Superstores focussing more on supply chain management challenge
Saturday, 30 October 2010
Monira Munni
Organised retailers in the country are focusing more on strengthening their backward linkage supply chain, a challenge faced by retail chain shops for products availability.
As the superstore concept is not very traditional the superstore biggies have failed to grow accordingly mainly due to proper and sufficient supply chain management, top retailers said.
The most organised and disciplined retailers are trying to maintain their own supply chain management to bring fresh and quality products to the store in urban area from root level farmers directly.
Making debut in retailing both the perishables and fast moving consumer goods ACI now also has the highest number of outlets among all the retail chain store operators, although the size of its stores is relatively small than those of others.
ACI logistic that started Shawpno in a large scale across the country stumbled and brought down the number of its outlets to 40 from 65 mainly due to failure in maintaining supply chain, ACI officials said.
"At this moment we have stopped expansion in other areas as infrastructure is not much developed in Bangladesh," Kamal Ahmad, executive consultant of ACI said.
We found it quite challenging as supply chain could be unnecessarily lengthy and such shops need good networking system, he explained.
There is too much traffic congestion and it needs much time to make products available timely, Mr Kamal said adding that "Supply chain action depends on timely delivery."
"Supply chain is the most important and first challenge to sustain the business and retain customers," Niaz Rahim, group director of Rahimafrooz that operates the most organised and disciplined retail shop Agora, said.
"When we started we did not grow accordingly for the supply chain; products did not come as there was inconsistency and damage of products, he said.
But 10 years is a long time to understand the customers behaviour and "Now we are scaling up with our strong supply chain where we identified the farmers who really grow products."
"There works a circle bringing the rural products to the urban shops," Mr Rahim said.
"The first advantage of Nandan is its backward linkage that we have developed and we have consolidated our position," Masrur Chowdhury, chairman and chief executive officer of Nandan Group said.
Nandan has built its own supply chain and there are 500 buyers concentrate on fresh food putting a lot of effects, he added.
"This is the big challenge as in the retail shop 40-50 per cent sales come from fresh products such as vegetables, fish and meat," Shaheen Khan, head of operations of Meenabazar-another superstore biggies-said.
And no such organised supply chain has yet to develop in our country but we the retailers are trying to develop its own one, he said adding that his company has become successful in developing its chain, especially in vegetables and beef.
As there exists transportation problem in maintaining the supply chain, Mr Khan said "We are trying to grow our supply chain around the capital city."
Organised retailers in the country are focusing more on strengthening their backward linkage supply chain, a challenge faced by retail chain shops for products availability.
As the superstore concept is not very traditional the superstore biggies have failed to grow accordingly mainly due to proper and sufficient supply chain management, top retailers said.
The most organised and disciplined retailers are trying to maintain their own supply chain management to bring fresh and quality products to the store in urban area from root level farmers directly.
Making debut in retailing both the perishables and fast moving consumer goods ACI now also has the highest number of outlets among all the retail chain store operators, although the size of its stores is relatively small than those of others.
ACI logistic that started Shawpno in a large scale across the country stumbled and brought down the number of its outlets to 40 from 65 mainly due to failure in maintaining supply chain, ACI officials said.
"At this moment we have stopped expansion in other areas as infrastructure is not much developed in Bangladesh," Kamal Ahmad, executive consultant of ACI said.
We found it quite challenging as supply chain could be unnecessarily lengthy and such shops need good networking system, he explained.
There is too much traffic congestion and it needs much time to make products available timely, Mr Kamal said adding that "Supply chain action depends on timely delivery."
"Supply chain is the most important and first challenge to sustain the business and retain customers," Niaz Rahim, group director of Rahimafrooz that operates the most organised and disciplined retail shop Agora, said.
"When we started we did not grow accordingly for the supply chain; products did not come as there was inconsistency and damage of products, he said.
But 10 years is a long time to understand the customers behaviour and "Now we are scaling up with our strong supply chain where we identified the farmers who really grow products."
"There works a circle bringing the rural products to the urban shops," Mr Rahim said.
"The first advantage of Nandan is its backward linkage that we have developed and we have consolidated our position," Masrur Chowdhury, chairman and chief executive officer of Nandan Group said.
Nandan has built its own supply chain and there are 500 buyers concentrate on fresh food putting a lot of effects, he added.
"This is the big challenge as in the retail shop 40-50 per cent sales come from fresh products such as vegetables, fish and meat," Shaheen Khan, head of operations of Meenabazar-another superstore biggies-said.
And no such organised supply chain has yet to develop in our country but we the retailers are trying to develop its own one, he said adding that his company has become successful in developing its chain, especially in vegetables and beef.
As there exists transportation problem in maintaining the supply chain, Mr Khan said "We are trying to grow our supply chain around the capital city."