Reverse Supply Chain Management - A study of two companies in the personal computer industry

摘要

Environmental regulations, increasing returns and legislative initiatives as well as the rapiddevelopment of new products forces companies in the personal computer industry to focusmore on their reverse flow. Reverse supply chain management (RSCM) is becoming moreimportant to companies, from being seen as a nuisance, companies are starting to realize itspotentials.The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the role of RSCM and how economic value canbe captured in the reverse supply chain (RSC) in the personal computer industry, and tofulfill the purpose a multiple case study was conducted. To gain knowledge on the subject, aliterature review was made and interviews with managers at renowned manufacturers HewlettPackard and Dell were carried out.The results showed that economic value was captured through the reselling of used productsbut time- and resource intensive activities were required in order to capture value. The twocompanies had different approaches to their respective RSC’s, mainly in terms of economy asa driver and the execution of the RSC processes. Legislations and customer citizenships wereconsidered drivers to the companies, forcing them to operate comprehensive take-backprograms.The conclusions drawn from the findings are that keeping processes in-house comes withhigh initial costs, although increasing the potential to gain revenue in a long-term perspective.HP considered economy to be a driver and was also able to increase its revenue fromreselling returned computers through different channels. Dell sees the reverse supply chainmore as a necessity than a potential source of revenue and has outsourced most of itsactivities.