Lululemon Promises Plenty of Yoga Pants
Forbes, 03/22/2012
Lululemon is a large manufacturer of yoga gear. This past year one of their major restrictions to growth was brought on by a limited supply of their products in their retail stores. The demand for their product exceeded the available supply Lululemon could provide to their retail stores. In an effort to capture this lost growth opportunity they have committed investments to their distribution chain and future increases in their total inventory. One of the interesting points to this article that goes beyond just the underlining increasing supply to increase the growth of the company is the opposing model that the limited availability of their products trains their customers to come in and buy as soon as new products hit the stores.
All of the models and strategies discussed in this news article directly link to the subject of operations management. The article discuses the need to invest in distribution chains and the need to forecast inventory to line up with demand. It also highlights the ability for the organizations supply chain management to play a major role in the company’s overall strategies and business models, for example limiting their product availability to creating an urgency to make purchases.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/freddreier/2012/03/22/lululemon-promises-plenty-of-yoga-pants/print/
