Getting the Most from Omnichannel Management Strategy: Special Session: Best Articles from the Italian Marketing Association: An Abstract

Abstract

In recent years scholars and practitioners have suggested omnichannel management as the best approach to reach and engage the customer in the buying journey. Traditional literature on distribution channels has focused on the co-operation and mostly on conflicts and competition among a company’s direct and indirect distribution channels (Frazier 1983; Gaski 1984; Coughlan et al. 2006). More recently, literature on marketing channels has debated the need for a multi-channel approach based on separated offline and online channels (Neslin et al. 2006). At present, the prevailing focus is on an omnichannel management strategy intended as the synergetic and integrated management of the numerous available channels – online and offline - and customer touchpoints to optimize the customer experience and channels’ performance. An effective omnichannel strategy lets the consumers use channels seamlessly and interchangeably and experience the channels uniquely (Verhoef et al. 2015). Most of the literature refers to omnichannel management as a strategy to increase customer experience and customer loyalty, thus focusing on omnichannel management and marketing strategy. A few research refers to the study of the interplay between omnichannel management and operations and logistics management (Marchet et al. 2018). The goal of this paper is to understand at which conditions a company can get the most from an omnichannel management strategy both at marketing and sales level and at the operations and logistics one. In other words, the paper faces the question concerning the conditions at which the implementation of integrated online and offline channel strategy by the introduction of the e-commerce on top of the traditional sales channels lets the company get benefits in terms of improved marketing and supply chain management performances. On the basis of the literature review and of a Delphi study we developed research hypotheses and a related framework that considers two variables as impacting on the value of an omnichannel strategy: the level of product’s value density (high, low) and the main (if not unique) distribution channel typology (direct, indirect). By crossing these two dimensions, four combinations can be identified. For each of them, a case study was analyzed. Preliminary evidence from the case-studies points out the most relevant differences among the four typologies, in terms of opportunities and threats that companies must cope with in the fields of marketing and supply chain management, when pursuing an omnichannel strategy.