Modern Supply Chains: from competition to collaboration Serguei
Netessine
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What made me thinking about cooperation vs. competition
(1997)
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Some data Searched ISI within Management Science, Operations
Research and M&SOM
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Plan for today Motivation: evolution of supplier management in
the automotive industry. Practical vices and virtues of
collaboration. Tools for studying cooperative behavior: Cooperative
game theory Contract theory Repeated games and reputations
Empirical work
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Sourcing in the automotive industry Most parts of the car are
outsourced (70% in value) 80% of the life-time cost is defined in
the R&D process stage Precise engineering specifications are
often difficult, require joint expertise of the supplier and the
assembler There are many forms of vertical relations with
suppliers, from integration to partnerships to arms length
relations (markets). 5
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Dramatic differences across manufacturers in supplier
management approaches Arms length relations: minimal information
exchange (bidding on prices) and low interdependence.
Partnerships/collaboration: knowledge-sharing routines of
proprietary information (production processes, design, market).
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How Toyota collaborates with suppliers Collaborative supplier
management is an often cited reason of Toyotas financial success.
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How does collaboration help? Cost reduction. 8
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Vices and Virtues of Collaboration Benefits of collaboration
(Pyke and Johnson, 2003) Lower cost, higher quality, improved
product performance Most significant benefit is faster new product
introduction Factors that determine the degree of collaboration
Strategic importance of the purchased component Number of suppliers
in the market Complexity of the component and modularity of
component architecture Uncertainty in production cost, quality,
delivery lead time, etc. Examples Boeing / GE, Rolls-Royce, Pratt
& Whitney Ford / Lear Consumer electronics company / contract
manufacturer CPFR, ECR and now Jointly agreed growth in retail
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Pros and cons of collaboration Why collaborate? What hinders
collaboration? 10
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Approach 1: Cooperative Game Theory Axiomatically defined in
the 50s, but research even in economics is quite limited relative
to non-cooperative game theory. In essence, solutions often boil
down to integer programming problems (e.g., finding the core of the
game). Nevertheless, applications in Operations Management are
limited The focus is on division of profits after forming
coalitions, not on actions of players hard to swallow for
operations people. Typically, grand coalition is shown to be in the
core of the game (not terribly surprising). Hard to show anything
analytically, even for deterministic problems
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Some research examples Key recent authors : Granot and Granot
(UBC), Greys Sosic (USC), Mahesh Nagarajan (UBC), Moshe Dror
(Arizona) Topics: inventory centralization, pooling queues, sharing
fixed costs. Good references: M. Nagarajan and G. Sosic.
Game-theoretic analysis of cooperation among supply chain agents:
review and extensions. EJOR. Dror, M, and B.C. Hartman. 2011.
Survey of Cooperative Inventory Games and Extensions. J. of
Operational Research Society, 62, 565-580. Brandenburger, A. and H.
Stuart, Biform Games. Management Science 2007, 53, 537-549.
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Approach 2: Contract Theory Kim, S.-H. and S. Netessine, 2011.
Collaborative Collaborative Cost Reduction and Component
Procurement Under Information Asymmetry. Working Paper,
http://www.netessine.com. Developed a model that captures pros and
cons of collaborative cost reduction Collaboration brings lower
cost and higher efficiency to the supply chain, but both parties
need to chip in Mutual efforts are required Key source of
inefficiency: Information asymmetry about costs How does a
procurement contract affect an incentive to collaborate? Identify
conditions that lead to high degree of collaboration Amount of cost
reduction Demand uncertainty Supply chain parties relative
contribution to collaboration
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Model setup One manufacturer, one supplier Uncertain demand and
inventory risk for the end-product Random demand D : IGFR with pdf
f and cdf F End-product retail price is fixed at r Uncertain
component unit cost during product design Collaborative cost
reduction is an outcome of mutual efforts Linear cost of effort: k
m e m and k s e s Inspired by: Roels, G., U. S. Karmarkar, S. Carr.
2010. Contracting for collaborative services. Management Science.
56(5), 849-863. e m = Manufacturers effort e s = Suppliers effort =
Collaboration level = Elasticity of manufacturers effort
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Component cost reduction through collaboration = / reduction in
expected unit cost = % reduction in unit cost uncertainty For
analytical tractability, assume: 1.Conditional distribution G(| )
of c is uniformly distributed 2.Lower support bound of c is
constant Higher collaboration level Lower expected unit cost &
smaller uncertainty around it
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Sequence of events Supplier exerts effort Stage 1Stage 2 Demand
and unit cost are uncertain; their distributions are common
knowledge Supplier privately learns his type (i.e., cost is
realized) Manufacturer decides when to offer a contract Demand is
realized Supplier delivers the components and financial
transactions are made Manufacturer sells the end products in the
market Supplier begins production of components Manufacturer exerts
effort Contract commitments Screening contract
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Summary of results and insights Collaboration is a double-edged
sword for the supplier, it may be optimal not to collaborate Lower
expected unit cost Potential for higher profitability Lower
uncertainty in unit cost Danger of being held up by the
manufacturer ex-post Larger demand variability maps to a higher
collaboration level Not because the supply chain parties become
cooperative, but because the manufacturer induces the supplier to
increase the pie size and then eats more of it Expected Margin
Commitment (EMC) Hold-up problem under price commitment, but the
manufacturer does not benefit from cost reduction EMC: Effective in
resolving both issues Manufacturer prefers EMC to a screening
contract when: Collaboration leads to a significant reduction in
unit cost Demand variability is small or modest EMC in practice:
Japanese auto industry
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Approach 3: Relational Contracting, Repeated Games and
Reputation Now famous Folk Theorem (Friedman 1970) states that, in
infinitely repeated games, almost any equilibrium (including
collaboration) can be sustained if discounting of the future
payoffs is not too high. Interpretation: value of future
relationship sustains collaboration. Implications for supply
chains: even very simple coordinating contracts that dont work well
in a single-period setting can work quite well in
infinitely-repeated relationships. See Plambeck and Taylor papers
(several of them), Ren, Cohen, Ho and Terwiesch (empirical +
modeling). The downside: it is very hard to show anything
interesting beyond this basic result.
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F. W. McFarlan, W. C. Kirby, and T. Y. Manty. Li & Fung
2006. HBS Case 307077, Harvard Business School, Boston. 2007. G. W.
Loveman and J. OConnell. Li & Fung (Trading) Ltd. HBS Case
396075, Harvard Business School, Boston. 1995.
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Li & Fung Limited: What Does it Do? Global Platform of
Suppliers Buyers outsource sourcing to Li & Fung Has a global
platform of suppliers Finds suppliers that are matching the buyer
Allocates orders between suppliers Insures good behavior (Quality,
information, etc.)
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Food Products: Olam International D. E. Bell and M. Shelman.
Olam International. HBS Case 509002, Harvard Business School,
Boston. 2009.
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Olams Global Network New breed of Sourcing Intermediaries
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Explaining Intermediaries Information Mediation (+)
Intermediary has an informational advantage (price discovery, local
knowledge, etc.) Economies of Scale (+) By consolidating demand
from multiple buyers, intermediaries can split fixed costs Wal-Mart
Is there another explanation for Intermediaries? What can Li and
Fung do that Wal-Mart cant? Wal-Mart has scale (US$ 350B v/s US$
13B)* Wal-Mart has local knowledge (189 stores in China, 50K local
employees) Scale and Information Benefits ?? These make us think
the existing explanations are not complete
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Why Li & Fung? Stated Reasons Supplier compliance is a
major business and reputation risk Li and Fung ensures good
Supplier Behavior and keeps us flexible Insuring product quality
Keeping proprietary information safe Adequate capacity building and
booking Changing economic conditionsGetting supplier to do the
right thing for you (good behavior) Preferences over Suppliers
change over time Political Risks Trade barriers rise and fall
Exchange Rates Fluctuate
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Alternate Sourcing Strategies Buyer Supplier Direct
SourcingMediated Sourcing Supplier Buyer Supplier Intermediary
Belavina, E. and K. Girotra, 2011. The Relational Advantages of
Intermediation. Forthcoming, Management Science. Preferences over
suppliers change over time, Repeated Game Due to changing sourcing
costs Transportation costs Currency, tariffs, pass-through input
costs Good/Bad Behavior, Contractual Incompleteness Supplier does
not reserve appropriate levels of capacity Proper information
sharing Supplier does not conform to environmental and social
norms
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Findings Sourcing is rich in opportunities for suppliers to
behave bad. In such environments it often pays off to commit to
long-term relationship - promise future business to your supplier
to elicit good behavior. These commitments come at a cost of
flexibility. Intermediaries allow to relieve the tradeoff between
committed long-term relationships and flexible sourcing. Why?
Because to fulfill the promise of future business intermediaries
can use business coming on behalf of multiple buyers. If one buyer
does not want to source from the supplier, the other buyer might.
This is why intermediaries are much better in the modern global
sourcing world. This is a novel explanation of why intermediaries
can help you source better. A follow-up paper: A supply chain with
many self-interested tiers/levels can perform better than a supply
chain with fewer tiers.
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Approach 4: Empirical Work Alliances: a long-standing form of
company collaboration. Long history of studying alliance formation,
dissolution and behavior in the field of strategy. Multi-market
competition studies: competing in multiple markets may soften
competition in favor of collaboration. Hard to get data on supply
chain alliances, and even supply chain contracts. Ren, Cohen, Ho
and Terwiesch the study of relational forecast sharing in a
semiconductor industry. But there are other industries in which
data is readily available.
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Airline Alliance Involves Various Activities Codeshaing
agreement: sell tickets on flights operated by partner airlines
Reciprocal Frequent Flyer Program Cost reduction: facility and
personnel sharing, joint procurement
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Policy Makers ConcernsAirlines Defense Overlapping markets
Reduced competition Fare and capacity collusion Raised entry
barriers for other airlines Precursor of a merger Operational
efficiency, consumer benefits Higher flight frequency Easier
connections Cost benefits passed on to consumers Competition Remain
independent and continue to compete with others Alliance
Considerations Li, J. and S. Netessine. 2011. Partnering with
Competitors - An Empirical Analysis of Airline Alliances and
Multimarket Competition. Working Paper, http://www.netessine.com.
http://www.netessine.com
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UA/US Flight Network Before Alliance
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UA/US Flight Network After Alliance
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Conceptual Model Airline City-pair 1998 1999
------------------------------------------------------------------------------>2006
UA 1 M US 1 M DL 1 M CO 1 M NW 1 M AA 1 M Jan 2003 United and US
Airways Jun 2003 Delta- Continental Northwest Alliance Nov 1998
Continental and Northwest Alliance
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In the post alliance era, airlines are more likely to
enter/stay (additional 10%) and increase capacity (5 more
flights/week) in the markets where their partners possess a strong
market power. This finding cannot be explained by traditional
operational models which predict that capacity increases with
higher competition, and hence it should decrease under alliances.
The reason this happens: increasing market pricing power due to
collaboration Increasing pricing power ($8.6 one way coupon, $18
round-trip) For policy markets: monitor post-alliance changes, and
require airlines not to increase overlap with partners on certain
routes For airline practitioners: may have over-adjusted capacity,
probably in order to please alliance partners and increase zones of
influence of the alliance. Findings
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Summary There is a notable movement among companies from pure
competition towards the mix of competition and collaboration.
Research on collaboration in operations management is lagging
behind but beginning to take shape. There is a variety of promising
methodologies: Cooperative games (not so promising). Contract
theory applications (somewhat promising). Repeated games (quite
promising). Empirical work (very promising). Much of this work is
very recent join the party!