SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND THEIR APPLICABILITY IN SRI LANKA’S SUPERMARKETS

Abstract

Modern trade or the self-service chains as opposed to traditional retail shops are growing fast now. Customers always want to touch and feel the products. As the economy expands and self-service chains/supermarkets business develops rapidly, Supply Chain Management (SCM) has become one of the key determinants of success against increasing competition. Effective SCM develops value-added processes that deliver innovative, high quality, low cost products on time with greater responsiveness than ever before to meet the exceptional value demanded by customers. The challenge is to implement a supply chain solution that brings maximum return on investment and efficiencies to the business. The research focused on identifying current SCM practices in Sri Lankan supermarkets, benchmarking them with global SCM best practices and recommending improvements based on the cultural differences, size and other constraints. The qualitative and quantitative benchmarking  research methodologies were adapted for the study. A convenient sample of four supermarket chains in Colombo and suburban areas were selected. In-depth interviews were conducted with various supply chain and operation management professionals in supermarket Retail Outlets (RO), Head Offices (HO) and Distribution Centers (DC). The collected data were analyzed and benchmarked against the global supermarket SCM best practices. The Supply-Chain Operations Reference-model (SCOR) developed by Supply Chain Council was also used as a guideline for the study. It was identified that supermarkets in Sri Lanka use SCM best practices to certain extent. However, they need further improvements for more efficient operations.  Therefore, the suitable best practices and strategies were recommended to each supermarkets based on the applicability.

Keywords: Benchmarking, Best Practices, Supermarkets, Supply Chain Management

For full paper: fmscresearch@sjp.ac.lk