Logistics and Retail Management: Emerging Issues and New Challenges In The Retail Supply Chain, Fifth Edition PDF by John Fernie and Leigh Sparks

CONTENTS

PREFACE
At the beginning of each recent edition of this book we have commented on the difficulties of convincing students of the changes that have occurred in the retail supply chain over the last four decades, and yet how many challenges remain. Indeed, as we sign off one edition we think to ourselves that perhaps there will be less change in the next five years. How wrong can we be! It can be argued, however, that in some periods there has been a step change in how goods are delivered to customers. The first step change was the initial shift from a supplier- to a retailer-controlled supply chain. For a long time, the supply of products into retail outlets was controlled by manufacturers and was very much a hit-or-miss affair. Consumers had to put up with the product they found (or did not find) on the shelves, and retailers and manufacturers operated in something of an efficiency vacuum. This situation has now been transformed. Retailers have recognized the need to have more involvement in supply chains and noted that benefits can be achieved in both service levels and cost reduction. Massive efforts have been made to reorganize and reprioritize activities in moving products from production to consumption.

Until the 2000s this shift to retail-controlled supply chains saw incremental change but in the last 5–10 years another step change has occurred. After a slow start, the digital revolution gathered pace and retailers have had to respond to online savvy customers who want to shop and return goods at any time and any place. The omnichannel approach to serving the customer was the key to success. This edition will bring the reader up to date with new issues that have emerged, such as this, and the challenges that remain. But first, a bit of history.

In 1990 John Fernie edited Retail Distribution Management for Kogan Page. This volume, one of the first to look explicitly at distribution (as it then was) in retailing, combined retail academic and practitioner studies and viewpoints to provide a glimpse into what was the first step change in supplying product to stores. It was a fastchanging situation. This volume pointed to a revolution in logistical support to retail stores over the 1980s in the UK. Through academic work and practitioner-written case examples the volume showed how retailers were gaining control of supply chains and reorganizing their own operations, and those of manufacturers, suppliers and distribution specialists, to transform the flow of goods and information in supply chains. In the process, new forms of working using new technologies were improving the quality of products moving through the system, both in physical terms and in terms of time appropriateness. Through the building of relationships with supply partners, efficiency and effectiveness were introduced into previously inefficient and ineffective supply systems. From a concentration on functional silos in physical distribution and materials management, the logistics concept and a focus on end-to-end supply chains was developed. It is interesting to note that most of the names of the companies cited then have disappeared from the high street. The exceptions are J Sainsbury and Grattan (the latter now part of the German Otto Group).