Indian Organised Apparel Retail Sector and DSS (Decision Support Systems)

Indian apparel retail sector poses interesting challenges to a manager as it is evolving and closely linked to fashions. Appealing mainly to youth, the sector has typical information requirements to manage its operations. DSS (Decision Support Systems) provide timely and accurate information & it can be viewed as an integrated entity providing management with the tools and information to assist their decision making. The study exploratory in nature, adopts a case study approach to understand practices of organized retailers in apparel sector regarding applications of various DSS tools. Conceptual overview of DSS is undertaken by reviewing the literature. The study describes practices and usage of DSS in operational decisions in apparel sector and managerial issues in design and implementation of DSS. A multi brand local chain and multi brand national chain of apparel was chosen for the study. Varied tools were found to be used by them. It was also found that for sales forecasting and visual merchandising decisions, prior experience rather than any DSS tool was used. The benefits realized were; “help as diagnostic tool”, “accuracy of records and in billing”, “smooth operations”. The implementation issues highlighted by the store managers were; more initial teething problems rather than resistance on the part of employees of the store, need for investment of time & money in training, due to rapid technological advancements, time to time updation in DSS tools is required . Majority of operational decisions like inventory management, CRM, campaign management were handled by ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) or POS (Point of Sale). Prioritization as well as quantification of benefits was not attempted. The issues of coordination, integration with other systems in case of ERP usage, training were highlighted. Future outlook of DSS seems bright as apparel retailers are keen to invest in technology.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Strategic Corporate Research Report

[Excerpt] Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (hereinafter Wal-Mart) is the second-largest company in the world. It has more annual revenue than the GDP of Switzerland. It sells more DVDs, magazines, books, CDs, dog food, diapers, bicycles, toys, toothpaste, jewelry, and groceries than any other retailer does worldwide. It is the largest retailer in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, the second-largest in the United Kingdom, and the third largest in Brazil, With its partners, it is the largest retailer in Central America. Wal-Mart is also the largest private employer in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and it has 1.8 million employees around the globe. Wal-Mart is so huge that it effectively sets the terms for large swaths of the global economy, from retail wages to apparel prices to transoceanic shipping rates to the location of toy factories. Indeed, if there is one single aspect to understand about the company, it is the fact that Wal-Mart is transforming the relations of production in virtually every product category it sells, through its relationships with suppliers. But its influence goes far beyond the economy. It sets social policy by refusing to sell certain types of birth control. Its construction of supercenters molds the landscape, shapes traffic patterns, and alters the local commercial mix. The retail goliath shapes culture by selling the music of patriotic country singer Garth Brooks but not the critical (and hilarious) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (the Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction. It influences politics by donating millions to conservative politicians and think tanks. Wal-Mart is, in short, one of the most powerful entities in the world. Not surprisingly, Wal-Mart has developed a long list of critics, including unions, human rights organizations, religious groups, environmental activists, community organizations, small business groups, academics, children’s rights groups, and even institutional investors. These groups have exposed the company’s illegal union-busting tactics, its many violations of overtime laws, its abuse of child labor, its egregious healthcare policies, its super-exploitation of immigrant workers, its rampant gender discrimination, the horrific labor conditions at its suppliers’ factories, and its unlawful environmental degradation. They have also chronicled the deleterious effect Wal-Mart has on the public coffers and the quality of community life. New Wal-Mart stores and distribution centers often swallow up government subsidies and tax breaks, take public land, create more congestion, reduce overall wages, destroy retail variety, and increase public outlays for healthcare. To its critics, Wal-Mart represents the worst aspects of 21st-eentury capitalism. Wal-Mart usually counters any criticism with two words: low prices. It is a powerful mantra in a consumerist world. The company does make more products affordable to more people, and that is nothing to sneeze at when wages are stagnant, jobs insecure, pensions disappearing, and health coverage shrinking. With low prices, Wal-Mart helps working men and women get more from their meager paychecks, more necessities like bread, and more luxuries, like roses, too. It is a brilliant and incontrovertible argument, and Wal-Mart’s most ardent defenders take it even farther. They say its obsession with low prices makes the entire economy more efficient and more productive. Suppliers and competitors have to produce more and better products with the same resources, and that redounds to everyone. In the micro, it means falling prices and rising product quality. In the macro, it means economic growth, more jobs, and higher tax revenues. To its defenders, Wal-Mart represents the best aspects of 21st-century capitalism. Despite their radical opposition, critics and defenders of the world’s largest corporation agree on one thing: Wal-Mart represents 21st-century capitalism. It symbolizes a system of increasing market penetration and decreasing social regulation, where more and more aspects of life around the world are subject to economic competition. Wal-Mart’s success rests upon the ongoing destruction of social power in favor of corporate power. It takes advantage of the conditions of the neo-liberal world, from the availability of instant and inexpensive global communication to the continuing collapse of agricultural employment around the world to the rapid diffusion of technological innovation to the oversupply of subjugated migrant labor in nearly every country to the continued existence of undemocratic and corporate-dominated governments. For some, this is as it should be, all part of capitalism’s natural and ultimately benign development. For the rest of us, Wal-Mart is at the heart of what is wrong with the world

Smart manufacturing: role of Internet of Things in process optimization

This research is primarily focused on process optimization in manufacturing field in business-to-business context. The study is an effort to point out the issues manufacturers face at their shop floor and it provides solutions for dealing with those issues. During the last decade the Internet of Things (IoT) has gained a lot of attention from both academia and practitioners. IoT emphasizes on the importance of physical objects transferring information by using both software and the Internet. Based on the global trends, nowadays, there is a clear requirement for companies to focus on how they can implement IoT in order to facilitate their businesses and create new business and market opportunities. IoT is able to connect various things and objects around us which are able to interact with each other. In other words, IoT technologies not only connect a particular industrial system or supply chain, but also connects stakeholders and end-customers. The goal of the thesis is to discuss IoT technologies and elaborate on how they are implemented in manufacturing processes. One empirical case study on IoT applications in shop floors and production lines carried out. Two cases were selected based on being a pioneer in implementing IoT technologies into manufacturing and highly optimized production at targeted factories. The cases represent next generation of smart factories which IoT technologies and in particular RFID solutions play an important role. A qualitative document analysis was conducted. The topic of this research is relatively new and therefore majority of references used for this paper are from 2014 onwards. Data were collected from public, non-confidential information sources including press releases, newspapers, articles and journals. The research approach was primarily descriptive with the focus on differences between previous production optimization technologies and IoT applications in use today. The results of thesis demonstrates that IoT technologies bring transparency, traceability, adaptability, scalability and flexibility to the system. Therefore, the adoption of IoT has quite a few potential benefits, including improvement in cost and risk reduction, operational processes and value creation. This research also shows that using IoT technologies for their benefits is not an easy task for enterprises. Companies face many challenges on the way including layout changes in the factory’s shop floor, changes in the design of the products, security concerns and consumer privacy. Moreover, since the IoT is a recent development, different aspects of the IoT such as economical, managerial and industrial aspects need to be studied. And this makes companies hesitant to make decisions regarding the adoption of IoT

The impact of industry 4.0 on supply chains

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, known as Industry 4.0 (I4.0), is fundamentally changing the way businesses operate from product development to sales. Yet, research usually focuses on its impact on production or logistics alone and little research has been done on how the supply chains (SC) of the future will look like. In this work project, an analysis of the impact of I4.0 on SC was developed from the review of published literature, with the inclusion of small case studies that served as concrete examples of this impact. From this, a vision for the future of SC was developed

RFID Assisted smart conveyor system with industrial robot hand

In ~his ~aper a prototype smart conveyor system is developed with the integration of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology and a robot hand for product handling in a manufacturing environment. A novel Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) with customer based production is introduced using web-services techno.'ogy and a real-time updatable inventory database to enhance operational efficiency of the manufacturing environment. The FMS designed is a fully automated system with RFID tags/detectors, intelligent control systems, robot arms and sorting mechanisms, smart conveyor system and a real time updatable inventory database with application software. This study demonstrates the significance and benefits of a sr:zart conveyor sys~em with the integration of RFlD technology for product identification and handling, specifically tn the manufacturing industry

Off-site Manufacture in Australia : Current State and Future Directions

Off-site manufacture (OSM) offers numerous benefits to all parties in the construction process. The uptake of OSM in Australia has, however, been limited. This limited uptake corresponds to similar trends in the UK and US, although the level of OSM there appears to be increasing. This project undertook three workshops — one each in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia — and 18 interviews with key stakeholders to assist in identifying the general benefits and barriers to OSM uptake in the Australian construction industry. Seven case studies were also undertaken, involving construction projects that used OSM, ranging from civil projects through to residential. Each of these case studies has been analysed to identify what worked and what didn’t, and suggest the lessons to be learned from each project

Is traditional retail moving to e-commerce in the field of the fashion industry in India?

The main aim of this dissertation is to discover whether consumers feel that e-commerce provides superior performance and technology facilities than traditional retail from the perspective of Indian consumers, and to assess the importance of Omni-channel concepts and operations in the fashion industry. The fashion industry is one of the foremost business segments in India. Currently, the fashion industry is overcoming with new technology and innovation in their business. In the 1990s e-commerce was introduced saw the potential possibilities of innovation, and the new concepts which made the consumer base attractive towards e-commerce. Online retailers are growing faster than traditional retailers due to high pressure from online retailer’s offers and strategies. This research is identifies the issues in the fashion retail business in India. What are the challenges faced by traditional retail? What are the environmental causes disturbing the fashion retail industry which are argued with more detail in PEST analysis and Porter’s five forces of modern retailing and communication? Traditional fashion retailers understand how to solve difficulties and challenges in the supply chain. Discussed many technologies for fashion retail markets to improve their strategy and customer satisfaction. Researching the hypotheses are collecting behaviourism, functionalism, and experimental ideas what should traditional retailers do in their retail shop and which channel should they adopt for their business? Hypotheses are used to conduct a quick market analysis to understand the Indian demographic attitudes towards technologies, client interest, and Omni-channel. We need to understand which approaches we can use to gain knowledge in theoretical perspective. Multiple techniques are involved in the analysis and validation of hypotheses. I used SPSS tool for data analysis with cross-tabulation function. In this research I found that traditional retail and e-commerce are independent of each other but gradually merging, a most important factor for future fashion industry trends. They are systematically embracing Omni-channel strategy to provide good consumer service

Walmart in China

[Excerpt] What happens when the world\u27s largest corporation encounters the world\u27s biggest country? There are two areas of special interest — the impact of the Walmart supply chain, including the impact on the Chinese workers who manufacture Walmart products; and separately, Walmart\u27s retail business and its brand of management practices when imported across cultures into the Walmart supercenters inside China. In both respects, has Walmart succeeded in a Walmartization of China

In Trusts We Trust: Pension Funds Between Social Protection and Financial Speculation.

les réformes européennes des retraites ont pris pour référence le système américain. cet article propose de comprendre les origines d'une telle croyance persistante dans les vertus des fonds de pension. l'analyse met en évidence le rôle joué par leur structure juridique, le trust, dans la légitimation de la "pension industry".Recent reforms of European pension schemes have largely taken the American system as a reference.The remarks which follow are aimed at understanding the origins of such a persistent belief in the virtues of the pension funds. The analysis brings out the role played by their legal structure, the trust, in the legitimisation of the ‘pension industryFonds de pension; Trust;