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Reinventing the Retail Supply Chain
Collins
November 1997
On Sale: November 12, 1997
272 pages
ISBN: 0887308333
EAN: 9780887308338
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Featuring visionary companies like Wal-Mart, AT&T and Kinko's, whose leadership as demand-chain managers is helping them to create the marketplace of the 21st-century, Blackwell illustrates the cutting-edge concept of demand-chain management and its role in revolutionizing retailing in the new millennium.
From the Publisher
The Radical Reinvention of Retail. In the hyper-competitive retail environment of the twenty-first century, says business consultant and marketing professor Roger D. Blackwell, the key to success will be the ability to penetrate the mind of the consumer - and the traditional "supply chain" leading from manufacturer to distributor to retailer will be inadequate to support this goal. Instead, companies will need to forge more intimate alliances, forming highly integrated "demand chains" that tap the mind of the consumer and smoothly bring the resulting ideas to market. Blackwell shows how companies can build such demand chains, and profiles innovators who already have, in "From Mind To Market : Reinventing the Retail Supply Chain" (HarperBusiness; November 12, 1997).
Blackwell, who was hailed by The New York Times as the "guru of... how to do business in a global marketplace," shows that companies that form strategic alliances in order to better understand and address the needs and desires of their customers will gain the competitive advantage. It is not enough to know what people are buying, he argues; demand chain leaders must understand how the buying decision is made and how the product is used. Understanding the minds of customers will be the key to anticipating their needs and bringing new products to market quickly and effectively. From Kinko's to The Limited to the Max & Erma's restaurant chain to The Gap, Blackwell profiles companies that have already mastered mind to market and demand chain techniques. They are companies that have learned how to collect information from their customers and act on it, how to analyze and apply demographic and psychographic data, and how to shift responsibilities within the demand chain for maximum effectiveness and service to the customer. Blackwell shows how: BancOne transformed the banking industry with consumer-friendly innovations by utilizing consumer information in an unprecedented way. Republic Industries radically altered the car business by solving a simple problem faced by the majority of its customers. Newell fosters innovative partnerships between manufacturers and retailers in order to increase profits. The Limited, by streamlining its logistics, lowered its operating costs, while simultaneously improving customer service and the quality of its products. We are entering an "era of compression," says Blackwell, in which a wide variety of factors are combining to increase competitive pressures. The insights into consumer needs and desires provided by mind to market techniques and demand chain organization will offer the necessary edge to companies that wish to survive in the next century.
 Media BuzzCBS Sunday Morning - January 21, 2007
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