TRL3709
ASSIGNMENT 2
SEMESTER 1
2025
, Introduction
Supply chain management plays a critical role in ensuring that a business’s strategic
goals are aligned with its operational capabilities. Today, in the highly competitive
and rapidly changing environment, the supply chain management of the business
like Tumi Boutiques (Pty) Ltd can play an important role in supporting the
differentiation strategy of the business and in the niche market, that of the luxury
bridal fashion. This project investigates the use of supply chain management
concepts like push and pull view, supply chain drivers and how its operations play
out at Tumi Boutiques. In addition, it analyzes the facility location — customer
responsiveness tension and tries to understand how Tumi can achieve the strategic
fit by making supply chain strategy consistent with the competitive strategy. Both
theoretical perspectives and the case study’s practical examples are combined into a
discussion of how supply chain decisions impact business success.
1.1 Push or Pull View Processes in the Supply Chain
In supply chain management, push and pull views represent two broad strategies for
managing supply and demand. It comprises of supply chain processes that are
initiated and also executed in the anticipation of customer orders and is largely
based on forecasts. It involves manufacturing and distributing products in response
to demand, but it also implies inventory holding in order to meet customers
requirements. However, pull view contains the processes that are launched from the
real customer demand to cut down inventory and expand the responsiveness
(Moshood et al., 2021). It has an impact on the supply chain responsiveness and
cost efficiency; and these are sometimes blended to suit business models and
strategic ideas.
Generally, Tumi Boutiques (Pty) Ltd combines both push and pull strategies and the
predominant supply chain is the push based supply chain. This is explained by the
way the company buys imported wedding dresses in large amounts from overseas
suppliers in spring and autumn, according to seasonal demand forecasts. This
anticipatory approach also matches the push strategy in cycling, whereby stock is
rather held at the main warehouse of Cape Town and distributed to boutiques all
over the country. The decision to store extra stock at the warehouse "in case there
are late deliveries" highlights the role of inventory buffers as part of push-based
ASSIGNMENT 2
SEMESTER 1
2025
, Introduction
Supply chain management plays a critical role in ensuring that a business’s strategic
goals are aligned with its operational capabilities. Today, in the highly competitive
and rapidly changing environment, the supply chain management of the business
like Tumi Boutiques (Pty) Ltd can play an important role in supporting the
differentiation strategy of the business and in the niche market, that of the luxury
bridal fashion. This project investigates the use of supply chain management
concepts like push and pull view, supply chain drivers and how its operations play
out at Tumi Boutiques. In addition, it analyzes the facility location — customer
responsiveness tension and tries to understand how Tumi can achieve the strategic
fit by making supply chain strategy consistent with the competitive strategy. Both
theoretical perspectives and the case study’s practical examples are combined into a
discussion of how supply chain decisions impact business success.
1.1 Push or Pull View Processes in the Supply Chain
In supply chain management, push and pull views represent two broad strategies for
managing supply and demand. It comprises of supply chain processes that are
initiated and also executed in the anticipation of customer orders and is largely
based on forecasts. It involves manufacturing and distributing products in response
to demand, but it also implies inventory holding in order to meet customers
requirements. However, pull view contains the processes that are launched from the
real customer demand to cut down inventory and expand the responsiveness
(Moshood et al., 2021). It has an impact on the supply chain responsiveness and
cost efficiency; and these are sometimes blended to suit business models and
strategic ideas.
Generally, Tumi Boutiques (Pty) Ltd combines both push and pull strategies and the
predominant supply chain is the push based supply chain. This is explained by the
way the company buys imported wedding dresses in large amounts from overseas
suppliers in spring and autumn, according to seasonal demand forecasts. This
anticipatory approach also matches the push strategy in cycling, whereby stock is
rather held at the main warehouse of Cape Town and distributed to boutiques all
over the country. The decision to store extra stock at the warehouse "in case there
are late deliveries" highlights the role of inventory buffers as part of push-based
