The barriers to customer responsive supply chain management

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -It has been suggested that "customer responsive supply-chain management" and "agile supply-chain management" are necessary for the new competitive conditions. However, there is an enormous gap between the idealised prescription and actual practice. The aim of this paper is to examine, in some detail, the factors that can help to explain this mismatch between rhetoric and reality. Design/methodology/approach -To do so, it focuses on a "best-case" situation -the retailer Marks and Spencer and its relations with its clothing suppliers. This company has traditionally been renowned, among other things, for the sophistication of its supply-chain activities. The research reported here is based on detailed interviews with suppliers and buyers. Findings -The research reveals that the tenets of the customer responsive supply-chain management model are technically feasible. But, the study also finds that even under circumstances where there is evidence that it works well, and produces valued outcomes, it remains vulnerable to erosion because of a number of institutional factors.Research limitations/implications -The research presents a number of challenges to conventional thinking about collaborative relationships. The paper suggests the need for further work on the competing priorities between collaborative inter-organisational working on the one hand, and competing corporate strategies and ingrained routines on the other. Practical implications -Practitioners can derive many lessons from this research -most notably it identifies the nature of the barriers and forearms supply-chain innovators with details of the dynamics that can so easily thwart their best efforts. Originality/value -The paper explains the mismatch between rhetonic and reality in buyer-seller relationships.

Implementation of the Model of Maturity to Agility Assessment

“…Hence, agility is a comprehensive response to the business challenges of achieving profitability in dynamically changing global markets characterized by high quality, performance and personalization of the goods and services offered [8]. Agility is achievable if it is understood as a set of interrelated changes in marketing, production, design and organization [9]. The essence of agile management is firmly based on customer engagement, as it is also understood as the ability of an enterprise to survive through rapid and effective response to market changes driven by customer-designed products and services.…”

Rapid manufacturing: impact on supply chain methodologies and practice

“…Hybrids of the BOSC have been adopted, BMW uses a locate to order strategy that is an initial step towards BOSC. Storey et al (2005) present work on the barrier that a customer responsive (agile) supply chain has using data from Marks and Spencer. They argue that there has been a need to move beyond the lean philosophy and reduce the lead time between the manufacturer and the consumer.…”

Process control in an agile supply chain network

“…Table 2 Target Percentages for k = 0.84 and the two changes in policy however becoming increasingly important is that global supply chains are also being used to supply much higher profit margin, fast moving, 'innovative' markets where there is a volatile and unpredictable demand for short life cycle, high variety products, and where supply chain flexibility and responsiveness (called agile supply) are the key competitive elements. Agile supply chains are also characterised by complexity, because of the extended networks of different overseas suppliers required for the high product variety, so much so that the management of these supply chains is typically left to foreign intermediaries who take complete responsibility for managing the supply chain ( [2]; [3]; [4]). In such a regime, where besides the fickle and uncertain marketplace, retailers typically may not even know who makes their products (as evidenced by occasional child labour scandals for major UK clothing retailers) and there are inherently high levels of uncertainty and risk.…”

“…This capability a supply chain has of becoming flexible is referred to as agility ( [1]; [2]) and some of the conditions in which an agile approach is best suited can be described by the following characteristics: (i) short life cycle products; (ii) high product variety in the face of unpredictable demand; (iii) small volumes and higher profit margins; (iv) competition based on product specification. With this agility the supply chain more frequently operates in a global context and there is an increasing trend to outsource the supply and manufacturing overseas, through a complex supply network ( [2]; [3]; [4]), to reduce costs.…”

“…The global fashion industry is a prime example, particularly in the high end of the fashion market, in which businesses are competing in a fickle, volatile and unpredictable market where high-variety, high margin, short-life products are being sourced globally ( [3]; [4]). Fashion retailers exploit this unpredictable market by introducing new products to their stores as frequently as possible, where product life cycles, from first offering in a store to discounting, average six weeks.…”