Abstract:

The business models of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are constantly changing, with an exponential speed. This process must be in real time accompanied by an effective adapting strategy that must be included into the values of the organizational culture.

Retaining current employees is often less expensive than hiring new staff. In this context, their training and development become absolutely essential. Performance in the digital world brings an efficient management developed through an intelligent integrated plan in an agile work context, relevant and adapted to changes. An organization in continuous development from the point of view of learning can be achieved through training, retraining, employee experience growing and engagement. Through calibration of SME objectives, staff training actions must meet the expectations of the employees whose training must take into account the essential needs of the compartments: supply, sales, marketing, management, financial, human resources, etc.

Innovation in industry 4.0 means digitalization, automation, cloud computing, Big Data, IoT, omnichannel, asset sharing economy. Digitalization and automation bring competitive advantage. Supply chain optimization focuses on the customer and the strategic dimensions (opportunities, solutions, challenges) and takes into account the management and reduction of risks resulting a management based on forecast, demand, stocks.

Sustainability is a fundamental principle in business, guiding the conduct of activities: production, suppliers, waste management, packaging, impact of products on the environment. By integrating these aspects in the SME strategy, the impact on the business is positive.

Multidisciplinary research has been brought together: economics, computer science, pedagogy, psychology, in order to provide an educational service that reflect the knowledge gained over the years in the projects related to e-learning and fundamental researches in the Multi-Attribute Decision Making (MADM).

The paper presents an electronic course model that can be customized for any type of educational content by uploading lessons, examples, case studies, exercises / problems solved, tests and exams. The course includes concepts, objectives, forms and structure of supply management; organization of activities; stocks and inventory; substantiation of the SME supply program; consumption and capitalization indicators; managerial strategy; organization of economic supply relations; partnership and suppliers; managerial decisions regarding supply sources. The paper also presents the conceptual model of the supplier evaluation/selection process, developed in the MADM paradigm. Green supply chain management is a combination of environmental and supply chain management activities (product design, material selection, manufacturing process, final product delivery and end-of-life product management) so that SMEs can choose from a wide variety of suppliers and can use resources to eliminate the environmental impact of all supply chain activities. The article looks on how MADM tools are useful to select vendors based on quantitative and qualitative criteria if fuzzy approaches are used. Based on the set of criteria, the selection of suppliers is made in order to maximize the environmental benefits of the SME supply chain. Creating the conditions for the employees to acquire top managerial knowledge is the most important benefit of the electronic course.

Keywords:

Business, Supply Chain, Multi-Attribute Decision Making, Fuzzy Sets, Optimization.