| Summary: | This thesis aims to investigate the nature of supply chain relationships in the sportswear sector from concept to consumer. The sportswear supply chain partners consist of buyers, designers and retailers who research, design and deliver a range of sportswear products to the end-consumer. The forward movement of products and the backward flow of information are commonly termed supply chain management although the underlying factor rests in the relationship management in terms of both business2business(B2B) and business2consumer(B2C). Certain literature suggests that a wide application of information technology (17) can make it possible for organisations to improve or remodel their supply chains and improve their overall business operations (Motwani et al., 2000). According to Andel (1997) an improved supply chain can move a product (such as a clothing garment) to the market faster and the results of this improvement are witnessed by the cuts in costs of moving goods from the original source to the consumer. Harland (1996) suggests that worldwide improvements in computing and communications technologies have made business-to-business(B2B)relationships easier to manage. The research has been developed from an extensive review of literature and a range of academic disciplines, from the sportswear industry to supply chain theory. There has been very little academic research on `sportswear'; one key work is that of David Rigby Associates (DRA, 1995) into the changing effects of the sportswear market. This study generated an important framework describing relationship management in the supply chain, between the buyer, supplier and retailer. The work concluded that there are changes in the sportswear industry relationships due to the effect of information technology on the supply chain. The research in this thesis concludes that B2B and B2C relationships exist along the sportswear supply chain and an emergent model is presented to demonstrate where these fit, with respect to the processes and people involved in the supply chain activities.
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