Along time ago the supply chain of companies looked very much like the model below, which is the traditional retail model. In the traditional retail model standardization is the norm, which means that products are mass produced at the manufacturing plant and then sent to the distribution centers. Afterwards the products are distributed to the stores where consumers can purchase them and then consume them. Because the strategy is based on standardization, no distinction is made between consumers and each product that is manufactured has the same design and undergoes the exact same production process and is afterwards distributed to every consumer in the same fashion. Continue reading Mini-case Demand Driven Supply Chain
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Recommendations from Bol.com
Bol.com is an online retail store that sells a multitude of different products ranging from electronic goods to books and lawn products to animal food. Besides its very wide variety of products, Bol.com is also very well known for its product recommendation system.
For example: when I go on the website and search for a new PlayStation controller, the website immediately recommends other products, like a charging system or a camera. This generates a lot of value for the consumer, because it helps consumers find products Continue reading Recommendations from Bol.com
My M&M’S
During the second class of the Consumer Channel Dynamics course, the professor gave us a few examples of companies that have begun using mass customization to add more value to their products. One of the examples he mentioned was M&M`s. It used to be that if you wanted to eat M&M`s you were restricted to eating the M&M`s with the M on it. Nowadays people can go to the My M&M’S website and personally customize the M&M`s themselves by placing pictures or words on them. When this first came to my knowledge I immediately thought to myself, why haven`t I heard of this before? That’s because I think this is a fantastic idea. It’s very hard to come up with something new these days, but reinventing an already existing product is just as hard. Some might say it’s even harder due to the risk of damaging the existing brand name. Continue reading My M&M’S
Consumer Value Creation 