Challenges and Measures in Disruptive Times: Lessons Learned for Grocery Retail Operations from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Obermair, Elisabeth; Holzapfel, Andreas; Kühn, Heinrich; Sternbeck, Michael

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3989993

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Proactive and reactive (adaptation and recovery) measures can be taken to address these risks (Ivanov 2021b). The proposed proactive measures, i.e., creating flexibility or redundancy (see, e.g., Obermair et al (2022)), show strong similarities to the approaches relevant to addressing the public holiday challenges. While these measures create general conditions for higher responsiveness, solution concepts for public holiday planning comprise additional mid-term capacity balancing elements that further relax workload in the peak seasons.…”

Section: Managerial Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Operational planning for public holidays in grocery retailing - managing the grocery retail rush

2023

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Public holiday weeks cause specific challenges in grocery retailing as sales are raising and working days for logistics processes are reduced. The paper analyzes the operational planning challenges and solutions for demand planning and disposition as well as for warehouse and transportation management of grocery retailers in public holiday seasons. A total of 22 top managers representing 20 sales lines of 17 of the top 30 grocery retailers in Germany participated in the study. Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with logistics managers were conducted and analyzed. Uncertainties and missing resources can be identified as the two main challenges of public holiday seasons in grocery retailing. Retailers implement numerous measures that can be summarized in three categories, i.e., the adjustment of workload profiles, the adaptation of resources and modifying processes. Literature has so far considered public holidays only to a limited extent, e.g., as a parameter in forecasting models or for the application of marketing instruments. This study is the first developing a framework and providing insights into operational planning in grocery retailing.

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Section: Managerial Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 96%