DISTRIBUTION: THE CURRENT STATE AND FUTURE TRENDS

Abstract

“The current state of the art” was how Wendell Stewart chose to describe his theme when he spoke recently in London, and in the hands of such a practitioner distribution is an art indeed. His message was both disturbing and optimistic — disturbing in that so few companies — at least in America — are doing anything meaningful in terms of improving their productivity. But he was encouraging in his view of what he regarded as the progress being made in strategic network planning, and in the possibilities being opened up by developments in data processing. And against this background, the cost of logistics in the US is today around 400 billion dollars, so that if the potential for a 10% improvement in productivity is there, then the savings could be very great indeed. The occasion for this talk was a seminar organised by Grand Metropolitan Planning Ltd for the benefit of executives within the Grand Metropolitan Group with an interest in distribution. The theme of the seminar was to explore how technology can improve service to customers and future profitability in the field of distribution. Wendell Stewart spoke fluently and informally, and it is precisely because his informality illuminated what Peter Drucker has called “the dark continent of distribution” that we have attempted to reproduce his unique and characteristic style.

Citation

Stewart, W.M. (1978), "DISTRIBUTION: THE CURRENT STATE AND FUTURE TRENDS", Retail and Distribution Management, Vol. 6 No. 6, pp. 63-65. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb017973