Luxury supply chain management : a first-hand investigation of the Italian luxury firms' SCM in China and a comparison with their SCM in Italy

This research has as main objective the investigation of the supply chain management (SCM) of luxury Italian firms in China and it aims to compare the findings with the SCM of luxury Italian firms in Italy. In order to reach these goals a case-study methodology was used. The findings were compared with previous studies of Politecnico of Milan about the SCM practices and choices that luxury firms adopt in Italy. Those practices and choices result to be related with the luxury Critical Success Factors (CSF) the luxury consumers more care during their luxury purchasing experiences and to the main SCM issues Italian luxury firms have to face in China. For this reason, since the Chinese luxury consumer differ from the Italian, I investigated how these CSFs’ relevance changes across these two countries and inside China. Further I listed the main SCM issues for Italian luxury firms in China and the SCM practices and choices they implement in that country. Last, the relationships between the luxury CSFs/ SCM issues in China and the SCM practices and choices were provided.