Integrating customer expectations into the development of business strategies in a supply chain environment

Abstract

Customer expectations in the clothing industry are often erratic and change rapidly because styles and fashions continually change. As a result, it is particularly important in such an industry to develop a customer-oriented supply chain management (CoSCM) framework. This CoSCM framework needs to integrate customer expectations into the development of business strategies along various business units in a supply chain, then narrow the gap between customer expectations and operational performance. Specifically, this paper studies the operating characteristics of the clothing industry in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, Southern China. It reports the findings solicited from industrial practitioners in the PRD clothing industry using the Delphi method. The paper concludes by presenting a CoSCM framework that can be used as a reference framework for the PRD clothing industry to enhance customer satisfaction.

Keywords:

• Customer-oriented supply chain management
• Customer satisfaction
• Delphi method
• Pearl River Delta region
• Clothing industry

Acknowledgements

Andy C. L. Yeung was also supported in part by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University under the grant number G-YD19.