Findings of Retail Supply Chain Research (2012) - Part 4 of 4

   Changing face of R-SCM

Elements of competitive advantage has become cause of concerns: We found that elements such as Enhanced visibility across the supply chain and rigorous inventory management, which were considered to be competitive advantage by the retailers just two years back, has become important for retailers to survive. Companies are now talking about multi-echelon inventory management.

While cost control costs remained important in 2010, the strategic focus discussion shifted toward to a more balanced perspective [15]. Companies are focusing to maximize the cost-service-customer demand equation. Investment in multi channel retailing to improve cross-channel selling and global sourcing with localized assortments are moves by retailers in that direction.

Retailers are now focusing on buying experience for the customers. Customer Experience Management is a strategy that focuses the operations and processes of a business around the needs of the individual customer [16].

II.   Conclusion

The supply chain executives are keen to look into the above discussed issues for further planning and are preparing to deal with the issues. The long range planning of the supply chain for the retail domain includes the sustainability and the related costs, the fuel issues and their impacts, the government regulation and technology enhancement.

To succeed in the ever changing retail landscape, companies are adopting to many forward-thinking strategies like Multi Channel retailing, Green Supply Chain, Multi echelon inventory optimization, International growth, expanding private label brands, etc in which the supply chain. Management executives have aligned their supply chain strategies with companies’ business strategies in order to establish stronger corporate strategy links, scalable supply chain networks, infrastructure flexibility and streamline flows. The goal of the strategic approach of the supply chain management is to accept the challenges and provide a solution for the increasing coordination of the organization’s success with the supply chain management.

The future strategies can be set by educating the management on the process and the synergies of the supply chain that can be used to enhance the new strategic approach. Thus, the future supply chain strategies include the expression of the future business models and the desired results in the overall business revenue. Furthermore, any impression that the business does not cope up with the supply chain management will influence on the strategies of the business and need to be focused to evaluate the capabilities and the possibilities.

However, supply chain management has continued to be the core spot for the retailers currently and in the coming years. Thus, despite the challenges supply chain management is moving forward with the help of the top managers to meet the planned goals.