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Exploring the deployment and adoption of RFID-enabled retail promotions management
Abstract
This paper presents the development and deployment of an RFID-enabled system supporting promotions management. The system provides both back-end functionality to supply chain partners by measuring promotions effectiveness and front-end functionality to consumers by providing personalized selection of alternative promotion gifts. We report the system design and implementation, and discuss our experiences and lessons learned during the system deployment in two stages. The study reveals that deployment of RFID services in the retail context presents a number of technology and individual challenges in the form that require special treatment. These challenges refer to accurate readability of products, handling of exception events, health concerns, and consumer privacy. The study proposes specific implementation solutions for each challenge. We also performed a field study in a Greek retail outlet which revealed that shoppers evaluated more favorably the RFID augmented promotion management method compared to traditional methods. In terms of market acceptance, the results of a workshop with retailers and suppliers showcased that although the service provides multiple benefits to supply chain operations, factors related to cost, consumer privacy, and current maturity of RFID technology still prohibit the service's wide adoption by the industry. Finally, the results of a cost-benefit analysis indicate that the investment is financially viable, under certain assumptions, and breaks even after 3 years. Given the contextual details of the study, the lessons learned and the proposed deployment strategy may guide developers and organizations aspiring to adopt RFID to modify their strategies accordingly.
... Appendix A Bardaki, Kourouthanassis, & Pramatari (2010) Retail promotions management Greece Retail Properly adopting RFID can contribute promisingly to retailing strategy. One needs to resolve stakeholders' different perspectives and cost benefit justification, among other issues. ...
Situated in an emirate’s farming industry, this ethnographic study develops a framework to help bridge the existing knowledge gap about what and how local contexts interact with emerging technology, RFID in particular. Findings suggest that numerous local factors pertaining to the researched emirate’s unique environmental, project, cultural, and societal/political contexts shape and/or are reshaped by RFID implementation. For example, geographic landscape demands systems modification and device adaptation; religious custom increases project difficulty, and the systems, in turn, requires changes in certain religious practice; the notion of social sustainability establishes objectives for RFID project, while the latter helps reshape social welfare systems. As these local factors have rarely been empirically examined, my framework can help contribute to future RFID implementation in different local contexts. More specifically, insights gained urge stakeholders involved to carefully manage unique factors of the emirate or similar contexts for intended RFID projects. The findings also suggest that stakeholders should be aware of RFID’s reshaping effects on the local context particularly because those effects might be unexpected.
... Furthermore, another positive feedbacks will be suggested by the relative high result obtained for the "marketing" category (the fifth category in absolute): it is a signal that companies are now starting to analyze strategic benefits of RFID adoption, such as a larger availability of information to customers and the creation of new services (Bardaki et al., 2010). ...
RFID technology is no longer an experimental technology but is now widely applied in business processes aiming to increase performance both in public and private sectors. Together with traditional sectors (e.g. logistics, retail), the large potentiality of this technology is supporting its adoption in completely new emerging sectors (e.g. entertainment, payment). Thus, several challenges are still open: one critical point is the application cost; furthermore, as several research studies have pointed out operational as well as strategic benefits, this is yet an open research topic. The aim of the proposed study is to "measure" the adoption level of RFID technology by critically analyzing field study applications: a survey has been performed on case studies published by RFID Journal-a well-known media company-in two years (from January 2010 to January 2012). A specific taxonomy-based on main critical points characterizing RFID application-has been proposed in order to support potential RFID adopters in designing their own application. Results have showed as RFID technology is really pervasive in several sectors and geographical areas, even if the level of diffusion is quite different from one area to another. © 2013 - IOS Press and the authors.
... One may certainly agree that the economic return of improvements due to compliancy with possible legal requirements and company image improvements may be difficult to estimate. However, efficiency and effectiveness increases are tangible benefits that analysts should not neglect to take into account when assessing an RFID implementation, even if these benefits originate from several different aspects, which may not be as easy to evaluate as process time savings (Bardaki et al., 2010;Curtin et al., 2013). ...
Current literature agrees that one of the main results obtained by adopting RFID lies in an improved efficiency increase in material handling operations, especially regarding reductions in the time required to perform certain procedural steps. However, by evaluating only the advantages that can be easily quantified and definitely achieved may lead to limited results. This paper presents a business case of a large European Consumer Packaged Goods (FMCG) company in the cosmetics and beauty sector. Eleven processes in receiving, handling, storage and delivery procedures in one of the main distribution centres of the company were analysed and modelled using a detailed Business Process Modelling (BPM) approach. Since savings were evaluated only in terms of the reduction of resources used - achieved through process acceleration - despite the company dealing in huge volumes of high-margin products, the feasibility study turned out to be negative. Thus, the paper concludes with a brief discussion of how companies should take on this challenge if process timing benefits are insufficient. The detailed process analysis reported in this paper may be useful for operation practitioners or any manufacturing company or distribution centre about to start an as-is versus to-be comparison of their material handling procedures for RFID implementation.
This study reviews Internet of Things (IoT) research in supply chain management (SCM) and logistics. A thorough review and bibliometric analysis were conducted to analytically and objectively unearth the knowledge development in IoT research within the context of SCM and logistics. The analysis started with the selection of 807 journal articles published over a two-decade period. Then, the articles were analyzed according to bibliomet-ric parameters such as year of publication, sources, authors, and institutions. A keyword co-occurrence network was used to cluster the pertinent literature. Results of the review and bibliometric analysis reveal that IoT research has attracted significant attention from the SCM and logistics community. Three leading journals published widely on IoT and the fifteen most productive authors are identified. Based on the keyword co-occurrence clustering , the IoT literature in SCM and logistics is focalized on RFID technology, Industry 4.0 technologies, reverse logistics, and additionally covers various industries, such as the food, retailing, construction, and the pharmaceutical sector. The study provides researchers with a better understanding of IoT research in SCM and logistics and existing knowledge gaps for further research. Practitioners may benefit from the review to keep abreast of the current discussions and applications of IoT in diverse industrial sectors. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the current review is one of the few attempts to investigate IoT research in SCM and logistics using a comprehensive set of articles published during the past two decades.
The majority of studies into Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based systems focus on the technical and engineering aspects of such systems. Where research expands outside this scope, it tends to focus on single supply chains set either within the private sector, or less commonly the public sector. This research examines RFID based systems, asking the question "what factors or issues mediate the relationship between public and private sector where they are involved in an RFID system?" From an Actor Network Theory (ANT) perspective, in depth interviews were conducted with 38 senior managers in four countries in order to understand the cross-sector implementations in which they were involved. Eleven mediators were found, across three dimensions. Overarching systems mediators were financial, infrastructure, standards, organisational knowledge and security. Inter-organisational mediators were trust, privacy and legislation. Intra-organisational mediators were leadership, data management and benefits. Some differences were also seen in the way the two sectors acted. This research contributes to theory by proposing a model demonstrating the mediators involved in cross-sector implementations. The novel use of ANT also suggests a research approach that may be successful in further understanding complex technology systems.
Purpose
– This paper aims to focus on the store ordering and replenishment practices which appear to be the major cause behind the problem of out‐of‐stock situations. A collaborative store replenishment practice, enabled by an internet‐based platform is examined. By enabling information and knowledge sharing between retail store managers and suppliers' salesmen, this practice leads to increased order accuracy and, as a result, to fewer out‐of‐stock situations.
Design/methodology/approach
– The research presented in this paper has been empirical in nature, involving a field experiment with a major retailer and several suppliers in Greece. Pre‐ and post‐experiment measurements were conducted and the quantitative results were statistically analyzed in order to assess the impact of collaborative store ordering on shelf availability. The quantitative measurements were repeated over several years, offering a longitudinal view on the experiment. Qualitative findings from the field experiment are also discussed.
Findings
– The empirical results from the field experiment show a reduction in out‐of‐stock situations by more than 50 percent combined with no significant statistical variation in total observed inventory levels. Qualitative findings regarding the practical aspects of the process as well as organizational issues are also acquired.
Originality/value
– Low shelf availability and the respective sales loss is one of the major issues retailers and suppliers face today. This paper examines a new replenishment process, involving supplier‐retailer collaboration supported by daily information sharing of POS data and other information over an internet platform, which leads to increased shelf availability by addressing one of its major causes. Thus, the empirical results presented in the paper have important implications for practitioners. In addition, the paper contributes from a methodological perspective to the academic community, by describing the way the field experiment was conducted and the quantitative results were analyzed as a means to evaluate a new business practice and Internet‐based collaboration platform.
In this paper we propose an extended version of the open source jUDDI implementation by the Apache Software Foundation, adapted to pervasive RFID contexts. The registry
adopts an OWL-S 1.1 Pro¯le instance annotation of mobile services and resources. Ontology-based metadata are
exploited in order to perform a semantic-based service discovery w.r.t. a given request. The proposed framework
has been devised for pervasive RFID-based logistics environments. A case study is presented along with experimental results on a prototype implementation.
Radio frequency identification is a wireless identification technology that relies on cheap tags that can be attached to objects and that nearby readers can track. The computer science and computer engineering department at the University of Arkansas started a project aimed at developing open-source RF middleware to address this latter problem. In this article, we describe that software's development and the challenges and benefits of large-scale software development in universities
In 1992, efficient consumer response (ECR) was presented as a powerful tool for optimizing the supply chain performance within the US grocery industry. Explores the different European approaches that have been developed since then to transfer the basic ideas of ECR to Europe. Discusses the existing ECR models by criticizing their assumptions and results. The assumptions that form the basis of the paper refer to the results of the theoretical and empirical work concerning logistics carried out by the Department of Retailing and Marketing of the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. The methodological approach of this work refers to the analysis of secondary statistical data, literature review and expert interviews, conducted at the various ECR-Europe Congresses and national ECR events.
Argues that only by sharply improving the effectiveness of trade promotion can manufacturers hope to influence base sales volumes. Discusses managers’ concentration on promotion at the expense of product innovation and brand franchise development. Provides a list of initiatives to improve performance.
Winning customer loyalty and repeat business and eliminating or reducing their reliance on coupons and other forms of price promotion is the goal of many service businesses today. The effectiveness of using advertising specialties (imprinted items given away for free) and price promotions was directly compared by way of two controlled field experiments involving customers of a Chinese food delivery service and a drycleaner in a major US metropolitan area. The studies used a controlled field experiment with a behavioral measure. The experiments offered support, in the business-to-business and consumer settings, that ad specialties can serve as inducements for a larger dollar volume of repeat business than the use of no promotion, and in some cases more than was generated by price promotion. Results suggest that goodwill engendered among customers by the ad. specialty “gifts”, coupled with the repeated brand exposure opportunities afforded by imprinted items, can exert a considerable impact on purchase behavior.
Pervasive information systems (PIS) constitute an emerging class of information systems (IS) where information technology (IT) is gradually embedded in the physical environment, capable of accommodating user needs and wants when desired. PIS differ from desktop information systems (DIS) in that they provide new means of interaction and can generate new experiences for their users. This paper investigates the effects of PIS to user experience in the context of retailing. A prototype PIS was implemented to serve as vehicle for a field experiment in a Greek supermarket. Shoppers were invited to use the system and provide feedback on its effects on their shopping experience within the store. The research revealed that several dimensions of the shopping experience, namely entertainment, shopping efficiency, budget monitoring, time pressure, information search, checkout problems, and promotions overload, were positively affected by the PIS. The study results suggest that embedding pervasive technologies to the retail arena may enable retailers to differentiate by providing customer-centric services that alleviate shoppers’ perception of confusion, stress, and routine during the shopping session and increase store loyalty.
An efficient Web Services (WS)-enabled Architecture for RFID Environment (WSARE) is proposed based on RFID and WS. WSARE consists of the following components: Data Acquisitor, Services Manager, Business Process Rule Base, WS and RFID Database. Reducing modification and maintenance cost, crossing platform, flexibility and independence are the main characteristics of WSARE. An automatic RFID management system based on WSARE for Amusement Park (AP-WSARE) is also proposed and simulated. AP-WSARE provides a more powerful means to manage an AP. Such a system will be able to provide higher quality of service and improve the competitive force.