Strategy distributor

A researcher formulating a strategy for a particular company must determine what portion of the planned output will be sold by its sales force and whether distributors or manufacturers representatives might be beneficial. If it appears that a distributor or agent is needed, a separate evaluation of the capabihties of representative companies or individuals should be made. 

Larner G, Schoneker DR, Sheehan C, Uppoor R, Walsh P, Wiens R. 2006. PQRI survey of pharmaceutical excipient testing and control strategies used by excipient manufactures, excipient distributors, and drug-product manufactures. Pharm. Technol. 30(9) 90-98. 

We now discuss a recent example of simulation that models three alternative configurations for a supply chain in the mobile communications industry at the Ericsson company in Sweden. A supply chain consists of several links which may be separate companies or independent business units of a single large company. Examples of links are retailers, wholesalers, distributors, and factories. Customary strategies imply that, at the individual links of the supply chain, decisions are made based on... 

If the distributor does not play an important role in terms of value-added and customer access, a direct disintermediation approach may be advisable. Such a strategy is unlikely to lead to complete elimination of the distributor, since chemical producers will not want to build capabilities speciBcaUy for the complex supply chain management of small customers. However, the distributor s role will change more to that of a logistics service provider. The approach of some of the consortia remains to be seen here. 

It is important to keep track of whom the vouchers have been given to. The voucher agency should record the serial numbers of the vouchers given to distributors. These simple measures facilitate evaluation of the efficacy of the voucher distribution strategy. They also provide a check on counterfeiting and prevent distribution of vouchers at the point of service delivery. 

Distribution strategies. By providing voucher redemption rates for each voucher distributor, the information system identifies which are the most effective. This information can be used to create productivity incentives. The information system can also identify the distribution sites from which vouchers are most likely to be redeemed, and it can identify where they achieve the scheme s aims most cost-effectively. 

Such sources of waste must be systematically identified and avoided by appropriate design and operation strategies. For example, in distillation, selection of operating temperature and pressure in the distillation column can sometimes minimize fouling in gas absorption, careful attention to liquid distributor and packing... 

The other collaboration task is Performance Assessment which calculates important metrics in order to discover trends, develop other strategies, and assess the attainment of business goals. The retailer task here is Supplier Scorecard, and the manufacturer task is Customer Scorecard. The model described above is a two-tiered model. However, this model can be extended to include more than two layers in the supply chain. VICS calls this N-tier Collaboration, which is a relationship that develops from retailers through manufacturers/distributors to suppliers. 

The flexible production and customer service themes (themes 2 and 3) required major changes in the way Acme managed its plant capacity and scheduled its operations. These changes reflect focused strategies aimed at the emerging role of distributors in the supply chain. For Acme, this could mean three strategies ... 

Our Chapter 10 case study of Acme described a strategy based on the need to be a better partner in multiple market channels. This strategy puts one in the position of preferred provider as a customer or supplier. Here, the direction is also vertical along the supply chain. In Acme s case, one such service was providing selected products rapidly to distributors, a new channel to the end-users of Acme s products. 

Within each activity are one or more processes needed to operate the activity. For example, our Acme strategy in Figure 10.2 included an activity called Flexible Interfaces. This activity contains customer-facing processes tailored to the need of Acme s customers. These customers include both manufacturers and distributors. Each will have different customer interface needs regarding the products they need, their lead-times, and their pricing. Supporting processes for this activity could include Options... 

Conjoint analysis and related techniques are directly relevant to the marketing-operations interface because (1) they address the trade-off between customer satisfaction, which determines an upper-bound on product price, and the pro-duction/distribution cost of the product, and (2) they facilitate acquisition of empirical evidence to evaluate operational strategies. For instance, Lindsley et al., 1991 used conjoint analysis to quantify the tradeoffs that retailers are willing to make among price discoimt, speed of delivery, delivery reliability, number of titles carried in inventory, offered by book distributors. The customer satisfaction equation, estimated by the authors, suggests that a decrease in the discount rate of 0.38% offsets a one-day reduction in delivery time and an increase of 1% title filling rate saves 0.16% discount rate. The equation... 

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