Responsive Supply Chain in a Convenience Store

A convenience store chain attempts to be responsive and provide customers with what they need, when they need it, where they need it.
- What are some different ways that a convenience store supply chain can be responsive?
- What are some risks in each case?
Answer:
A supply chain could accurate its responsiveness if it is able to improve in these criteria:
- Respond to wide ranges of quantities demanded
- Meet short lead times
- Handle a large variety of products
- Build highly innovative products
- Meet a very high service level
Nowadays a highly dynamic, globalized and competitive environment, companies are under pressure to improve their supply chain strategies in order to be more responsive to customer demands. In the case of convenience stores, as this type of business doesn’t have a certain demand, the need of having a supply chain system that can act responsively is important for the success of the stores.
One of the very important elements on a supply chain management would be the handling of information. The more the information shared in between the different actors of the supply chain flow, the more flexible and responsive this supply chain would be.
In this case we can see how 7eleven Japan applied this whole new system based on information sharing between the shops, distributors and suppliers. This new focus gave 7eleven advantages such as saving time in placing orders, delivery process. Also advantages on demand analysis as they could see which products were bought and at what frequency and time, this helped them to organize the store in relation with their sales. This also permitted 7eleven to study new products entrance and customer reactions to them.
Risks:
- Irregularities and disruptions occurring at any point in the system make responsive supply chain management even more challenging.
- As relying intensively on information technologies, we risk to have a major break down if a system fails.
- As lead time decreases, any