Logistics, Information Technology, and Retail Internationalisation: The Formation of International Strategic Retail Networks

Abstract

In the present work we suggest the notion of the strategic information technology competitive advantage and its potential strategic impact upon a retailer’s organisational supply chain coordination. The existence of a logistics strategy and an information technology strategy constitute two functions that offer the platform for retail firms to “internalise” the effective management of the supply chain by converting it to a coordination competitive advantage. The latter depends upon the ability of the retail firms to transform a logistics strategy and an information technology strategy into what the authors call strategic logistics and strategic information technology. We also argue that logistics and information technology can assist a retailer to form a “logistics network” with third-party firms in the supply chain, with the aim to capture and to protect to the full the differential returns generated via the internalisation of the supply chain activities. The coordination competitive advantage owned by the retailer enhances retail change in domestic and in international markets, as the retailer enters foreign markets via a similar network of third party and its own account logistics operations, giving rise to new retail organisation schemes, such as the international strategic retail network.