Lecture- Too Much of a Good Thing: The Impact of Product Variety on Operations and Sales Performance

Campus A, State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission-219

2018 Jan.3, 10:00 am

Too Much of a Good Thing: The Impact of Product Variety on Operations and Sales Performance

Title：Too Much of a Good Thing: The Impact of Product Variety on Operations and Sales Performance
Time：10:00 am, Jan.3, 2018
Place：Campus A, State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission-219
Speaker：Xiang Wan
Host：Ming K. Lim, Professor, Dean

Biography
Dr. Xiang Wan serves as an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing and Logistics, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University. He has held previous faculty appointments at the University of Tennessee and Marquette University.

Dr. Wan holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration with a major in Supply Chain Management from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, where he earned Top 15% Teaching Awards in 2009 and 2010 at the Robert H. Smith School of Business as well as the Krowe Award for Teaching Excellence in 2010 and the Allan N. Nash Award for an outstanding doctoral student in 2011.

Dr. Wan’s research interests include product and service variety management, inventory management, supply chain coordination. His research work has been published in highly recognized global publications including Strategic Management Journal, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences Journal, and the Journal of Business Logistics, among other publications.

Dr. Wan’s research impacts both academia and industry. In 2012, he received the Doctoral Dissertation Award from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. Additionally, one of his papers was cited and discussed in the practitioner article, “SKU Proliferation: Too Much or Not Enough?” published at Deloitte University Press.

Abstract
We examine the impact of product variety decisions on an operational measure – unit fill rate – and on sales performance. Results are estimated using weekly data over three years from 108 distribution centers of a major soft drink bottler. Our results show that fill rates are negatively associated with product variety at a diminishing rate. Besides, we examine the total effect of product variety on sales including both the direct effect and the indirect effect through operations performance. The total impact of product variety on sales initially is positive, although at a diminishing rate. However, beyond a certain level, increased product variety actually results in lower sales; that is, “too much of a good thing”. Thus, the findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of product variety on operations and sales performance.