The four papers included in this issue together offer theoretical and practical insight that adds great value to the research and practice in the area of supply chain management. The first paper, “Organizational Maturity Significantly Enhances Six Sigma Implementation Success”, by Sam K Formby and Dinesh S Dave, highlights that for almost three decades since Motorola in 1986 and GE in 1995 made six sigma a popular business improvement tool, successful implementation of six sigma improvements continues to be elusive. Many organizations still report that the implementation of six sigma improvements is not resulting in the quantifiable benefits expected. Over the past decade, many studies of success and failure factors have highlighted key factors such as management commitment and involvement, methodology and tools, six sigma training, skills and resources, and linkage with business as most important to achieving six sigma success. The authors observe that limited research is available on factors related to the organizational maturation process as six sigma is adopted. Hence, in this study the authors examine three contextual factors and three factors generally related to organizational maturity in a six sigma improvement culture. The results indicate that experience, generally greater than 5 years, and the breadth and depth of workforce involvement, generally greater than 10%, are significantly related to successful implementation of six sigma improvements.

The second paper, “Demand Chain Management: The Marketing and Supply Chain Interface Redefined”, by Arun Kumar Deshmukh and Ashutosh Mohan, highlights that customer-centric marketing orientation, as a customer facing interface, has gained prominence among academicians and practitioners. However, the success of a business transaction equally hinges on back office function, i.e., Supply Chain Management (SCM). The authors argue that several businesses operated these functions as two different silos which ultimately hindered their overall business performance. Hence, in this paper, the authors have adopted an integrative approach which combines the two (marketing and SCM) to constitute a synergistic concept, i.e., Demand Chain Management (DCM). The authors observe that research in this area so far has conceptualized and empirically examined the issues related to marketing and SCM separately. However, DCM has not been explored much. Hence, in this paper, the authors explore the conceptual foundations of DCM in general. The paper elucidates the key concepts associated with DCM, followed by real-time cases of two apparel retailers, i.e., Shoppers Stop and Zara. The cases discuss the success stories of the two retailers, made possible by the effective execution of DCM. The study comprises the use of both interpretive paradigm and constructivist epistemology.

The third paper, “An Empirical Analysis of Retailer’s Influence on Apparel Outsourcing: A Manufacturer’s Perspective”, by Sushil S Chaurasia and Miral Jani, highlights that in a typical retailer-manufacturer outsourcing relationship, retailers are Focus 6 The IUP Journal of Supply Chain Management, Vol. XIII, No. 1, 2016 Nikhat Afshan Consulting Editor gaining greater control over strategic activities and the locus of power, which were formerly the remit of manufacturers. The objectives of this study are to test the relationship between the level of power of a retailer and its frequency of use of various types of influence strategies (such as requests, promises, threats, etc.) and to examine the inter-correlation between the frequencies of use of different types of influence strategies and the power attributed to it by the manufacturer. This research is based on primary data collected from 230 respondents of 128 apparel manufacturing units. Information related to influence on decision areas of manufacturer was collected through a structured questionnaire. The findings of this study reveal that the retailer’s frequency of use of information exchange and request as an influence strategy are negatively correlated with the frequency of use of promise, threat and legalistic pleas. Manufacturer dependency, inefficiency, and incapability in terms of resources decide the influence strategies to be used by the manufacturer.

The last paper, “A Sensitivity Analysis of the Cloud Characteristics in Supply Chain Network Using AHP”, by Anil B Gowda and K N Subramanya, highlights that cloud computing is evolving rapidly in various forms of services and the decision makers in the supply chain industry are exploring the capabilities and benefits of cloud services to the supply chain network. The authors argue that there is a great potential for adopting cloud computing services to manage various services in the supply chain industry. This is evident from the fact that some of the companies have migrated to cloud-based systems or are in the process of migration. With various commercial models and services already established in the market and the availability of the cloud platform offering a spectrum of services, it is time that the cloud services be evaluated and assessed with a view to its benefits to the supply chain management. The paper focuses on sensitivity analysis of cloud characteristics, especially pay as per usage characteristics over other characteristics like scalability, increased collaboration, decision support capabilities and cost savings. Weighted scores are obtained based on a hierarchy analysis technique used for multicriterion decision making. A function representing weighted average scores for each service characteristics in relation to other service characteristics needs to be investigated with varying rates of importance of one characteristic over the other. As the importance varies, the weighted average scores also vary. The function indicates the weighted average score of each characteristic and also the variations in the weightages as ratings change from one situation to another. The authors have used a simulation technique to analyze and assess the weightages of various cloud characteristics. The services considered are the ones that will be useful in supply chain management.

--Nikhat Afshan
Consulting Editor