The Value of Category Captainship in the Presence of Manufacturer Competition

Past event — 15 January 2014
12:0013:00 

Kühne Logistics University
Grosser Grasbrook 17, 20457 Hamburg

English
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Dr. Alper Nakkas

Assistant Professor

SKK Graduate School of Business

Abstract

This research investigates the value of category captainship (a management practice in which a retailer relies on a manufacturer for recommendations regarding strategic category management decisions) in retail supply chains. We consider a setting where the scope of category management is limited to assortment decisions and demand enhancing activities. We assume that the retailer selects a category captain among multiple competing manufacturers with privately known capabilities for driving category traffic. First, we consider a benchmark scenario where the retailer is responsible for category management. Then, we consider the category captainship scenario where the retailer selects one of the manufacturers as a captain to manage the category. We find that captainship is more likely to emerge in categories where the cost of managing variety, the retail margins, and the competition for captainship are moderate and the captain is more capable of driving traffic compared to the retailer. In such categories the collaboration between the retailer and the captain ensures sufficient surplus for both parties. Finally, we show that captainship can also benefit the non-captain manufacturers.

About the presenter

Dr. Alper Nakkas is Assistant Professor of Decision Sciences at the SKK Graduate School of Business, South Korea. He received his PhD in Economics from Vanderbilt University, USA and worked as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Operations Management group of Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. Before joining the SKK Graduate School of Business, he worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Sloan School of Management, MIT. Professor Nakkas' specialization is on the retail operations and supply chain management. His research focuses on the collaboration practices such as category captainship in the retailing industry.

more info about Dr. Alper Nakkas

About the Seminar

The KLU research seminar series is a regular meeting of PhD students, Post-Docs and professors who conduct research in the field of logistics and supply chain management. The research seminar is open to the public and we happily welcome guests.