EFFICIENT CONSUMER RESPONSE A NEW CONCEPT FOR FOOD DISTRIBUTION

Efficient Consumer Response is a system approach characterized by coop eration which generates competitive advantages in logistics and market ing. ECR as well as the ECR-subsystems open up savings potentials and enable positive effects at every stage of the value added chain. From this point of view the impacts of ECR are not only limited to industry and trade, what is more, they reach, among others, also the upstream sector of agricultural production and the downstream sector of consump tion. Food production and distribution involving a great number of eco nomic branches is an extremely heterogeneous branch of the consumer go ods industry with the consequence that functioning, importance and imp acts of ECR have to be analysed and assessed differently by considerin g the respective outline conditions and operative activities. Using th e example of German dairying - the branch of the German food industry with the biggest turnover - it is shown that the national level of dev elopment and the respective behavioural parameters within the producer -trade network offer only in a few branches particularly good precondi tions for introducing ECR. Analysis of ECR and ECR-subsystems within t he sector of dairy products illustrates that - on the basis of the for ecasts available-the quantifiable savings potentials are markedly less high than expected, eventual positive effects appear to be possible t o a limited extent only and that the costs incurred with introducing E CR must not be underestimated. Further, expert discussions with repres entatives belonging to industry and trade, published opinions and the rare success achieved so far by the few large-sized producers of brand ed articles in Introducing ECR indicate that in the strongly segmented and mainly small and medium-sized German food industry practical appl ication of ECR and the ECR-subsystems can only be understood as a medi um-to long-term perspective. It is incontestable that the ECR discussi on will further the Improvement in matters of organization and cost re duction in the area of logistics of the food sector. By applying moder n technology-, information- and merchandise information standards ECR can represent the basis of an output-oriented terms system. To overcom e the apparent contradiction between competition and cooperation and t o make simultaneously use of the whole range of the potentials of info rmation technology is an actual challenge to food production and distr ibution. ECR will, thus, produce a lasting effect on the competitivene ss of all participants in the market.