The consumer good to retail supply chain is quite arguably the planet's most prominent one, with recognized supply chain leaders from Walmart to Procter & Gamble and many more, as well as being the source of many supply chain innovations, such as continuous replenishment, CPFR, and many others.
SCDigest Says: |
 The survey is broken into three paths, one for retailers, one for manufacturers, and one for academics, consultants and others, allowing that group to also weight in on the issues.
Click Here to See Reader Feedback
|
The consumer goods to retail supply chain has certainly been the subject of much research by analysts, academics, consultants and more. But perhaps surprisingly, not much of that research has really focused on the state of the relationships between retailers and their suppliers, whether they are manufacturers or brand companies.
In a sector that has long pushed greater integration and collaboration, with efforts such as the aforementioned CPFR, are we seeing consistent improvements in those two areas? Are retailers and vendors very happy with the state of their trading partner relationships, or are there many areas for improvements? How does the size of a given retailer or manufacturer impact how they view the current state of affairs?
These are just some of the questions Supply Chain Digest hopes to answer in a new report, based on a major survey being conducted right now of manufacturers and retailers. Already, more than 150 companies have taken the brief survey, where can be found here: State of Retailer-Vendor Supply Chain Relations 2015.
The survey succinctly covers a wide variety of areas, from the level of perceived collaboration to barriers to better integration to the sometimes contentious issue of retailer chargebacks.
Our intention is to use the results of the survey to create an index that can be calculated annually to guage the level of progress or retreat in these vital supply chain relationships.
"For all the talk about integration and collaboration in the consumer goods to retail supply chain, very few studies have really attempted to look under the covers and measure what is happening in these supply chain relations," says SCDigest editor Dan Gilmore. "We are doing just that in this new study."
The survey is broken into three paths, one for retailers, one for manufacturers, and one for academics, consultants and others, allowing that group to also weight in on the issues.
(Supply Chain Trends and Issues Article - Continued Below)
|
An example question in the retail path, for example, asks respondents to rate the following barriers to improved collaboration on a numeric scale across each of these issues: