Title: An approach to improve supply chain profit through buy-back contract with reference to a book publishing firm

Authors: Debadyuti Das

Addresses: Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi, Delhi, 110 007, India

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existing practices of buy-back contract adopted by a book publishing firm and the amount of profit gained by the publisher and a distributor as also the total supply chain profit generated under the current contract. The study was carried out in a leading book publishing firm based in India. It has considered the publisher and a distributor based in Northern Zone of India as two partners in the supply chain acting as a single supplier and a single customer respectively. The forecast demand of a book is estimated based on qualitative and quantitative factors and thereafter the print-run quantity and volume of returns are determined under both existing scenario and the proposed scenario based on estimated demand, variability of demand and the service level. Finally the optimum buy-back price is found out under the proposed scenario which maximises the profit of both publisher and distributor and also the overall supply chain profit.

Keywords: buy-back contract; publisher's profit; distributor's profit; supply chain profit; book publishing firm.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2017.086946

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2017 Vol.28 No.3, pp.338 - 354

Received: 07 Jan 2016
Accepted: 03 Jul 2016

Published online: 03 Oct 2017 *

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