MIT Sloan Management Review

In the early, hyped-up days of e-commerce, Internet retailers tried to focus customer and investor attention on the bells and whistles of their product offering or Web pages, and hoped that no one noticed the poor performance of backroom operations — or they deluded themselves into believing that good execution

The conventional wisdom in government, academia and much of industry is that companies are choosing to close their costly domestic operations in favor of better prospects and profits in other countries. While it is certainly true that U.S.

During the e-boom of the 1990s, academics, consultants, executives and investors alike claimed that e-procurement, and its increasingly central role in supply-chain management, would revolutionize how future business-to-business practices would take place: Efficiencies would be improved and procurement costs reduced; the flow of information along the supply chain enhanced; strategic

In almost every business-to-business industry, companies are facing increasingly powerful intermediaries in their distribution channel. Industry consolidation is replacing a multitude of small “mom and pop” distributors with a handful of national, professionally managed, publicly traded corporations.

Effective supply-chain management requires choosing a type of relationship appropriate to product and market conditions and adapting management practices to that relationship.

Processes to solidify and streamline supplier-customer relationships can result in mutually beneficial commercial success.

Understanding the degree of process complexity in a manufacturing operation aids managers in deciding how to organize their factories.

After calculating the risks of introducing a new product, companies must choose a primary strategy, monitor market conditions, and adopt a contingency strategy if necessary.

Increased global competition means that industry and government must work together to ensure that manufacturers have support networks of transportation, telecommunications, services, and knowledge centers.

Companies frequently mismanage their dealings with suppliers and miss many opportunities to reduce costs. Perhaps it’s time to reexamine purchasing, reestablish some tension in buyer-supplier relationships, and leverage the free market.

Distorted information from one end of a supply chain to the other can lead to tremendous inefficiencies: excessive inventory investment, poor customer service, lost revenues, misguided capacity plans, ineffective transportation, and missed production schedules. How do exaggerated order swings occur? What can companies do to mitigate them?

In a global supply chain, managers must plan for longer lead times, expensive air freight, higher inventory levels, poor sales-forecasting accuracy, and significant delays in resolving technical problems. However, the reduction of defects and engineering change orders associated with lean production can stabilize the supply chain.

“Be first to market” is one of the most enduring principles in business theory and practice. But the authors point out that many pioneer companies have failed, whereas most current market leaders were not pioneers. In analyzing why this is so, the authors found that market leaders embody five factors that are critical to success.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. — French expressionThey don’t make much money, but they sure make a lot of stuff. — Down East Maine expressionRumors of my demise have been much exaggerated. —Mark TwainAfter years of observing U.S. industry under siege from foreign competitors, U.S.

ALTHOUGH RETURNS POLICIES HAVE BEEN WIDELY USED FOR MANY YEARS, THEY CONTINUE TO BE A SOURCE OF CONTROVERSY. THE AUTHORS present a framework that explains when and how to adopt returns policies. They analyze the benefits and costs of accepting returns from distributors, and also compare returns policies to alternative ways of coordinating the distribution channel.

Interactions between retailers and their suppliers have often been adversarial, with each trying to gain at the expense of the other. But this long-established pattern is rapidly giving way to cooperation, with both sides working together to streamline the distribution channel system.

JAPAN’S DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS, LONG THE TARGET OF CRITICISM, ARE CHANGING. DEREGULATION, NEW MANUFACTURING IMPERATIVES, consumer behavior, and the economy have interacted to reshape Japanese distribution. The trends have important implications for global business, since the system now offers areas of opportunity for Western manufacturers and retailers.