Relation matrix of small retailers and wholesale suppliers

• Grant number: 06/03694-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2006
• End date: September 30, 2007
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Administration - Business Administration
• Principal Investigator: Gessuir Pigatto
• Grantee: Janaina Ferreira de Souza
• Host Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Tupã. Tupã , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In the current competitive context, it starts to emerge a new management paradigm. In such case, instead of the traditional view of competition among companies, the new competition place is the market channel. Changes in consumers’ habits and the new competitive structure, resulted from market channel concentration, have made retail companies and their suppliers (industry and wholesale) try to find alternative ways to supply market needs and increase their competitiveness. New relational standards, highlighting information exchange and mutual gains, are some of the strategies adopted by such companies. In that context, it is necessary to identify parameters able to be applied in the evaluation of results from those new relational standards. The importance of this work is due to the almost inexistence of researches defining parameters to evaluate results from new cooperative relations, especially for small and medium retailers. The specific focus on small and medium retail companies, as well as in their wholesaler suppliers, is due to their growth in terms of size and importance. Such retailers represent an alternative channel for wholesalers reduce their dependence from large retailers. Besides that, it is important to point out the growing importance of small and medium retailers for low-income consumers, since competitiveness increase can induce those companies to offer less expensive and higher-quality products to their clients.