Paper Outlines Importance of Supply Chain in Helping to Grow e-Commerce

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Annibal Sodero

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Annibal Sodero, assistant professor of supply chain management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, and Carolyn Shanks, senior solutions manager at FedEx Services, have co-authored a white paper on how optimizing the supply chain can help grow e-commerce.

The Supply Chain Management Research Center at the University of Arkansas in collaboration with FedEx Services announced the publication of the white paper, titled Optimizing the Inbound Supply Chain Enables E-Commerce Growth. The document explains how online retailers can collaborate with suppliers to provide the ultimate customer experience through a well-managed and executed drop shipping program.

Sodero is a member of the newly formed e-commerce board of directors at FedEx. The paper was passed out recently at the board's inaugural meeting in Memphis.

The white paper says that the ultimate customer experience is getting the right product to the right customer at the right price, quality, place, time and condition. It also says that more and more customers want to control where, when and how they receive the product and that they want constant visibility throughout the order fulfillment process, from the order pickup to its final delivery.

The report concludes that an effective drop shipping program offered by a third party logistics provider, such as FedEx, encompassing robust delivery options; proven supply chain processes; and sophisticated e-commerce technologies for organizational interoperability, can help online retailers to deliver the ultimate customer experience.

Sodero joined the Walton College supply chain management faculty in January 2013. He earned his doctoral degree in supply chain management from Arizona State in 2012, got his master of science degree in supply logistics in 2003 from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom and received a bachelor's degree in computer sciences in 1996 from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. He was a teaching assistant at Arizona State and is the co-founder and CEO of Ad Hoc Informatica in Brazil.