Quiet Logistics Management Case
Whether it’s 1-hour delivery, skies buzzing with drones or shipping products before consumers even know they want them, there’s a lot of hype surrounding how packages can and may soon reach customers. Many retailers are feeling pressure to stay competitive with Amazon.com, and consumer expectations for all things cheaper, faster and flexible are increasing. As the appetite for free shipping grows stronger, the cost is eating away at already-thin retail margins.
The brakes screeched as the truck backed up to the loading dock. The blouse—primrose red, size small, 100% silk—had arrived at its destination. It was 2:00 a.m. Packed inside a large cardboard carton with dozens of other items, the blouse heard voices and felt itself being jostled and moved quickly into the warehouse. Fluorescent light flooded into the box as a warehouse worker sliced open the box top. A purple scanner light captured the blouse’s barcode—with an audible “beep”—as the worker moved the blouse to a staging table and then to the middle shelf of a blue vertical pod, where it waited.
Ten minutes later, the blouse felt upward motion as “Bot-B-Q,” an orange-colored robot, lifted the pod. Then the blouse felt a lurch as Bot-B-Q sped across the vast warehouse floor, zigzagging to avoid other robots in motion. Within minutes, the robot had made a series of sharp 90-degree turns—blue lights flashing—as it sped
toward its final destination. Finally, the blouse felt downward motion as the robot quietly lowered the pod into position at warehouse coordinates 22:106. The robot sped off back to the staging area to pick up its next assignment. The blouse waited. (Excerpt)Answer
a. Identify the type of strategy that Quiet Logistics currently pursues. Use the Miles and Snow (1978) strategy typology as the basis for your identification. Using evidence from the case study, give 2 (two) reasons for your answer.
b. Describe the strategic uncertainties and strategic risks that Quiet Logistics faces.
c. Prepare a Porters Five Forces analysis and comment on the market dynamics of the warehouse fulfilment industry.
d. Show how the four P’s of strategy, namely perspective, position, plan and patterns of action apply to Quiet Logistics.e. Based on your analysis of Quiet Logistics (that is through answering a – d), recommend how Quiet Logistics should: i) monitor their strategic uncertainties; ii) manage their strategic risk; and iii) monitor and manage any threats evident from the Porters’ Five Forces Analysis.