Managing the Retail Supply Chain

01

Introduction

Profit, Profit, Profit. The ultimate goal of a business is to secure maximum levels of profit, ideally long-term profit growth. Not much is written about the hunt for profit – it is more fashionably called ‘competitive advantage’ in academic texts. Individual business functions can be prone to act in a very insular way, so insular in fact that they strive to achieve the function’s key performance indicators (KPIs) rather than doing what is right for the business and profitability. This may seem an obtuse way to introduce a book on supply chain and merchandising but it’s critical to remember that every action in business, no matter which function or at what level, should contribute to the profitability of the organization. It ...