This paper studies distribution channel structure strategies (to centralize or decentralize) for two competing supply chains that sell substitutable products with price and lead-time sensitive demand. We find that centralization (decentralization) associates with itself a price (lead-time)...

Problem definition: Strategic inventory refers to the inventory held by firms purely out of strategic considerations other than operational reasons (e.g., economies of scale). In this paper, we investigate the roles of strategic inventory in a system with two parallel supply chains under both...