Analysis of supply chain and inventory management of FlipKart.com

Abstract

Today’s competitive world has changed the entire gamut of sales and distribution management dueto advent of internet and revolution of information technology. Most of the companies today arerealizing the power of IT and moving towards direct sale strategy through their own website inassociation with other dedicated product specific website service providers. For an example, allmajor airline operators today maintain their own website as well as has tie ups with other onlinebooking service providers like Makemytrip.com or Yatra.com.Power of IT has its influence in various aspects of Supply chain Management and has significantlyinfluenced its various aspects right from vendor selection through online auctions, procurement,warehouse management, logistics management to shipping and delivery. eCommerce today hasbecome a major force in changing market scenario and consumer buying behavior. Many onlineportals have evolved recently that operate only through Online order generation but involvescomplicated supply chain management system at various stages right from procurement tilldelivery.Success of Amazon.com and e-Bay has inspired many others to venture their entrepreneurial questinto this business. India today with quality IT professionals and young entrepreneurs has seenmany such success story in recent times in the form of Naukri.com and Makemytrip.com.Prominent in this field is FlipKart.com, an online book retail store that with its phenomenal successin a very short time span has impressed everyone and inspired many to conquer theirentrepreneurial desire. Started by two young IT professionals in 2007, FlipKart today has 7 milliontitles to offer and has revenue of Rs 75 Crore with 5 warehouses located across the country.This has attracted our attention as well to study and analyze the complex Supply chainmanagement of FlipKart and try to understand how it achieves its prime motto of “customerobsession” and very high customer satisfaction level. Through this CCS project we have aimed tostudy the supply chain management of online book retail system of FlipKart, their inventorymanagement system, product and process flow and SKU rationalization by taking up a specificproject with them.This project systematically deals firstly with understanding the online book retail service ofFlipKart through secondary and primary data then moves on to understanding specifically the workflow process of FlipKart and its mapping. Further it progresses to process mapping of Warehouseand later aims at optimization of Number of SKUs available at distribution center and finallyculminates with our final observations and recommendations on the same.