Developing Market Specific Supply Chain Strategies

TLDR

The paper examines how to match pipelines to marketplace needs under demand volatility and price pressure, arguing that a one‑size‑fits‑all approach is inadequate for pipeline design, implementation, and control. The authors aim to show how global supply‑chain strategies can be tailored to market characteristics to achieve higher customer responsiveness at lower total cost, and to provide a taxonomic framework for selecting the appropriate strategy. They identify product characteristics, demand characteristics, and replenishment lead‑time as key dimensions for developing market‑specific supply‑chain strategies. Their analysis shows that these three dimensions yield eight viable configurations that meet the stated objectives.

Abstract

The issues underlying the appropriate matching of pipelines to marketplace needs under conditions of demand volatility and price pressure are examined. The authors describe a scenario where the philosophy of “one size fits all” does not apply to pipeline design, implementation, and control. Research conducted by the authors and others is used to show how appropriate global supply chain strategies can be developed contingent upon market characteristics and which seek simultaneously to achieve higher levels of customer responsiveness at less total cost to the supply chain as a whole. The selection of the right strategy within a supply chain lends itself to a taxonomic approach. We find that three dimensions (leading to eight possible configurations) are adequate for this purpose. These key dimensions are product characteristics, demand characteristics and replenishment lead‐time.