LIMITED BRANDS CONSOLIDATES ITS

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

PREPARED BY:

KARAN

INTRODUCTION

• American fashion retail business in Columbus, Ohio

• 3700 Stores, divided among seven retail brands

LIMITED BRANDS

Victoria’s Henri

Secret Bendel

Express Barn

Bath & Body C.O. The Candle Co.

Works Bigelow Limited

HISTORY• 1963 - Established

• 1969 - Went public with five stores

• 1976 - Development of large malls spurred Limited’sgrowth to 100 stores

• 1978 – Acquisition of Mast Industries

• 1980 – The company opened Express

• 1982 – Purchased Lane Bryant (Plus-Size) andVictoria’s Secret

• 1985 – Bought, The Lerner Stores and Henri Bendel

• 1988 – Bought sportswear retailer Abercrombie &Fitch

• 1990 – Bath & Body Works

HISTORY (CONT.……)

• 1993 – Closed many of the stores & entered into UK

market

• 1995 – Some units sold to public

• 1996 – A&F (Hoover’s Online) was sold

• 1997 – 1998 – Company closed more than 300

apparel stores

• 1998 – Launched White Barn Candle Co.

• 2003 – Sold its all stake of Lerner

2006

CASE

PROBLEMS

Operations were not always running so smoothly

(Supply Chain)

• Traffic Jam of 400 trailers (Capacity was 150 trailers)

Blocked a main Highway

• Planning System was crashed

• Improper Communication

• Lack of data - No one had any knowledge of the

origin of inventory or where it was going

• Acquisition

SOLUTIONS• The Limited designed supply chain to begin and end with

customers

• LLS (Limited Logistic Service)

Supplier

Manufacturer

Distribution

Network

End User

SOLUTIONS (CONT.….)

Hired Tibco Software

OSCAR

Booking information Module (BIM)

Application Programming Interfaces (API’s)

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Q. Analyze Limited Brands using the competitive

forces and value chain models. How supply chain

management related to the company’s business

strategy?

Ans.

Q. Describe the supply chain management

problems encountered by Limited Brands in this

case. What was their business impact?

Ans. Climaxed in 2002

• 400 trailers instead of 150

• Logjam created the catastrophe

• Growth was due to of acquisition

• The acquired companies had their own supply

chain

• There was no way to ensure proper coordination

Q. What management, organization, and technology

factors were responsible for these problems?

Ans.

Management

• Decisions to acquire company

Organization

• People did not know what was going where and

when

• Operating blindly

Technology

• Integrated Brand Delivery

Q. How did Limited Brands solve these problems?

What management, organization, and technology

issues were addressed by the solution?

Ans. Revolutionized their supply chain software

Management – Limited Logistics Services

launched several programs in attempt to ease the

supply chain problems

Organization - Limited Brands united their entire

information operations under one entity called

Limited Technologies Services

Technology – Contracted Tibco to create a global

SCM

• Enabled OSCAR

CONCLUSION

• Information system along its supply chain had to be

modified to accommodate changing strategy

• 1985-1992 – Growth Rate of 16.4%

• 1992-1995 – 4.4%

• 2003 -2004 – 5.8% ($8,845 mn to $8,934 mn)

• Present Mkt. Cap - $16.72 B