groups,

and others.

DIRECT AND INDIRECT STAKEHOLDERS

An individual or organization can have the power to influence decisions that the project
team will pursue. Direct stakeholders are involved in the team’s activities and can change
the project’s direction. Your team, managers, product owners, and others are direct
stakeholders.

Individuals or groups that care more about the outcome of your project — rather than its
implementation — are indirect stakeholders. These include your customers and suppliers.
They aren’t involved in your activities, but they have something at stake for how well (or
poorly) you do.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS

Internal and external stakeholders are those within your organization and outside your
organization, respectively.

Internal stakeholders include your board of directors, upper management, and other
departments in your company that may influence your flow of resources (e.g., human
resources, finance team, etc.).

Your local community, government, prospective clients, competitors, and suppliers, on the
other hand, are your external stakeholders.

Read more: Top Reasons Why Your Project Costs More Than Originally Planned

How to Maintain Good Stakeholder Relationships

IDENTIFY AND UNDERSTAND YOUR STAKEHOLDERS
Technical requirements usually take priority when you’re preparing your project
requirements. However, it’s essential to recognize that non-technical communication
requirements can also affect your project massively.

Along the way, you’ll need to secure permits, approvals, finances, and others to
implement your project. Failing to recognize the stakeholders behind these resources can
cause bottlenecks, delays, or worse, project termination. Take the time to identify all the
individuals and parties involved in your project as early as possible.

ALIGN WITH YOUR STAKEHOLDERS

Your important stakeholders can affect your project’s success metrics. At the same time,
each stakeholder may have their own definition of success.

After identifying key individuals and organizations, gather insight on what matters to
them, their expectations, and how your project will affect them. Discuss concerns and
reservations. Communicate the risks you’re facing and the rewards you’re anticipating.
Level with them on what they can expect during production, and what support they can
expect after production. Good communication will help you gain trust and lessen the
possibility of misunderstandings, grudges, and avoidable obstacles.

EVALUATE STAKEHOLDERS’ INFLUENCE AND IMPORTANCE

Prioritization is critical when it comes to all things project management. Stakeholder
management is no exception.

Earlier, we discussed what influence and importance mean in relation to your

stakeholders. The former is your stakeholder’s ability to affect your team’s day-to-day
activities, and the latter is your stakeholder’s level of investment in your project’s results.

You can assign each stakeholder’s influence and importance with a “high,” “medium,” or
“low” mark. These metrics can give you a good idea of who to prioritize, as well as help
you evaluate change requests that will affect your project’s scope, time, and resources.
BUILD A COMMUNICATION PLAN
Internal and external stakeholders might prefer different ways of communicating. They can
also have different expectations on their level of participation.

Make a plan on how you can accommodate their most important considerations. Identify
how actively you need them to participate at every stage of your project, and make sure
they’re aware and agreeable to this.

Align on the frequency, channel, and information they want to receive to ensure they are
continually updated with your progress. Avoid overwhelming them with too much data.
Simply focus on ensuring they have the info they want and need to avoid confusion and
maintain clarity.

Once you have everything in place, share your communication plan with involved
individuals and organizations. Documenting everyone’s responsibility for the project can
aid in ensuring everyone holds up their end of the bargain.

BE IN TOUCH WITH YOUR STAKEHOLDERS

Once you’ve ironed out a plan, it’s time to follow through with your commitments. Deliver
reports and information on the dates you promised them, and include information
gathering and report preparation in your task list and timeline.

Make your reports clear, concise, and relevant to each stakeholder you’re catering to.
Acknowledge and address their concerns, and make sure they’re constantly updated and
aligned regarding changes and important findings. Being true to your word will help you
maintain and build trust with the people you work with. It’s also an excellent way to foster
effective collaboration and keep things going smoothly despite hurdles.

Read more: Create Useful Project Status Reports: A Comprehensive Guide

Stakeholder Management Is Crucial

Stakeholder management is just as important as all the other aspects of project
management. Aside from technical requirements, take time to recognize the non-technical
communication requirements vital individuals and organizations may require.

Identify the stakeholders you’re answerable to as early as possible. And as you implement
your project, ensure alignment and ample communication. Diligently managing your
relationships will help you and your team achieve maximum project impact and success.

SRUJIT BIRADAWADA
TESLA PART 4: IDENTIFYING
STAKEHOLDERS – INTERNAL AND
EXTERNAL
AUTHORS: Srujit Biradawada & Friends (Aarti, Lucy, Laura, Sumer,
Vincent & Joyce)
 Tesla’s Supply chain graph
In-house Production and Vertical Integration
Tesla’s product is 80% made in house and vertically integrated. With that
said, Tesla builds its own batteries to power their electric cars, they also
build their own driver train systems and seats. Tesla also digitally deliver
their product to the customer’s car from cloud in order to update their latest
product.
They invested an extraordinary amount on advanced robotic technology
which is designed for flexibility and interaction with several thousand
workers, helps lower the tremendous cost and make their mid-class product
like Model 3s affordable.  
In addition, different than most modern automobiles are assembled from
parts made by hundreds of suppliers and countries all over the world, Tesla
own its own factories, dealership and service center. For example, Tesla
pull in amount of investment and applying the facility a full-service auto
plant in house. That functioning as a supplier park built in the immediate
vicinity with helping supply large, heavy parts with extensive variations. In
addition, Tesla built Gigafactory at scale factory in corporate with their
alliance partner, this enable them to achieve economies of scale and
minimize costs through innovative manufacturing, reduction of logistics
waste, optimization of co-located processes and reduced overhead.
The Tesla Gigafactory is designed to reduce cell costs much faster than the
status quo and, by 2020, produce more lithium ion batteries annually than
were produced worldwide in 2013. By the end of the first year of volume
production of their mass market vehicle, Tesla expects the Gigafactory will
drive down the per kWh cost of their battery pack by more than 30 percent.
(Eric Wesoff, 2014) 
Beside from that, Tesla also vertically integrated through its direct to
consumer sales strategy, that is to say, once the cars are made, Tesla sells
cars directly to consumers through their website in corporate stores, in this
way not only they gain opportunity to gather feedback from their customers
but also they could reduce the inventory at very low level.
Tesla’s Stakeholder analysis
Tesla’s business strategy implication: 
Tesla’s products are often viewed as an antipode to traditional car. All the
innovation of the product leans on the format of the non-conventional way
to think about business strategy, for example, one of its business strategies
allowed it to penetrate the high-end market by creating an aspirational
premium product and thereafter target the middle class and mass markets
by launching the affordable Model 3 sedan. This would require Tesla to
rethink their supply chain system and production planning in order to do an
effective and timely delivery of the car, since the company’s success and
future depends on this. Beside from that, from a strategy perspective, Tesla
also aims for becoming an environmentally friendly company, thus they also
enjoy several benefits from government and regulation. 
Thus, all those strategies also indicate Tesla’s prop value and prioritize their
focus and engagement for their stakeholders, below are the stakeholder
analysis for Tesla Motors: 

 Customers:
 As we mentioned previously, that tesla wants to enter high
end market by creating top class product but also wants to
enter middle class by launching affordable Model 3 sedan.
Thus, customer stand as one key factor that influence Tesla’s
income, also Tesla’s customer would be concerned about the
quality of the product and justified the product pricing level of
Tesla.  To be able to satisfy such a demand, the company
right now is trying to reduce the cost of batteries in the cars to
reduce the overall cost of the finished product. Therefore,
instead of buying batteries from Panasonic, Tesla is trying to
establish the production of its’ own batteries to make the car
more affordable to people. In addition, one of the main goals
of the company nowadays is to widen the charging stations
network throughout the world, what would improve overall
customer satisfaction and service quality. That ensures that
Tesla satisfies customers’ concerns as a stakeholder group.

 Supplier and the alliance partner like Daimler, Panasonic, Solar

Edge
 As the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer, Tesla
import best braking discs from Europe, and import the battery
technology from Japan, All those partnership and
 collaboration with those supplier partner is also the key to the
timely innovation and production , production as well as the
customer services, hence those alliance partner have equal
vested interest in the company’s success.

 Investors:
 Tesla’s early years were highly dependent on such
stakeholder group as Investors. Similar to other corporate,
they are crucial for company’s capitalization and cash
flow. Investors as shareholders always cares about
profitability and business growth. Tesla’s CSR is trying
to satisfy such interests using long-term strategies,
directed to transform the automotive industry. For
instance, the decision to allow other organizations to use
Tesla’s patents can widen the number of brands and
products that use electricity and also can increase the
demand for such products, which can help Tesla to grow
more and more, that corresponds with investors’ interests.
Tesla’s concerns about ecological side of the business
addresses the communities interests, as we were
pointing before, which can be beneficial also for
investors, because if the image of the company is
positive, than it can be growing and stay focused on new
products or increasing quality that would allow it to sell
more copies of the cars and stably increase its’ profits,
satisfying investors and shareholders as a stakeholder
group.

 The Government 
 Tesla’s mission is to develop the sustainable automobile
industry, to achieve that the government also plan an
 important role as a stakeholder group, governments are
concerned about the legal actions and compliance of the
company and the contribution to the State economic growth.
Strategic plans of global expansion and an excellent record of
Tesla perfectly satisfies such government interests.

How they influence each other?

The Stakeholder analysis shared above shows the key stakeholders
that are of high importance to not only determine the company’s
strategy but are directly responsible for the successful
implementation of the same.
Currently, Tesla’s focus is customer-centric, which is conducive
especially for new players. Their exclusive service and other free
charging, software and data connectivity features for the customers
allows the company to create a loyal and happy customer base. The
alliance partners have equal vested interest in the company’s success.
Their partnership is key to timely innovation, production as well as service
and hence very important for the company’s success. Tesla shares good
relationship with most of its collaborators. The area which really needs
more focus is the investors and shareholders. Tesla has made huge
investments based on their long-term growth strategy. Currently the
company is not profitable and losses are increasing every year. In this
circumstance it is possible for investors to get impatient and lose interest. It
is important for the company to keep shareholders interest in mind and
revisit their strategy to incorporate returns and generate positive interest
from investors. 
Adding value for Management and Logistics efficiency
Even though Tesla’s supply chain is largely vertically integrated as they are
able to produce 80% of the car parts internally, as highlighted there are a
number of external stakeholders to the organization. As a result, it becomes
essential particularly for a publicly traded company, such as Tesla, to create
value not only for its stakeholders, but also create value across its supply
chain in order to maximize profitability. To do this, Tesla has approached a
number of different strategies. 

 Customers
 For customers, which may arguably be the most important
stakeholder for Tesla, as they are the end users who
 determine demand and a products success and by extension
profitability, Tesla has been able to create value through
quality, design, and efficiency. As a cleaner and greener
mode of transportation, Tesla is an environmentally
conscious company that offers customers the ability to reduce
their carbon footprint and contribute in a positive way in the
efforts to combat climate change and the phenomenon that it
encompasses. Being the first mover in the industry, Tesla has
been largely successful in disrupting the automotive industry
by being the first large scale mass producer of electric cars.
Even though in its initial years, due to the cost of production
the electric cars were seen as a more of a luxury and a status
symbol, as the company has matured over the years and
sophisticated its supply and supply chain, they have had the
ability to launch models that are more affordable and can
penetrate across various income groups. This has given
customers from different social and economic backgrounds
the ability to participate in a wider movement towards
sustainability and environment friendliness while in turn
creating goodwill for the Tesla brand. 

 Suppliers & External Partners 

 Despite its vertical integration, Tesla uses a number of
suppliers and external partners to source materials and
technology for its electric vehicles. As the largest producer of
electric vehicles in the world, it is essential for Tesla to strike
strong long-term relationships with its suppliers. For a brand
that is synonymous with quality, it is important that it sources
its material from similar companies. The majority of Tesla’s
external suppliers come from Asia, Europe and the United
States and provide key components for the electric vehicles
 like its lithium ion battery pack, the charger, and its electric
motor. For this reason, Tesla’s partners are valued part of the
company’s supply chain and its success. Even though in the
long term, these partnerships are called into question as
Tesla may move the production of certain components
internal in order to maintain quality standards and control
costs, in the short term, Tesla has been able to create
considerable value for its partners. It is through these join
partnerships and strong demand that the third-party
companies have been able to scale their business as well.
Being the suppliers to the largest electric vehicles have
allowed them to grow larger while ensuring quality to match
the standards the Tesla brand brings with it. This sets up the
companies for future success, as the electric vehicle market
is only projected to grow larger and larger, with intensive
competition, these companies now have the right
infrastructure to enter into partnerships with other companies
as well. 

 Investors
 As a publicly traded company, Tesla has a responsibility to its
shareholders. This responsibility can be and is measured in
both fiscal and non-fiscal methods. Tesla launched its Initial
Public Offering in 2010 at $17 per share, currently as of
December 2019, each stock of Tesla is trading at
approximately $340 per share, this highlights an almost
1900% increase in the stock in the past decade. Like all
companies, there are both internal and market trends that
ensure both high and low periods, however, Tesla has largely
been able to ensure profitability for its shareholders. As more
and more companies both within the United States and
 Internationally make attempts to enter the market, Tesla’s first
mover advantage and economies of scale will allow the
company to continue being the leader in the industry.
Furthermore, with the potential of its business model and its
disruption of technology such as long-range electric vehicle
technology, battery technology, and artificial intelligence, the
company has the potential to be a disrupter in many
industries.  

 The Government
 Governments are key stakeholders in all industries and
technologies. As both a regulatory and executive force, the
government has the ability to dictate a company’s success. A
key partner for Tesla, a mutually beneficial relationship is in
the best interest for Tesla. Tesla already has created
immense value for the government domestically, but has the
potential to do even more at an international level. As cars
continue to be the most widely used and largest method of
transportation for people and goods in the United States,
Tesla’s commercial fleet of cars and trucks will have a greater
role to play as the trend to move toward renewable energy
and environment friendliness will only grow stronger over the
years to come. Furthermore, as the only means of large-scale
transportation that is not dependent on oil, Tesla plays a
strategic role for the American government as fluctuating oil
prices and volatile government from supplying countries
continue to pose a threat. As a large American corporation,
Tesla also has a considerable number of employees and
generates value for the American company. As the company
continues to grow and disseminate wealth towards it highly
skilled workforce, the company plays a key role in producing
 value manufacturing and services. A tremendous opportunity
for Tesla is the ability to strike strong partnerships at a state
and domestic level. Large cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix,
Dallas along with hundreds of smaller cities do not have an
infrastructure of public transportation, as a result, cars
continue to be the dominant method of transportation.
Partnerships with State and Local governments in a move
towards a more sustainable method of transportation, will be
crucial for Tesla to continue ensuring value for customers and
across its supply chain. Support from state and local
governments will also be essential to building the
infrastructure for a widespread growth of charging stations
that will make Tesla even more competitive not only in the
electric vehicle industry but in the automobile industry as a
whole, as it will be easier for customers to travel longer
distances, and for Tesla trucks to deliver goods further away. 

TESLA PART 3: ORGANIZING THE

PROGRAM
AUTHORS: Srujit Biradawada & Friends (Aarti, Lucy, Laura, Sumer,
Vincent & Joyce)
Staffing and Operating the various modes of logistics

 Supplier <~> Tesla :

 In order to properly manufacture a car, there are more than
10,000 components need to be assembled. If a single
component is delayed or damaged, the entire manufacturing
line will be suspended. So, building up a global supply
chain is the key factor for car companies to success.
However, each country’s tax policies would also give a
 huge impact on car companies’ decisions about when
and where they should get their supplies. Taking Tesla
model 3 as an example, in more than 10,000 components
needed to manufacture the car, 50% of the components
come from US/Canada, and 25% of the components come
from Mexico, the final 25% come from the rest of the world.
Tesla did this is simply because of the requirement of the
North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Under the
requirement of NAFTA, a minimum of 55% of
components must be manufactured in Canada, the U.S.
or Mexico in order to be considered a NAFTA vehicle
(Lambert, 2017). If it is a NAFTA vehicle, the cars sold in
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico will be tax-exempt. Thus,
meeting this criterion is very important for Tesla to sell
cars in the U.S. 
 However, as the world’s largest electric vehicle
manufacturer, sourcing more than 75% of components in
North America for electric cars is simply impossible.
Europe has the best braking discs, Japan has the battery
technology, car CPU chip should be imported from
Taiwan. In order to solve these problems, tesla started to
sign exclusive contracts with other firms to create U.S.
subsidiaries to meet the NAFTA requirements. The Tesla
Gigafactory is an excellent example, on July 31, 2014, Tesla
signed an agreement with the Japanese giant Panasonic to
construct the world’s largest battery factory known as
Gigafactory. According to the agreement, Tesla will provide,
prepare and manage land, buildings, and utilities. Panasonic
will manufacture and supply cylindrical lithium-ion cells and
invest in the associated equipment, machinery, and other
 manufacturing tools based on their mutual approval (Tesla,
2014). 
 Signing contracts with suppliers and making sure they can
manufacture their components in North America is the core
thing to do between Tesla and its suppliers. After the 75%
criteria were met precisely, Tesla would notify its suppliers
when to begin mass production. According to Tesla Q4 2019
financial report, Tesla has asked its Taiwanese suppliers to
prepare for mass production of the Model Y component in
early 2020. It means the mass production will begin six
months before the intended date. Its suppliers are rushing out
to make preparations (Lambert, 2019). 
 Tesla <~> Tesla (warehouses for parts)  
 Since all Tesla batteries are manufactured in Gigafactory,
shipping them to the California Fremont factory assembly line
on time is critical. Elon Musk has rumored to construct a
railway to connect the Fremont factory and Gigafactory.
However, considering the time length and construction cost, it
is not manageable for Tesla to do in the short term. Tesla has
announced its semi-truck in 2017, it expects to begin
production in 2020, Tesla might use their truck to ship
batteries. In the current period. Tesla is only using third party
shipping firms to move battery packs between Gigafactory
and Fremont factory. 
 Tesla <~> Customers (distribution network) 
 After Tesla survived from the production hell by operating
production line 24/7, it soon suffered delivery hell (O’Kane,
2018). Tens of thousands of cars were sitting outside of the
Tesla factory, and all of them are waiting to be delivered. If
tesla cannot deliver them on time, they may not only upset
their customers which will create a bad brand image, but it
 will also hurt their cash flow from the financial side. In order to
solve this issue, Tesla has taken a series of solutions.
 First of all, Tesla founded a new delivery organization by
hiring world-class supply chain experts to support its insane
workloads of delivery. Earlier 2018, Tesla hired Kate
Pearson, former Vice President Strategy, Operations, and
Digital Acceleration at Wal-Mart, to lead its new delivery
operations as Director of Field Delivery Operations (Lambert,
2018). She quickly restructured the delivery department and
separated it from the sales department. Then, she hired and
promoted a series of delivery experts including,
 Rodney Broyles, former Sr. Director Field Sales, and
Operations, Strategic Growth Office at Best Buy,
 Brett Zriny, previously District General Manager for
Tesla,
 Bridget Teeter, previously General Manager for West
US and Texas for Tesla,
 Justin Harden, Former Apple operation manager,
now in charge of deliveries in the southwest,
 Mark Mason, former Amazon area manager, and Air
Force One operation director, now in charge of tesla
deliveries in Texas and Mexico (Lambert, 2018)
 After the team has been gathered, Tesla has come with many
inventive car deliveries method which we have never seen
before. The Instant Driving Away program (5-minutes buying
and delivering program) was introduced in late 2018. Tesla is
targeting to enable the buying and delivering process within 5
minutes. Inventory cars are available for purchase with
various payment methods including cash, leasing, or Tesla
Financing.
 At the same time, Tesla introduced the door to door service
called Tesla direct. After a customer’s vehicle is ready for
sale, instead of waiting for customers to pick it up, Tesla will
send the car to the customer’s appointed home or office
(Lambert, 2018). Since cars will be immediately shipped from
the factory to the customer’s appointed destination, plastic
car wraps are no longer needed. It saved more time and
costs for Tesla to delivery its cars.
 The process did not stop here, Tesla CEO Elon Musk
personally invited current Tesla owners to come help
“educate” new tesla buyers during an intense week (Lambert,
2018). According to the Tesla delivery process, there are
three steps need to be done. A Tesla employee will allow
buyers to have a quick look at the build quality of the car.
Then, they will give the buyer all the needed paperwork to
make the purchase and hand over the vehicle registration.
Finally, there is a short orientation presentation to help the
buyer get used to using the car. During the rush hour, Tesla
employees will still need to do the first two steps. The third
step, which is the longest, could be easily handled by current
owners (Lambert, 2018).
 In November 2018, Tesla acquired a truck company to
shorten the delivery time. At the end of 2018, the 7,500
dollars federal tax credit will no longer be available. Thus,
Tesla put all available cars on sale including showroom cars.
These sales further deepened the delivery problem (Lambert,
2018). According to Elon Musk, Tesla is going to ship east
with trucks instead of rails, which is shorten the transit time by
weeks. Since there is a huge shortage of truck drivers in
North America, Elon Musk expressed that he has secured
 contracts with major haulers to avoid trucking shortage
(Lambert, 2018).
 Next, Tesla starts selling and delivering its cars out of its
Gigafactory. No matter what Tesla does, it will always take
time for tesla to deliver cars. The team has come up with
another interesting idea. If the customers are willing to come
to the factory to pick up their car, they can schedule a tour in
Tesla’s world-renowned factory. Since Tesla’s Gigafactory is
one of the world’s largest buildings, getting a chance to see
inside is very appealing to many Tesla buyers (Lambert,
2018). By inviting customers to go pick up the car
themselves, the shipping costs will also be reduced.
 Last but not least, Tesla launched delivery events for their
inventory cars. Since there is a production limit by the Tesla
factory, it is normal for a customer to wait for months to get
their customized car. Through holding this event, potential
Tesla buyers and current Tesla buyers can directly see all
inventory cars in the Tesla factory. If a car matches a
customer’s configuration or a customer selected a car they
like, they can immediately decide to take delivery early
instead of waiting for a long time (Lambert, 2018).

After Sale Logistics

Tesla has made several inventive processes for after-sale services. First of
all, Tesla dropped its annual servicing for as needed. Since there is a big
difference between gasoline cars and EV cars, Tesla only suggests users
change air conditioning filters and brake fluids as needed. Then, Tesla over
the air software constantly updates itself to make minimum service center
visits. Thirdly, Tesla software can remotely diagnose 90% of the issues, and
the Tesla team will know exactly what needed to be repaired. Fourth, Tesla
smart alert system will communicate with the owner what needs to be done.
It will walk through customers to fix a simple issue or make an appointment
with the Tesla team (Tesla, 2020).
According to Tesla, 80% of repairs can be done outside of Tesla Center.
So, Tesla also created its own Mobile Service. If a Tesla is needed to be
fixed by a technician, the Tesla team will assign a technician based on the
users’ time availability. The technician will bring all the needed car
components with him and come to a user-appointed place to fix their car for
free. If the issue cannot be fixed by a mobile technician, then Tesla has
serviced its centers and Tesla authorized service centers across the U.S.,
customers can easily make appointments with one of the nearby centers to
get their car fixed (Tesla, 2020).
Recommendations
In terms of continuous improvement, there are several things that Tesla
should do to improve its logistics efficiency. Between Tesla and its
suppliers, Tesla should implicate master scheduling theory to reduce its
suppliers’ pressure. Tesla is famous for both missing due dates and
pushing things way ahead of schedule. It will take a significant amount of
time for its suppliers to catch up speed with Tesla. The recent Panasonic
and Tesla battery production issue could demonstrate Tesla’s relationship
with its suppliers (Lambert, 2019). In order to solve this issue, Tesla should
give more time and flexibility for its suppliers to fulfill its requests. Since
Tesla is a fast-growing company, Tesla should also consider a multi-
sourcing strategy to diversify its supplier portfolio. Thus, if one of their
suppliers cannot meet its demand, others can quickly fulfill the gap.
Besides, since Tesla is opening the new Gigafactory in China and
Germany, invest and cultivate local suppliers is also core for Tesla’s future
success. It can significantly reduce Tesla’s shipping costs, and fully
integrate these suppliers into Tesla’s R&D processes.
For Tesla’s own supply chain management, construct a hyperloop tunnel
between Gigafactory and Fremont factory is an easier way than construct a
railway to connect these two factories. Since Elon Musk has the Boring
Company, construct an underground tunnel is relatively easy for Tesla and
it doesn’t need to acquire a huge amount of land from locals. Additionally,
the tunnel would significantly boost up the battery transition time since the
underground won’t experience traffic jams. For future Gigafactory, Tesla
has already decided to put the battery and car assembly line, so there won’t
be many issues in future Gigafactory development.
If Tesla wants to boost up its delivery time, it might think about collaborating
with local dealerships. Since there were many customers already traded in
Tesla with other brand cars, local dealerships are already selling used
Tesla cars. Besides, customers have traded in their vehicles for Tesla as
well. If Tesla wants to grow fast, it must (and it will) produce extra cars to
store as inventory. In the modern fast-paced world, not all customers are
willing to wait for weeks or months to customize their own car. Thus,
working with local dealerships can not only help Tesla get rid of used cars,
but they can also help Tesla store and sell additional inventory cars.

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