Product returns is often seen by companies as a necessary evil, a painful process, cost center, and an area of potential customer dissatisfaction. However, the authors say, many successful organizations understand that effective product returns strategy can provide a number of benefits, such as improving the quality of customer service and knowledge of effective inventory management and control product. Analysis of the author divides returns into two categories: managed returns that can be avoided or eliminated the actions taken by the company and uncontrolled declarations that companies can do little or nothing about the short term. They then describe the five stages of the return process --- receive, sort and stage of processing, analysis and support - and to show how companies as diverse as Philips Consumer Electronics, Sierra-Trading Post, Road Runner Sports, Altec Electronica Chihuahua, Sauder woodworking, and Estee Lauder profit and minimize their costs throughout the process, using different tactics. This tactic includes:. Improved product quality, elimination of «mispicks" and delivery errors, and programs such as vendor managed inventory, efficient consumer response, and prepostponement «Hide
by James Foundation, Thomas Speh, Herbert Shear Source: MIT Sloan Management Review 8 pages. Publication date: 01 Oct 2006. Prod. #: SMR225-PDF-ENG
Related Case Solutions & Analyses:
Where Have You Been: An Exercise to Assess Your Exposure to the Rest of the Worlds Peoples
Human Resources Management: Challenges for Graduate Education
Strategic Transformation as the Essential Last Step in the Process of Business Turnaround
Stanford Graduate School of Business
High Impact of Collaborative Social Initiatives
Beyond Best Practice
Man Group plc
Building Ambidexterity into an Organization
Singapore International Airlines: Preparing For Turbulence Ahead
Knowledge Management at Siemens Spain
