North West Company B

Introduction

The North West Company is a leading retailer of food and everyday needs to rural and urban neighborhoods across Canada, Alaska, the South Pacific islands and the Caribbean. In early 2003, North West had negotiated a master franchiser agreement with Giant Tiger Stores Limited (Giant Tiger) with the objective of opening stores west of Winnipeg. In contrast with North West's ""push"" system of product replenishment, Giant Tiger had developed a successful ""pull"" system that gave individual store managers tremendous leeway in ordering decisions. Inspired by Giant Tiger’s example of a “pull” system in action, North West management was considering giving store managers more control over their inventory ordering by moving to a “pull” merchandise replenishment strategy — also known as localization. Currently, North West employed a “push” strategy in which category managers at North West’s Winnipeg headquarters analyzed trends, placed orders and allocated products to stores. Typically, category mana...

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