Preparing for the future: How to organize warehouse operations to secure a profitable e-commerce sales channel?

Abstract

The background and current setting of the topic and theme of this thesis is how a traditional logistics actor can profitably reconfigure warehouse operations with the purpose of preparing for increased e-commerce activities. The thesis assumes the perspective of the case-company Møller Logistics. A throughout discussion regarding the choice of the case-actor is provided before arriving on the research question: “Preparing for the future: How to organize warehouse operations to secure a profitable e-commerce sales channel?” The second section is dedicated towards reviewing relevant academic literature and covers warehousing with process flows, e-commerce, comparative analysis and warehouse model development. The purpose of the literature review is to provide the foundation for theoretical relevance of the thesis while ensuring consistent academic terminology and language. The third section account for the research methodology in the thesis. A mixed method case study is selected as the appropriate strategy and design. The thesis is developed through a stepwise method, starting with mapping Møller Logistics (ML) current warehouse operations. The following step is a comparative analysis of The Komplett Group. The purpose of the comparative analysis is to provide new ideas for ML warehouse operations from a leading e-commerce actor. From this, a model has been developed in Microsoft Excel™ 2010 to simulate performance in five scenarios with increased sales, and three reconfigured warehouse operations. The calculation shows that Møller Logistics would benefit from reconfiguring the current e-commerce warehouse operation so that it can be integrated with the ordinary flow of goods. The final section of our thesis discuss limitations of our study, thus functioning as guidance for suggested further research on the topic of warehouse configurations and e-commerce.