A Case Analysis On Logistics

CHAPTER 3

The Distribution Challenge!

Problem: Eve of Destruction

Summary:

Adobe Inc. produces software for graphics and electronic publishing applications. It ships to many differene regions including Japan, Southeast, Asia, Australia and Latin America. Adobo regularly introduces new updates and so renders all of its previous versions obsolete. However this had become a problem for Adobe because the distributors were sending back 10.000-20.000 boxes a year. These returned programs were then sent to California for destruction. And to discourage piracy, they had to confirm the serial number of each returned one and then sent it to a software recycler for erasure. But this was a great burden on Adobe's distributors on their accounts, because Adobe paid the money to them in 2 months. Also the distributors had another burden as they had to pay the shipment costs also. Because of these great costs, Adobe's distributors started selling the old software locally.

Solution:

Companies could better manage their logistics systems integrated with the customer relationship management as a result of using advanced logistics information systems like electronic data intrechange and advanced order processing systems. Adobe faces a problem because ot not using these technologies efficiently. They could have set up a logistics program easily so that they got track of their old customers. For example when the programs become outdated, they could determine which customers used that programme and send them automatic e-mails asking whether they would like to update to the new versions. Also if they uploaded the whole serial numbers of the programs to their computer systems, they could have known which products became outdated and automatically cancel