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This study focuses on a unique retail outlet location decision‐making problem found in business format franchising industries. The problem is derived from the latent conflict in the relationship between franchisor and franchisees. An empirical study was carried out to compare benefits of two different outlet allocation decision modes: centralised planning mode (locations allocated by the franchisor) and decentralised planning mode (franchisees given autonomy to select the location of their own outlets). Research findings revealed that the decentralised location decision mode is more beneficial to the franchise system with a lower level of customer loyalty.

Highlights the integral link between the location of a particular format of retail outlet and the benefit which they offer to the customer segments which they serve. Outlines a simple conceptual framework for planning store networks which can be used as a starting point for a variety of retail businesses. This depends on the degree of portability of the product and the emphasis placed by the customer on the relative importance of convenience and comparison in the buying process. Four principle types of retail location positions are identified by the framework and the main locational factors or “drivers” of the success of each are explained. Underlines the importance of retailers recognizing the ongoing nature of the network planning process, involving store rationalization, relocation and refurbishment, as well as the roll out of new store concepts. It is anticipated that the framework should prove useful both to retailers setting out on a formal process of network planning as well as to planning authorities who recognize the need to understand the factors driving the locational decisions of the various types of modern retail format.

The previous article in this series (RDM November/December) examined techniques designed to search out areas of the country that might have potential for new stores. This article looks more closely at finding the best site available within a chosen area. It discusses store turnover forecasting techniques, and also considers the question of assessing viability in product‐dominated markets.

Short food supply chains have the potential to facilitate the transition to more sustainable food systems. Related distribution processes, however, can be challenging for smallholder and family farmers. To extend the market reach of farmers without the need for extensive investments, crowd logistics (CL) can be used. The purpose of this paper is to explore the benefits and trade-offs of implementing CL platforms in short food supply chains (SFSCs).

A decision support system (DSS) based on agent-based and discrete event simulation (DES) modelling is developed, which closely approximates the behaviour of customers and distribution processes at outlets. Different scenarios are explored to evaluate the potential of CL in rural and urban settings using the example of regions from Bavaria, Germany.

Results show that CL can be used to increase the reach of farmers in SFSCs at the cost of minor food quality losses. Moreover, a difference between urban and rural settings is noted: An urban scenario requires less investment in the driver base, whereas the rural scenario shows a higher potential to increase market reach.

Platform-based food delivery services are still mostly unexplored in the context of SFSCs. This research shows that platform services such as CL can be used to support local agriculture and facilitate the distribution of perishable food items, introducing a simulation-based DSS and providing detailed results on various application settings; this research serves as a steppingstone to facilitate successful real-world implementations and encourage further research.

The 2011 and 2013 Queensland, Australia flood events caused massive infrastructure damage for low-level stream crossings such as floodways and culverts in regional Queensland. Failures of newly built floodways during the 2013 Queensland flood event in the Lockyer Valley Regional Council area raised significant concerns with respect to floodway design practices adopted in Australia and attracted significant research interest to enhance the resilience of floodways. Review of existing floodway design guidelines indicates that floodway design process is closely related to hydraulic and hydrological aspects. However, conducting a hydrological analysis is a challenging in rural areas, mainly owing to information scarcity. Floodways in rural areas often require a simple and economical solution contrast to more detailed hydrological analysis approaches adopted in urbanised areas. This paper aims to identify and apply the rational method to estimate maximum flood discharges at selected floodway locations in the Lockyer Valley Regional Council area. The paper further attempts to provide the first insight of flood characteristics during the 2011 and 2013 Queensland flood events at three catchment outputs across the selected case study area. It also highlights modern day challenges for practising engineers and researchers when estimating flood characteristics in rural areas. The paper shows that cross-cultivation of advancement in engineering practices and traditional approaches can promote quantitative approaches when assessing floodway damage in regional areas.

The research identifies limitations when assessing flood impact in rural regions in collaboration with experience from industry partners and authors themselves. The authors developed a framework to overcome those limitations arising from information scarcity to minimise the trial and error design approaches utilised in the current design practices for floodways.

This paper developed a simple and effective hydrological method with minimum inputs. It also provides an example on collating available but scattered resources and traditional method to quantitatively assess flood discharges of a rural catchment in Australia. Flood discharges at three catchment outlets along the Left-Hand Branch Road in the Lockyer Valley Region during both 2011 and 2013 Queensland flood events are estimated for the first time. The findings highlight the impact of flood discharges and flooded period on floodway failures.

The current research is based on a selected case study area in Australia. However, similar challenges are expected all across the world, due to the scarcity of rainfall and flood measurement gauges.

Floodway designers can apply similar framework to estimate the flood discharges instead of current practice of trial and error process. This will provide more scientific and reliable estimation and assessment process.

One of the social impacts identified in the broader research is the community outrages and disagreement between floodway design engineers and the community. Following the developed framework in the manuscript, design engineers will be able to justify their assumptions and design work.

The paper presents a novel framework on collating different and scattered information towards estimating flood discharges in rural areas. The manuscript presents the first insights on estimated flood discharges in the selected case study area during the 2011 and 2013 Queensland flood events. This will enable further research to be performed in a quantitative manner rather than the present approach of qualitative manner.

Winner of the 2014 EFMD competition for best case on Indian Management Issues and Opportunities.

After a highly successful third round of funding in 2012, Gaurav Jain, founder of quick service restaurant chain Mast Kalandar, was looking to expand. In addition to opening new stores in other cities, Jain was also hoping to increase the profitability of his existing stores in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Pune. He needed to fully understand the financials of his current operations and identify the key drivers of success at the stores, at both the city and corporate levels. With this understanding, he would be able to evaluate how best to improve the performance of existing outlets and to choose an entry strategy for new cities. Students are asked to develop a financial model for outlets and use it to compare different growth strategies.

After analyzing this case, students will be able to:

• Assess the strategic and operational tradeoffs being made by the CEO of a company in a growing foodservice sector of an emerging market as he establishes and grows his enterprise

• Build a financial model for outlet operations that identifies key drivers of performance and allows for a comparison between different growth strategies

• Strategically prioritize growth opportunities for a company in response to an influx of new capita

Assess the strategic and operational tradeoffs being made by the CEO of a company in a growing foodservice sector of an emerging market as he establishes and grows his enterprise

Build a financial model for outlet operations that identifies key drivers of performance and allows for a comparison between different growth strategies

Strategically prioritize growth opportunities for a company in response to an influx of new capita

The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to establish the role of the pop-up store within the international location strategy of fashion retailers, second, to identify the factors influencing pop-up store location choice and the importance retailers ascribe to it and third, to assess how pop-up locations are sourced and selected.

A multiple case study was adopted. Research was conducted using secondary data sources, observation and semi-structured interviews with senior executives with strategic responsibility for store/brand development internationally. Manual content analysis was conducted.

Key findings cover the role of Pop-up stores within international retail location strategy, notably features, forms and function, with the latter highlighting the importance of opportunistic market testing and trial, reduced risk, regeneration, ROI- and CRM-driven decisions; the factors impacting location choice and selection, specifically the trade-offs between reactive and proactive approaches and the importance of networks and intuition, and future pop-up directions.

Due to the chosen research approach, the results may lack generalization outside of the given sector and marketplaces. Several avenues for future research are elucidated including exploration of pop-up transformations including pop-up rebrand, technology enabled, experiential and third place.

The study contributes to the nascent field of research by providing new insight into the role of pop-ups within international location strategy, the factors influencing location choice and selection and offers a pop-up location taxonomy.

This paper seeks to estimate importance of various factors affecting the choice of fast food outlets by Indian young consumers.

The study applies multivariate statistical tools to estimate importance of various factors affecting the choice of fast food outlets by Indian young consumers. In addition, the authors analysed the consumption patterns, impact of hygiene and nutritional values, and rating of various attributes of McDonald's and Nirula's.

Results indicate that the young Indian consumer has passion for visiting fast food outlets for fun and change but home food is their first choice. They feel homemade food is much better than food served at fast food outlets. They have the highest value for taste and quality (nutritional values) followed by ambience and hygiene. Three dimensions (service and delivery dimension, product dimension, and quality dimension) of fast food outlets' attributes are identified based on factor analysis results. The two fast food outlets' rating differs significantly on the seven attributes. McDonald's scores are higher on all attributes except “variety”. Further, consumers feel that fast food outlets must provide additional information on nutritional values and hygiene conditions inside kitchen.

Fast food providers need to focus on quality and variety of food besides other service parameters. There is need to communicate the information about hygiene and nutrition value of fast food which will help in building trust in the food provided by fast food players.

Estimates importance of various factors affecting the choice of fast food outlets by Indian young consumers.

Familiarize with the retail operations of handicrafts, facility location problem, apply multi-criteria decision through the goal programming approach and solving the same with MS Excel.

The case portrays a dilemma in the context of retail operations of a small-scale handicraft company known as Odisha Craft. Located in Odisha, Susanta Mohanty, the owner, was finding it a challenge to decide on the most promising location for his new retail outlet in the neighbouring city of Kolkata. He had five choices for the locations. Odisha craft was established by his father-in-law in 2009 with an objective to preserve and promote the rich culture of the handicrafts designed by the local artisans and ensure sustainable rural livelihood. The company had been facing numerous challenges and the pandemic has given a very formidable blow to the monthly revenues. The case brings out the multi-faceted dilemma of deciding on the facility location in 2020, involving a set of conflicting criteria. The case unfolds a systematic solution approach resolving the dilemma using MS Excel.

Courses such as operations research, operations management, service operations and retail operations for MBA students and trainings for junior-middle level executives.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 09: Operations and Logistics