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Kotzab, Herbert, Teller, Christoph. 2003. Value-adding Partnerships and
Co-opetition Models in the Grocery Industry. International Journal of
Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, 33 (3), pp. 268-281.
Value-adding partnerships and co-opetition models
in the grocery industry
Herbert Kotzab
Copenhagen Business School
Christoph Teller
Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
Keywords Supply Chain Partnering, Efficient Consumer Response, Co-opetition
Abstract Leading representatives of the European grocery industry formed the
European Efficient Consumer Response (ECR-)Initiative in 1995. The goal of this
strategic alliance is set to reengineer the way business is done in the industry by
implementing cooperative strategies between retailer and manufacturer in order to
fulfill consumer wishes better, faster and at less cost. ECR appears thereby in
many facets, from a ‘simple’ dyadic value-adding partnership to a sophisticated
form of co-opetition, where Supply Chain members have both relationship types –
competition and cooperation – at the same time. Our paper discusses these issues
first on theoretical bases and then presents empirical results of a comprehensive
analysis within a selected European ECR-initiative showing the success factors of
managing ECR-partnership relations.
Introduction
The European grocery industry is embedded in a dynamic environment,
where product managers are facing changing markets affected by the
information age, more demanding consumers, and new retail formats (Price
Waterhouse Cooper, 2000 or Clarke, 2000).
Consequently, the interface between manufacturers and retailers in the
grocery industry has also changed (Fernie, 1999). That can be observed by
a remarkable power shift within the various distribution channels in the
worldwide retail industry. Today’s channels are far more concentrated and
consolidated than 20 years ago. This is due to factors such as better
access to valuable information by using POS-data, the replacement of
manufacturer brands by store brands and sophisticated retail logistics
systems (Kotzab and Schnedlitz, 1999). Nevertheless, all players within this
industry are confronted with extreme rivalry, primarily resulting from
aggressive price competition. However many players are not performing
well and have faced a loss of productivity and market share (Seth and
Randall, 1999).
In this atmosphere, different organizations such as the Food Marketing
Institute (FMI) or the Coca-Cola Retailing Research Group have proposed
new business models that should help to enhance the performance in the
grocery supply chains in the US and European markets. These approaches
are known as Efficient Consumer Response and Supplier-Retailer
Collaboration (CCRRGE, 1994; Salmon, 1993). The models suggested
collaboration amongst competitors on a manufacturer as well as on a retail
level (Svensson, 2002). Bengtsson and Kock (2000) refer to arrangements
such as co-opetitive relationships where companies within a supply chain
compete and collaborate at the same time.
The paper at hand focuses on ECR and discusses this approach as a co-
opetitive arrangement for the grocery industry. We therefore expand on the
original proposal of Brandenburger and Nalebuff (1993) and validate our
proposition on the bases of a case analysis within one European ECR-
initiative.
Value adding partnerships and co-opetition models
Any relationship between manufacturers and retailers can be designed
through a party-controlled coordination mechanism in order to meet any
partnership need. Thereby either retailers or manufacturers are, depending
on the power structure in the market, the dominating part. However the
involved partners can also agree on the strength of harmonization, and
might organize their interactions on different modi vivendi (Meffert, 1999)
such as
- Value-adding partnerships, which could occur through intensified
dependence structures (Johnston and Lawrence,1988);
- co-opetition models where the optimization of a single system is only
possible by optimizing the total system (Brandenburger and Nalebuff,
1996).
Both concepts refer to the idea of integrating different marketing flows of
independent organizations that can be seen as an extension of Porter’s
(1985) competitive advantage concept.
Value-adding partnerships
Value-added partnerships were first discussed by Johnston and Lawrence
(1998), and received an update by Hines (2000) who suggested the
creation of value-networks by outsourcing competitive advantages.
Therefore all partners can achieve advantages by leverage knowledge and
skill within the complete supply chain (Hines, 2000).
Such arrangements focus on vertical collaborations by diminishing non-
value-adding and increasing value-adding activities between supply chain
partners. The successful integration of activities creates the competitive
advantage of the total chain.
However, the direction of the collaboration is strictly vertical and can be
reduced to the integration of certain processes of only two players, thus
meaning the management of dyadic relationships (Swoboda, 1997). The
results of such partnerships are described as win-win, because the effort of
optimization is centered on the interface between manufacturer and retailer.
Co-opetition
Co-opetition is “a revolutionary mindset that combines competition and
cooperation“ (Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 1996) and is based on the
belief that “You can’t do it alone” (Moore, 1997) and on the principles of
game theory.
Contrary to value-adding partnerships, co-opetition includes also horizontal
collaborative relations as well as at the same time competitive relations in
vertical and horizontal directions. Brandenburger and Nalebuff (1996)
suggest therefore the concept of value net, which places a single company
between customers and suppliers (= vertical dimension) who can be either
complementors or competitors (= horizontal dimension). The goal is to
identify the symmetries between the vertical and horizontal dimension.
Thereby the players can obtain different roles, thus allowing us to put this
logic into a supply chain context by adding one another dimension to
Brandenburger and Nalebuff’s (1996) value net (see figure 1).
Figure 1: Multidimensional and –directional view of Brandenburger
and Nalebuff’s (1996) value net – integrating a supply chain
perspective from a retailer’s point of view
As illustrated in figure 1, the supply chain perspective overcomes the static
categorization of market players into competitors and partners, and
promotes the idea of differing between competitors and complementors on
a situational, functional and indifferent role allocation in a vertical as well as
in a horizontal direction.
Customers
Retailer
being a
COMPETITOR
e. g. provider of
comparable trade
functions
Retailer
being a
COMPLEMENTOR
e. g. provider of
different trade
functions
Producer
being a
COMPETITOR
e. g. in the field of
marketing
Producer
being a
COMPLEMENTOR
e. g. in the field of
logistics
Producer
R
e
t
a
i
l
e
r
… co-opetitive relationship
… traditional relationship
… role-splitting
According to Tsai (2002) this allows a multi-directional learning and
benefiting from each other, while at the same time competing with each
other for internal resources and external market shares. Such a result has
been testified by Bengtsson and Kock (2000) within the Swedish brewery
industry. In this case, the market players cooperated on the ‘invisible’
logistics side (= e.g. common packaging standards or return channels) and
competed at the ‘visible’ marketing arena (= e.g. heavy promotion
spending).
Overall, the paradox or 'schizophrenic' notion of collaborating with
competitors has been regarded since Hamel et al.'s (1989) article as a vivid
form of competition and a ‘win-proposal’. The traditional win-lose or friend-
foe paradigms have been becoming obsolete in collaborations, which to
some extent seems to be the result of the rising complexity and dynamics,
especially in fast moving consumer goods markets.
In some markets, a number of industry players started collaboration
programs aiming for win-win or un-traditional win-proposals, which are
known as Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) in order to re-gain
profitability. While many logistics researchers define ECR as a special
supply chain management approach, we make the effort to discuss ECR
from our suggested supply-chain value net point of view, thus assuming
that ECR is one co-opetition model for the grocery industry.
Efficient Consumer Response – Co-opetion in grocery industry
ECR can be understood as a customer oriented reengineered value-added
management strategy for the grocery supply chain. Its basics refer to
harmonization and cooperative adaptation of commonly agreed business
processes as well as standards that can help to avoid the duplications of
costs and to improve the service. This results in so-called win-win-win-
situations, where all partners within the supply chain (producer – retailer –
end user) can gain profitability by doing more with less (e.g. Svensson,
2002).
Owing to these effects, many proponents among logistics and marketing
researchers promote ECR as one of the best strategic and collaborative
initiatives within the grocery industry (Bowersox and Closs, 1996; Kotzab,
1999). The vision of ECR according to the first promoters of this concept
(the Food Marketing Institute and Kurt Salmon Associates) is to set up a
consumer-driven distribution system in which replenishment and production
is permanently managed by the consumers’ POS-activities (Salmon, 1993).
The harmonization of the supply chain activities among the supply chain
partners is based originally on four pillars (Salmon, 1993):
- Efficient Store Assortment, meaning to provide a complete and easy-to-
shop assortment of products wanted by the consumers;
- Efficient Promotion refers to the harmonization of the promotion
activities between manufacturer and retailer by communicating benefits
and value;
- Efficient New Product Introduction focuses on the development and
introduction of new products, best placed to satisfy current and
prospective consumer wants;
- Efficient Replenishment through maintaining high in-stock levels of the
required assortment.
By realizing these ideas in a supply chain wide setting, the total chain can
profit.
This ECR-approach has been ‘customized’ for the European market into
the two strategic blocks called ‘demand side’ and ‘supply side’. While the
supply side represents the logistics interests of the channel, the demand
side should guarantee the focus on the consumer. Their implementation
suggests the loss of functional and organizational borders within and
between firms. The transformation from departmental completion to inter-
organizational solutions eliminates financial and procedural waste from the
channel. This structure encourages team members to work for an increase
in the performance of the entire channel (ECRE, 2002).
The total savings by applying ECR-tools and techniques result mostly from
total-chain reduction of inventory by speeding up cycle-time. The typical
trade off between quality, time and costs will be eliminated (according to
Salmon, 1993; ECRE, 1996; Kotzab 1999). The savings were calculated
with USD 30 billion for the US-market and EUR 25 billion for the European
grocery industry. Other scientific studies on inter-firm coordination within
supply chain relations have confirmed the benefits of ECR-like
arrangements for the involved companies (e.g. Stank et al., 1999).
Co-opetition beyond market exchange and hierarchical mechanisms
The implementation of channel-wide collaborative standards and processes
replaces the philosophy of market exchange by hierarchical mechanism
(Picot et al., 2001). Thus, collaborative coordination of different activities
between the market partners and the harmonization by vertical integration
is regarded as a performance driver to overcome the unsatisfactory profit
situation of the stagnant grocery industry (Ahlert, 1999).
In that sense, ECR can be characterized as a hybrid-integrative
governance structure which is placed in-between markets and hierarchies.
Setting up a hybrid-integrative governance structure means that the
partners recognize mutual interests in establishing certain norms and rules.
This set of policies controls a certain behavior and rewards it positively and
negatively (Heide, 1994).
In such a case, strategic trust-based alliances govern the dependency of
the involved parties which can then be seen as a variation of Williamson’s
(1987) “credible commitments” or Heide’s (1994) suggestion of non-market
governance structures. Consequently, ECR helps to increase opportunistic
behavior in the chain, and also allows to maintain the relationships between
the partners (Whipple et al., 1999).
From a supply chain perspective this implies that the characteristics of
competition might change, which is discussed within literature as changing
from single company vs. single company to supply chain vs. supply chain
(e.g. Christopher, 1992).
Corsten (2000) thereby introduced the notions of collaboration/competition
on different levels, whether companies agree on common
standards/processes, assets or capabilities. The idea is to gain first critical
mass on an industry level by agreeing on general valid standards (e.g. EDI)
that are relevant for the total chain. These standards can than be further
applied to specific partnerships (e.g. Collaborative Planning, Forecasting
and Replenishment) which are set up between capable players. The quality
of competition could so be driven by the ability of players to set up such
partnerships and not based on prices.
A case on collaboration with competitors in the Austrian grocery
industry
In this chapter we present results from an ongoing case observation of
ECR within the Austrian grocery industry. Both authors are actively involved
in the ECR-academic partnership in Austria and have performed various
research projects within the Austrian ECR-setting. Our findings refer to a
methodological ‘conglomerate’, consisting of quantitative and qualitative
methods for analyzing secondary and primary data. The data was gathered
by a number of surveys amongst ECR-member companies, personal
interviews with managers involved in ECR at several national and
international ECR-conferences and group meetings.
A characterization of the Austrian grocery market
The Austrian grocery industry is a highly concentrated market where the
two largest retail players account for approximately 70 % of the total
volume of EUR 11 billion (AC-Nielsen, 2001). The number of retail outlets
diminished in the last 30 years from more then 20,000 (late 1960s) to fewer
than 8,000 outlets in 1996 (AC-Nielsen, 1996) and now holds on to a level
of 6,656 outlets (AC-Nielsen, 2001).
The market also experienced a shift from smaller outlets to large store
formats (e.g. hyper markets), where outlet-sizes between 400 and 1000 m
2
and store formats between 1000 and 2500 m
2
account for 43% and 28% of
the total sales volume resp. (AC-Nielsen, 2001). The grocery store density
of 10 stores for every 10,000 inhabitants is much lower than the total retail
store density of 81 for every 10,000 inhabitants and it’s decreasing is
expected to continue (Schnedlitz, 1994).
Besides that, consumers’ spending on food is declining. While in 1976
17% of the total budget of private consume was used for this category, in
2000 the number was down to 13% (ÖSTAT, 2001, 48). Still, the share of
food articles within the total range of products within a typical grocery
assortment is more than 50%. Some discount retailers and hypermarkets
are responding to these trends and are replacing food items with non-food
items (Oehme, 2001; Liebmann and Zentes, 2001).
These developments are accompanied by heavy price competition. A study
of GfK (2002) shows that the share of promotion articles is up to 60% and it
seems that consumers expect the players to offer promotions. Taking the
detergent category as an example where 44% of the products are
promotion articles, 52% of all consumers are full or mainly ‘promotion
clients’, meaning that these end users only buy a price promoted brand
(Lever Fabergé, 1999).
In general, competition takes place not only on the manufacturers’ level
(brand vs. brand) but also at the retailers’ level (retail format competition;
e.g. discounter against supermarket, grocery store against drug store)
leading to a decline of brand, product and retail format loyalty.
This characterization shows why it would make sense to establish
partnerships without reducing competition.
Initiating end-user driven value chain management in the Austrian
grocery supply chain
Right after the formation of ECR-Europe (in 1995), representatives of the
Austrian grocery industry formed the Austrian ECR-initiative in 1996. Within
the past six years, ECR-Austria has attracted some 70 member companies
and about 150 managers and in fact represents the most important players
from the industry (e.g. Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson,
Beiersdorf, Felix Austria, Masterfoods, etc.), retailing (e.g. Spar Austria, DM
Drogeriemarkt, Tengelmann, Rewe Austria etc.) and logistics service
providers (e.g. Kühne & Nagel, Rail Cargo Austria, etc.).
Despite having horizontal competitors within this arrangement, the group
members have constructed, via several working groups, a basic ECR-
business model that differentiates between four ECR areas, which are
further subdivided into supply-side, demand-side, processes and standards
categories (ECRA, 1997 and ECRA, 1999). The logical structure and
interdependencies standing behind this national adaptation of the ECR-
concept can be seen in figure 2.
Figure 2: ECR-concept in Austria (ECRA, 1997)
Both supply-side and demand-side include the ‘involved’ departments (e.g.,
procurement, logistics, marketing and sales) at both retailer and
manufacturer levels. Processes and standards represent the way in which
business should be done in this special pipeline. The suggested standards
are values that members agree to adopt and primarily concern various
logistics and marketing activities among supply chain partners (ECRA,
1997):
- Efficient Unit Load (EUL) refers to logistics packaging standards
supporting a steady flow of merchandise within the total grocery supply
chain. In this instance, a cooperation between retailers and vendors in
the fields of unit labeling (e.g. EAN-128 pallet label), application of
generally accepted norms and sizes (e.g. ISO master module),
CM
Category
Management
ER
Efficient
Replenishment
EDI
Electronic Data
Interchange
EUL
Efficient Unit
Loads
Standards
Demand
Side
Supply
Side
Processes
optimization of order quantities, avoidance of re-supplies and better
logistical operations, is suggested.
- Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) refers to the implementation of
electronic data exchange which enables the transfer of standardized
and structured data between the various partners in the supply chain.
The members have proposed certain EDI standards (e.g. ORDERS,
DESADV, INVOIC) in order to minimize errors with regard to order
management, order processing, invoicing, inbound logistics and the
management of activity data.
- Efficient Replenishment (ER) aims at the ‘heart’ of the logistics process:
the replenishment of merchandise within the supply chain. ECR-Austria
proposes replenishment techniques (e.g. cross docking, continuous
replenishment, forecast data exchange) in order to guarantee lower
inventory levels, quicker replenishment processes, quick responses to
fluctuation in demand, better use of transportation capacities and fewer
returns.
- Category Management (CM) refers to a joint-planning process between
retailers and vendors in order to offer a customized set of products to
be managed as a strategic business unit. Within ECR-Austria, CM is
expected to reengineer the dialogue structure between retailers and
vendors, to increase product profits, to lower the lead-time from the
distribution center (DC) to the stores and to increase inventory turns.
Alvarado and Kotzab (2001) recognized this approach as a variation of
Heide’s (1994) hybrid-governance structure.
The savings potential for the Austrian grocery industry has been evaluated
at approximately EUR 73 million, which should result in 0.67% lower end-
user prices (Franzmair 1999). It is precisely this small number which makes
the motivation to join the ECR movement understandable. The trends in the
Austrian market would make it almost impossible to gain market share via
expansion or even by price reductions. In fact, the price levels have
remained steady over the last 20 years. Improving results seemed only
possible by rearranging the way business was being conducted in this
industry (see Kotzab, Grant and Reutterer, 2002).
Compared with other international ECR-arrangements, the Austrian
approach can be characterized as the most holistic one. It contains the
integration of manufacturers, retailers and logistics service providers and
aims for integration of other interest groups such as market research
organizations, banks and advertising agencies in order to cover all network
members of the industry.
Evaluation of co-opetition in the Austrian grocery industry
Figure 3 refers to the results of a recent survey research among 45 ECR
member companies (= approx. 2/3 of all Austrian ECR member companies)
and shows how these member companies have adopted the suggestions of
ECR-Austria (Glavanovits and Kotzab, 2002).
First, we could confirm the hierarchical order of the Austrian ECR-concept
(see figure 2 and 3). More than 90% of respondents stated that they use
basic standards such as EDI and EUL together with norms like the EAN-
Article Identification. Second, we could see a lower implementation level of
all other advanced processes (CR, CM) and strategies (CPFR).
Figure 3: Implementation level of ECR-standards and processes
When looking at other dimensions characterizing the importance of
standards compared with processes in Austrian ECR-partnerships, the
same tendency can be observed (Teller and Kotzab, 2003):
- More than one in three respondents stated that more than 50% of their
total transaction volume is guided by these standards (EDI: 60.7%,
n=28; EUL: 34.6%, n=26), while this share of transactions operated by
CM (25%, n=16) and ER (0%, n=27) is rather small.
processes/
strategies
standards/
norms
97.7%
95.5%
92.3%
88.1%
36.8%
16.7%
0.0%
0.0%
5.1%
7.1%
28.9%
55.6%
34.2%
4.8%
2.6%
27.8%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
EAN - Identification (n=43)
EDI (n=44)
EUL (n=39)
CM (n=42)
CR (n=38)
CPFR (n=36)
full/partial implementation implementation planed implementation NOT planed
- The majority of ECR business partners are found in the field of EDI and
EUL, with more than 2 out of 5 respondents working with more than 15
partners according to ECR-standards (EDI: 64.3; n=28; EUL: 42,3;
n=26). Compared to that, the number of CM partners is in most cases
under 15 (CM: 82.2%, n=17).
These results confirm Corsten's (2000) notions of different ECR-platforms
(industry ECR with general standards, network ECR with common
processes and partnership ECR with individual capabilities).
From a co-opetitive point of view, we see the results of Bengtsson and
Kock’s (2000) study in the Swedish beer industry confirmed. It is Also worth
noting that in the Austrian grocery industry all supply chain members gain
in the same manner by adapting collaborative logistics techniques that
allow economies of scale. However, competition is continued on the
marketing side, where some partners can adapt better category
management solutions than others.
Managing vertical and horizontal partnerships in grocery industry
Alvarado and Kotzab (2001) have placed the Austrian ECR-movement in
an early stage of a relationship portfolio. In such a position, most efforts aim
to establish and to maintain the ECR-relationship.
Because both horizontal and vertical relationships have to be managed in a
co-opetitive environment, it is expected that soft factors, such as trust
and/or commitment, might dominate the successful launch of ECR-
programs (Meffert, 2001). Issues such as these have already been
introduced in the field of relationship marketing (e.g. Grönroos, 1994).
According to Bengtsson and Kock (2000), information and social exchange
is the key to initiate co-opetition, especially for horizontal relationships. Our
table I shows those success factors that had been considered by the
members of ECR-Austria as most important while implementing and
working with ECR arrangements.
ECR
-
area specific implementation factors
EUL
(n=26)
EDI
(n=27)
ER
(n=26)
CM
(n=17)
Define goals and set up plans 1.50 1.33
1.08
1.18
Involve employees into planning
processes
1.92 1.70 1.69 1.59
Inform employees 1.88 1.69 1.85 1.47
Commitment of partners to apply the
standards
1.16 1.12
1.54 1.76
Harmonize ECR goals with overall
company goals
1.60 2.08 1.62 1.76
Long term implementing phase 2.19 2.31 2.04 2.71
Customer orientation 2.19 2.07 2.19 2.29
Top Management support and
commitment
- 1.89 1.69 1.50
Training - 1.79 1.73 1.47
Table I: Perceived importance of factors that ease the implementation
of ECR (Likert scale; 1 = totally agree; 5 = totally disagree; the bold
values are the most important ones, the underlined values the second
most important (Glavanovits and Kotzab, 2002)
We could identify function/situation-specific factors, depending on which
ECR-area has been chosen. While in the case of the standards
implementation, respondents referred to the commitment of all partners to
apply the standards, the implementation of processes seems to be rather
goal-driven, thus inducing a shared vision of the involved partners.
Once again, we could confirm Bengtsson and Kock’s (2000) argument of
social exchange being more important in such arrangements than
economic exchange. However, competition might now be driven by the
resource of having the ability of better translating such soft factors to allow
ECR-driven exchange.
Conclusion
The goal of our paper was to discuss value-adding partnerships and co-
opetition in the field of the grocery industry. We therefore expanded
Brandenburger and Nalebuff’s (1996) value net to a supply chain value net.
We then defined Efficient Consumer Response as a co-opetition model and
applied our theoretical conceptualization to the Austrian grocery industry.
Our analysis has shown that competition and collaboration can be
performed at the same time, even in the very competition intense
atmosphere of the grocery industry. The case of ECR in Austria validates
Bengtsson and Kock’s (2000) heterogeneity proposition in that sense that
collaboration takes place ‘far away from the consumer’ – here in logistics –
and competition is kept ‘near the consumer’ – here in marketing (e.g.
category management) issues. Overall, ECR tolerates cooperative
arrangements while pursuing economies-of-scale-oriented strategies in
order to elude the stagnant development of the industry.
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