Looks at how Waitrose deals with commodity marketing and category management by examining its category leadership strategy, which aims to reduce costs and align its network to the needs of the consumer. Seeks to shed light on how this was achieved and the key lessons to be learned from this...

Looks at the way in which a pizza manufacturing company, supplying both branded and own‐label products to the Irish and UK retail markets, undertook a major restructuring of its procurement and manufacturing processes. Numerous sub‐processing activities were having adverse effects on...

Purpose – To highlight key success factors in supply chain projects. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents insights from a number of supply chain projects in which IT has played an important part in the business solution. Findings – Successful supply chain projects have four...

Purpose – The paper aims to show how a collaborative approach to demand management can improve customer service to the benefit of both supermarkets and suppliers in sectors characterised by volatile consumer demand. Design/methodology/approach – This insight paper is based on...

Purpose – To illustrate the potential danger of applying “lean thinking” discretely and indiscriminantly in a project environment with high levels of complexity and uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach – Insights are presented from two case studies of private residential construction...

Purpose – To highlight the problems with and propose a framework for improving demand management in retail food supply chains. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on empirical evidence from multiple case studies and develops a framework for improvement in demand management for...

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the importance of a strategic approach to collaborative innovation and the use of a value chain research methodology for identifying opportunities for co‐innovation. Design/methodology/approach – Value chain analysis is used to map...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the problems with demand management in fresh food value chains and to propose a framework for demand analysis and improved demand management. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on empirical evidence from multiple case studies...

Purpose – The paper shows how sustainable value chain analysis (SVCA) can be used as a diagnostic tool to identify misalignment between resource allocation and consumer preferences, using a case study of the Oxford Landing wine chain, from South Australia to the UK. Design/methodology/approach...

Purpose – Value chain analysis (VCA) can expose strategic and operational misalignments within chains, and the consequential misallocation of resources, and hence opportunities for improvements which create value and economic sustainability. This paper's purpose is to argue why and how VCA...