The Supporting Role Of Logistics During The Early Stage Of Retail Internationalisation

Retail internationalisation refers to the establishment of retailers into foreign sales markets and is an important success factor for many retail chains. Logistics has been acknowledged as an important prerequisite and key component of retail internationalisation, enabling physical distribution to new foreign markets as well as ensuring customer satisfaction in terms of on-time delivery and product availability. Despite the recognition of logistics, logistics managers struggle to adapt their logistics organisation and operations in order to efficiently and effectively support retail internationalisation due to the complexity of operating in multiple markets. Previous research seldom mentions how logistics supports retail internationalisation, especially when retail chains are at the beginning of their retail-internationalisation journey. By exploring the supporting role of logistics during the early stage of retail internationalisation, retailers can better understand how logistics organisation and operations can be organised in order to successfully expand into foreign sales markets. Therefore, the purpose of this licentiate thesis is to: Explore the supporting role of logistics during the early stage of retail internationalisation. This licentiate thesis is based on an abductive, multiple-case-study approach that combines empirical data with literature in an iterative process in order to explore the supporting role of logistics during the early stage of retail internationalisation. The selected case companies were three large-sized Swedish retail chains that have recently established themselves into nearby foreign sales markets. The findings of this licentiate thesis suggest that logistics plays both a reactive and a proactive supporting role during the early stage of retail internationalisation. The reactive supporting role refers to logistics that adapts to predetermined conditions set by the retail company’s top management team. As a reactive supporter, the logistics organisation is typically involved at an operational level and scales up its logistics operations in order to supply multiple markets. Beyond its reactive role, logistics can also play a proactive supporting role. This refers to its involvement at a strategic level within the retail company where it can influence the conditions of retail internationalisation. When logistics is involved more proactively, its operations can become better aligned with the other company operations involved in retail internationalisation. Furthermore, proactive logistics support enables more efficient and effective logistics that can better cope with increased complexity as well as more effectively keeping track of logistics costs. In addition to these findings, the importance of top management has been identified as a key aspect of proactive logistics support. More specifically, logistics competence within the top management team enables logistics to be prioritised at a strategic level and to be better integrated during retail internationalisation, including during individual establishments into new markets. The findings also suggest that the importance of logistics increases over time during retail internationalisation. The more markets the retailer enters, the more important efficient logistics becomes in order to deal with both complexity and logistics costs. By involving proactive logistics from the start of retail internationalisation, retail chains can more efficiently and effectively establish into and operate within foreign sales markets, which in turn supports a sustainable retail internationalisation. One of the main academic contributions of this licentiate thesis has been to study logistics in the specific context of retail internationalisation, which has previously not been researched in any great detail. In addition, logistics has often been studied as a static aspect, but in this thesis it is studied from a dynamic perspective in order to understand how its supporting role changes over time during the early stage of retail internationalisation. Another important contribution is that the role of logistics has been studied from both a strategic and an operational level, as previous research has mostly focused on the strategic level of logistics related to retail internationalisation. In terms of practical contributions, this licentiate thesis clarifies the logistics characteristics and supply-chain capabilities that support the early stage of retail internationalisation. This licentiate thesis can also help practitioners to better prepare their logistics organisation and logistics operations for a future retail internationalisation, as well as helping them to avoid making logistical mistakes during the early stage of retail internationalisation.

The 1980s witnessed the first step - change in managing the logistics function when stock centralization, contracting out and investment in technologies made a massive impact. The 1990s have experienced further changes that have been mainly concerned with incremental improvements and relationship changes. Academic researchers and industry specialists share their research into retail logistics providing a state-of-the-art report on the key issues. Logistics and Retail Management: Insights into Current Practice and Trends from Leading Experts covers changes in retail distribution and the recent transformation of retail logistics features company profiles of Safeway and Tesco, two of the most respected grocery logistics operations in the UK. It also discusses the internationalization of retailing and its impact on logistics strategy and proves that logistics excellence provides a fundamental competitive advantage.

International Retail Marketing combines a broad thematic overview of the key issues concerning international retail marketing with a series of incisive cases and examples of industry practice from markedly different sectors as fashion, food and healthcare. The authors provide an accessible and wide-ranging outline of the fundamentals of the subject, such as trends in retail marketing, strategy and logistics, and buying and merchandise management within an international perspective. Contributions from Europe, North America and Asia show the dynamics affecting international retailing through a variety of case. Key discussion points are highlighted throughout the text, giving a hands-on focus.

The 21st century has witnessed important changes in retail logistics. Supply chain managers are presented with key challenges as retailers have recognised the strategic role that supply chains play in cost reduction and customer service. The 4th edition of Logistics and Retail Management has been substantially updated to take account of these recent developments in retail logistics. Logistics and Retail Management provides the most up-to-date thinking in retail supply chain management, reflecting the changing needs of the global marketplace and the challenges faced by retailers in the 21st century. With contributions from acclaimed academics and practitioners, it covers global logistics, fashion logistics, e-logistics and green supply chains. The 4th edition features brand new chapters on supply chain management in international fashion and corporate social responsibility in the textile supply chain.

The three volumes IFIP AICT 438, 439, and 440 constitute the refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2014, held in Ajaccio, France, in September 2014. The 233 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 271 submissions. They are organized in 6 parts: knowledge discovery and sharing; knowledge-based planning and scheduling; knowledge-based sustainability; knowledge-based services; knowledge-based performance improvement, and case studies.

Taking a truly international perspective, this book outlines the current situation, and provides a wealth of useful ideas and practical information on all the current and future trends in logistics and distribution. This new edition contains new sections including logistics in China, central and eastern Europe.

The main scope of this book is to show how IT has created a mandate to management to develop new business models and frameworks based on the important role of IT. The chapters within IT-Based Management: Challenges and Solutions tackle the role and impact of IT on strategy and resulting new models to be used in this context. In addition, the book proposes new models based on the pervasive role IT exercises in the current business arena.