Benefits, Barriers, Bridges to the Implementation of an Efficient Supply Chain Management System in Retail

This research explores the existing operational condition of strategic supply chain management of the retail industry in UAE to find out potential way of implementing the integrated supply chain management system. It includes a comparative analysis of three major retail companies of UAE and examines the underlying barriers within the supply chain management while assessing the most effective path of implementing strategic supply chain management integrated with the demand, partnership, logistics, sustainability and cooperation.

Running head: SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
Benefits, Barriers, Bridges to the Implementation of an Efficient Supply Chain Management
System in Retail
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Chapter 1: Introduction
Research Background
Supply chain management is the backbone of any business irrespective of the
operating market and industry. Therefore, strategic supply chain management can boost the
productivity of any business while keeping the total investment under control. In retail sector
the supply chain is the biggest part of the business, because of 2 phases product line structure
namely inbound and outbound logistics (Bryman and Bell 2015). At the same time, as an
advanced way of Strategic Supply Chain Management (SSCM), Integrated Supply Chain
Management (ISCM) also includes the selection of partnership, product segmentation, testing
parameters, inventory management and other initial phase of development cycle. Because of
direct dependence on inbound product units, the market demand also highly influences the
implementation of integrated operation within existing supply chain management. At the
same time, a retail company has to take care of their inventory management and information
handling measures that can create challenges in the intermediate phase of product cycle
(Chatterjee 2016). Apart from that, external factors like geographical position, scope of
transportation, technological advancement, socio-cultural influence in market, political and
legal interaction can create significant barrier in the supply chain management of any
company, especially in retail sector (Sampath 2015).
Background of the companies
Comparative analysis can help to explore the different sections of the supply chain
management and their potential improvement plan. For the comparative analysis of the
supply chain management system in UAE for retails sector three retail companies have been
chosen namely Al Hokair Fashion Retail, Bin Hendi Enterprises LLC, Landmark Group.

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Al Hokair Fashion Retail is a largest franchise retailer in the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, MENA, UAE and other central Asian countries. The company was established in
1990 and is currently retailing various fashion products of different fashion brands. The
company has worldwide base of suppliers who provides wide variety of cosmetics, footwear,
bags and garments (Touzani, Hirschman and Salah 2016).
Bin Hendi Enterprises LLC was established in 1974 and has brought many premium
level brands to the market of Middle East. However, the current operational market of this
company is UAE. They have different brands for different product markets including
beverage, cosmetics, fast food, garments and others. Because of the diversity of the product
line the company prefers to use customer directly as part of supply chain management (Simon
et al. 2015).
Landmark Group is a multinational conglomerate business based on Dubai and was
founded in 1973. Currently the Landmark Group has huge market base in retail industry of
middle east and southern Asia (Thomas and E. Carraher 2014). The major retail products of
Landmark retail group is Apparel, Footwear, Consumer electronics, Home improvement
materials and Furniture. Recently they have started a new products retailing that consists of
different baby products.
Rationale
From the beginning of the 21 century the economy of UAE is developing drastically
in terms of globalisation, GDP, per capita income, employment rate and per capita
investment. Touzani, Hirschman and Salah (2016), and many other research scholars and
market analysts argue that too much focus on the development of oil and gas industry is
minimising the scope of flourishing the retail industry. Being an arid region the Middle
Eastern countries have to depend on the imported goods for their retail market. Therefore,

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currently retail industry of UAE needs more attention to make their holistic growth more
achievable. This consequence develops the core sense of urgency for strategic supply chain
management in retail sector. This research will provide the in depth analysis of all the supply
chain management components in order to recommend the appropriate implication of
integrated supply chain management.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this research is to explore the existing operational condition of
strategic supply chain management of the retail industry in UAE to find out potential way of
implementing the integrated supply chain management system. In order to do so, the
secondary aim of this research is to compare the strategic supply chain management of three
major retail companies of UAE as well as middle east namely Al Hokair Fashion Retail, Bin
Hendi Enterprises LLC, Landmark Group. This comparison can help to find out the
underlying barriers within the supply chain management while assessing the most effective
path of implementing strategic supply chain management integrated with the demand,
partnership, logistics, sustainability and cooperation.
Research Aims and Objectives
The aim of this research it to explore the existing operational condition of strategic
supply chain management of the retail industry in UAE to find out potential way of
implementing the integrated supply chain management system. As per the aim of this
research the objective of this research can be divided into two separate sections namely
finding out the current obstacles and examining the scopes of improvement. At the same

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time, to set up short term waypoint for this research these two objectives have been
subdivided in four different sections as mentioned below:
To explore the existing SCM strategies of three chosen retail company
To find out the underlying factor behind the barriers of Supply Chain Management
To examine the potential scope of improving supply chain management of retail sector
To find out the efficient supply chain implementation process
Research Questions
As per the research objectives of this study, the following research questions have been
developed.
 What are the existing SCM strategies of three chosen retail company?
 What are the underlying factors behind the barriers of existing Supply Chain
Management?
 What are the potential scopes to implement ISCM in retail sector?
 Which are the major concerns and considerations during the ISCM implementation
process?
Structure of the dissertation
This research has four basic phase or structural components that include Introduction,
literature review, research methodology, data collection and presentation; analysis and
discussion; conclusion and recommendation. After completing the introductory part the
literature review will present the secondary information and arguments from various research
papers and educational websites regarding the definitions and implementations of Integrated
Supply Chain Management. The research methodology section will discuss the process of the

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data collection and interpretation of this study. In the data presentation part, the findings from
raw data will be presented. The findings will be analysed and discussed in the analysis and
discussion part. Finally, in the conclusion and recommendation part the study will be
concluded with final outcomes and set of recommendations for implementing integrated
supply chain management system.

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Reference:
Bryman, A. and Bell, E., 2015. Business research methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
USA.
Chatterjee, A., 2016. Organizational Excellence Through Total Flexi-Quality: People Dimension.
In Managing Flexibility . pp. 37-42.
Rosemann, M. and vom Brocke, J., 2015. The six core elements of business process management.
In Handbook on business process management 1. pp. 105-122.
Sampath, R., 2015. A Study of Suply Chain Management with reference to Fast Moving
Consumer Goods Sector.
Simon, A.T., Serio, L.C.D., Pires, S.R.I. and Martins, G.S., 2015. Evaluating supply chain
management: A methodology based on a theoretical model. Revista de Administração
Contemporânea, 19(1), pp.26-44.
Thomas, T. and E. Carraher, C., 2014. A retail perspective on the shopping behavior, cultures
and personalities for China, United Arab Emirates, Belgium, India, Germany and
America. Journal of Technology Management in China, 9(3), pp.289-296.
Touzani, M., Hirschman, E.C. and Salah, L.H., 2016. Retail stressors in the Middle
East/North Africa region. Journal of Business Research, 69(2), pp.726-735.