Cutting the wrong employees can be counterproductive for retailers, new research from Harvard Business School professor Zeynep Ton concludes. One suggestion: Pay attention to staff who handle mundane tasks such as stocking and labeling. Your customers do.
Published in 2007
Organizational behavior has become an increasingly important aspect of operations management. In this paper, alignment refers to an organization's sales and manufacturing groups working toward the same target for the sales of a particular product. What are the best conditions in supply chain planning for alignment across functions and across the firm? Kraiselburd and Watson push the frontier of theory with their use of mathematical modeling and game theory. They show that seemingly behavioral and psychological effects may still occur if both parties are rational profit maximizers in an economic sense.
Self-regulation has been all over the news, but are firms that adopt such programs already better on important measures like labor and quality practices? Does adopting a program help companies improve faster? In this Q&A, HBS professor Michael Toffel gives a reality check and discusses the trends for managers.
In research surrounding inventory policies, there is a prevailing assumption of completely rational agents. In practice, however, deviations from the optimal policy abound, and analytical models to understand the effects of inventory dynamics on practice may require ways to model these deviations. Modeling deviations from the optimal policy is also important for better understanding inventory systems and supply chains. The term "perceptions" in Watson's research is not meant in its conventional sense, as in the perceptions of individual managers, but rather forms the basis for a framework for modeling and categorizing a range of inventory policies, including optimal inventory policy. This paper, which is a technical article meant more for an academic audience, explores the usefulness of his framework for categorizing the range of inventory policies that can be employed in a single-stage supply chain.
Published in 2006
By their very nature, consensus forecasts contain subjective elements that can compromise forecast accuracy. In this case study of the implementation of a sales and operations planning process in a consumer electronics company, Oliva and Watson studied the organizational and political dimensions of forecast generation and improvement. Ultimately, consensus forecasting constructively managed the influence of biases (such as overconfidence) on forecasts.
Why do companies have such a hard time getting various functions to coordinate? Leitax, the pseudonym for a consumer electronics company studied by the authors, was suffering major supply-chain planning problems in 2002. The chief reason was typical to organizations: poor integration among the various functions. In response, the company introduced a system (rather than just a set of mechanisms) to better coordinate all processes and functions. The new system led to better collaboration from all participants, improved information-sharing, accurate and validated plans, and alignment in the execution of those plans.
Too often channel strategies develop at the last minute--when a product is ready to go to market. But this haphazard approach leaves a lot of efficiencies and synergies by the wayside, says V. Kasturi Rangan. Enter the concept of the "channel steward."
Published in 2004
Surprise: Managers are not always rational decision makers. In this interview, professors Rogelio Oliva and Noel Watson discuss how human behavior affects supply chain coordination.
Published in 2003
How do you turn short-term transactions into long-term relationships? Harvard Business School professor Narakesari Narayandas finds answers in mature industrial markets.
Operational problems are a drag on business and often can be traced to poor controls in interorganizational settings, says HBS professor V.G. Narayanan. Here are his suggestions for tightening up those controls.
Suddenly your supply chain is full of weak links, everything from terrorism to political instability to dock strikes. Could you and your customers withstand a disruption?
Published in 2001
Published in 2000
Dramatic change is taking place in today's supply chain, say HBS professors Ananth Raman and Roy Shapiro, and it's up to the general manager to assemble a team that can implement the new principles and practices the change requires.
