A Methodology For Combining Stakeholder Perspectives In Multicriteria Inventory Classification : An Application In Turkish Retailing Sector

Abstract

The growth rate of the retail industry is increasing with each passing day because of the changing dynamics in Turkey and the world. In this growing and changing industry, the concept of inventory management has become a more significant point for companies. One of the most important success criteria of the retail industry is sales, profit margin, and right purchasing management, though one of the most important criteria that companies actually fail to notice is the proper inventory management. In the industry such as retail is one of the industries in which the season is moving according to trends and customer demands can change rapidly. For this reason, inventory management is a difficult but definitely not to be overlooked issue. Because, inventory is one of the most important cost items for companies. If the inventories are not managed in parallel with the revenue and expense budgets, it causes the stocks that are missing or over. In this case, the financial statements of the companies directly affect. There are a number of stakeholders affected by inventories within the company, as the company's financials are affected. These are company top management, product managers and store managers. There are different inventory management methods to reach the ideal stock which will satisfy all stakeholders. Multi-criteria inventory classification models is one of the most widely used inventory management models among these methods. In inventory management decisions, the effectiveness of more than one objectives, stakeholder and criteria, makes it possible to apply Multi Criteria Decision Analysis techniques in this field. For this purpose, the study in the ABC classification and Multiple Criteria Classification UTADIS method is discussed in detail and an application of the method in Turkish retail industry is performed in order to interpret the results.