Describe marketing channel management by identifying the major activities that it involves. Identify several ways that marketing channel management adds value to a company's offerings, with regard to consumers as well as business partners.

In what ways can the flow of information be managed in the supply chain? How can the ready flow of information increase a firm's operating efficiencies?

A just$-$in$-$time $($JIT$)$ inventory system appears to be an important success factor for retailers like H&M and Forever $21.$ Choose a local retailer and examine the advantages and disadvantages of its use of a JIT system. Do you believe it should use JIT? Why or why not?

Give an example of a retailer that participates in an independent $($conventional$)$ supply chain and one involved in a vertical marketing system. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Why might a big company like Lenovo want to develop strategic partnerships with locally owned computer stores? Describe what Lenovo would have to do to maintain such relationships.

You are hired as an assistant brand manager for a popular consumer product. One day in an emergency meeting, the brand manager informs the group that there is a problem with one of the suppliers and that he has decided to send you over to the manufacturing facilities to investigate the problem. When you arrive at the plant, you learn that a key supplier has become increasingly unreliable in terms of quality and delivery. You ask the plant manager why the plant doesn't switch suppliers because it is becoming a major problem for your brand. He informs you that the troubled supplier is his cousin, whose wife has been very ill, and he just can't switch right now. What course of action should you take?