Gaining Competitive Advantage through Innovation Strategies: An Application in Warehouse Management Processes

Abstract

In today’s highly dynamic business environment, organizations need to develop new competitive advantages to keep up with the speed of change in technology, customer demands and global competition. In this difficult task, organizations can benefit from innovation strategies and tools more than ever, as it helps companies to optimize their competing power by increasing their performance and efficiency. One strategically effective way to use innovation for a company is to apply it in warehouse management. Warehousing is becoming more and more a critical activity in companies. Competition and high customer demands force companies hold less inventory, react faster to market changes and lead times and costs. As a result, new automatic processes may increase productivity noticeably and become a source of competitive advantage for companies. In this study our aim is to illustrate the innovation strategies role in improving warehouse operation efficiency, enhancing the utilization of warehouse capacity, increasing inventory accuracy and reducing customer complains significantly by explaining the old and new processes of warehouse management in a global company. This study will help managers and practitioners to understand the role of innovation management tools in structuring warehouse management and how to gain a competitive advantage through successfully planned and implemented innovation strategies.