Category: Logistics and Supply Chain Management

Give your response to one of the following questions 
1.What differences in the retail environment may justify the fact that the fast-moving consumer goods supply chain in India has far more distributors than it has in the United States?
2.What types of distribution networks are typically best suited for commodity items?
3.Why has the online channel been more successful in the computer hardware industry compared with the grocery industry?
4.Why should an online seller such as Amazon build more warehouses as its sales volume grows?

Supply Chain Management 7th Edition by Chopra, Pearson Publishing, ISBN: 9780134731889.
After reading the material from the textbook, answer the following questions:
What are some key success factors in diamond retailing? How do Blue Nile, Zales, and Tiffany’s compare on those dimensions?
What do you think of the fact that Blue Nile carries many stones priced at $2,500 or higher, whereas a large fraction of the products sold from the Tiffany website are priced at around $200? Which of the two product categories is better suited to the strengths of the online channel?
What do you think of Tiffany’s decision to not sell engagement rings online? What do you think of Blue Nile’s growth into the non-engagement category?
Given that Tiffany stores have thrived with their focus on selling high-end jewelry, what do you think caused the failure of Zales’ upscale strategy in 2006? What products should Zale focus on?
Which of the three companies do you think is best structured to deal with weak economic times?
What advice would you give to each of the three companies regarding its strategy and structure? How can they best use omnichannel retail?
Instructions:
Write a paper summarizing your results. Please use the Case Study Format for this case study and all following case studies.  

Evaluate the financial performance of each company based on the various metrics discussed in Section 3.1, such as ROE, ROA, profit margin, asset turns, APT, C2C, ART, INVT, and PPET.
Can you explain the differences you see in their performance based on their supply chain strategy and structure?
Compare the metrics for each company with similar metrics for Amazon and Nordstrom from Table 3-1. Which metrics does each company perform better on?
What supply chain drivers and metrics might explain this difference in performance?