Traditional retail supply chains work according to the motto better, centralised and distant”. Each firm operating within these supply chains seeks to optimise its own activities and buffer itself against others upstream and downstream. And customers are strangers, walking anonymously through the store selecting from what is available.
Well, get ready for a complete U-turn – a change in direction which takes us to a very different destination.
The motto of tomorrow’s leading-edge supply chains will be “fresher, simpler and closer”. Products will flow quickly and seamlessly down value chains which encompass many different firms, in direct response to consumer orders. Consumers themselves will no longer be strangers.
Far from it, they will be an integral, crucial and value-adding link in the whole process.