Prospecting rural supply chain management using a structured approach

Abstract

The Indian retail, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors are poised for rapid growth and are facing new challenges in logistics and supply chain issues related to rural areas. Various reports suggest that with over 70% of the economy centred around the rural parts of the country, these markets offer tremendous scope and many firms are looking at appropriate strategies to address this issue. However, many practitioners and researchers seem to believe that the issues related to marketing and supply chain are radically different from the traditional approaches hitherto used. It was envisaged to verify how realistic these opinions are. The approach used was to develop structural relationships involving three well known frameworks such as the supply chain operations reference (SCOR) elements, marketing processes (MP) and the marketing mix variables (MMV) in the context of rural supply chain so as to evolve strategies for understanding and managing rural supply chain better. The study revealed that there is significantly varying associations among different groups of marketing processes with the elements of SCOR and this is also true with different groups of marketing variables. The findings of the study are reported in this paper.

Ecological Design Practice and Sustainable Performance of Multinational Tea Firms in Kenya

“…The research findings on eco-design are also supported by empirical studies of Momanyi (2013) andMohammed (2012), who affirmed that adopting green manufacturing practices was beneficial to firms; Babu (2013) who established that eco-design is one of the practices of GSCP; Aslam, Waseem and Khurram (2019) affirmation that corporate image was significantly shaped by customer cooperation, internal environment, green supply chain, inventory and eco-friendly activities and Thoo et al (2015) through their study that documented that process design and green product were the leading predictor of performance.…”

“…The results indicated 0.6678 at a 5% confidence interval, implying that GSCM has a positive impact on most manufacturing firms in Mombasa. Babu (2013) did a study on green supply chain practices and the operational performance of personal care manufacturing firms in Nairobi. From the findings, 33.33% of the respondents indicated that a good image was created by CSR, 17.46% of the respondents indicated an increase in output against the same cost of material, 15.87% of the respondents indicated brand enhancement, 17.46% indicated a reduction on logistics costs, 15.87% indicated that manpower could be utilised to increase output.…”

The overlap spaces of alternative economy and subaltern businesses: a study of emigrant peddlers

“…The Warna Bazar cooperative movement, formed by rural inhabitants to enable the marketing of their produce to their fellow members, is an appropriate example of alternative economy (Kumar and Babu 2013). Tribeni Floating Markets, a set of retailing barges operated by a cooperative on the Alapuzho backwaters of Kerala (a state in India) to service the island villages, is another example of alternative economic networks (Sarkar 2013).…”