Glocal Sourcing: How to Combine Global and Local Sourcing? A case study within FMCG industry

Details

Supervisors

Blome, Constantin

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

The fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry operates in a dynamic and competitive environment and thus one of the most important aspects of their supply chain is the sourcing part. In this thesis, we attempted to analyze the drivers, risks, and trade-offs that companies encounter when combining local and global sourcing. The aim was also to challenge companies on their current industry trends, and to assess their own sourcing strategy as an answer to these major trends. For this purpose, a multi-case analysis was carried out. An analysis of the collected data was carried out first then the outcomes of the interviews were compared against one another. The findings of this research may highlight the importance of the mission as well as its purpose as one of the important factors in the sourcing strategy, but also the nature of the product. Regarding drivers, cost reduction and access to certain product sources were the main factors mentioned for global sourcing. For local sourcing, it was agility and the associated benefits that were highlighted by the respondents. The requirement for quality products also ranked as an important parameter when choosing between global and local sourcing for the companies interviewed. In terms of trends, we observed that sustainability and product traceability were the first trends mentioned by the companies and that their combined sourcing strategy was an effective response to these trends in their view. These results must, however, be interpreted in the light of the limitations discussed in this paper.