Efficient consumer response 365 International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 11 No. 4, 2000, pp. 365-373. # MCB University Press, 0956-4233 Received June 1999 Accepted May 2000 Efficient consumer response as a supply chain strategy for grocery businesses Joyce M. Hoffman Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas, USA, and Satish Mehra University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, USA Keywords Supply chain mangement, Grocery, Just in time, Retailing, Consumer marketing Abstract Quickly responding to customer needs has become a major priority for retail businesses such as grocery operations. Customer satisfaction is an absolute for staying competitive in these retail operations. This paper discusses efficient consumer response (ECR) as a supply chain strategy in grocery businesses by analyzing the adoption of ECR strategy by five major grocery operations in US markets. Furthermore, a management action plan is presented for future adoption of ECR strategy by similar business operations. Introduction Market forces in the present day business dynamic, require that customer service and satisfaction take priority over all other key performance indicators of an organization. Given the intensity of competition among businesses, improving business performance through higher customer service has become an absolute top priority. Quickly responding to customer needs has provided a new motivation for businesses to improve their processes and design leaner operations (Womack and Jones, 1996). For retail businesses, specifically grocery businesses, quickly responding to a customer's needs has become a total necessity. However, this change in business paradigm for grocers has brought out new challenges that require low-to-no inventories and reduction in costs for all trading partners. This paper examines the grocery industry of the service sector in US markets to analyze the adoption of new philosophies for quickly responding to customer demands through sound supply chain management (SCM) practices. Specifically, this study examines the efficient consumer response (ECR) adoption process of five businesses, and based upon the findings, proposes a set of managerial guidelines for future adoption of the ECR strategy. Managing food industry supply chains Supply chains in food industry offer an interesting challenge. This challenge revolves around managing demand at the point of sale (POS) and analyzing information generated through POS at various retail outlets. Essentially, the problem is one of managing inventories in face of changing customer needs. Contrary to manufacturing businesses, backordering is not a viable option for any grocery business. Hence, smart management of inventory to quickly The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emerald-library.com