Relationer i dagligvaruhandeln

Sammanfattning: Abstract The food retail market of today constitutes a great number of relationships, both vis-à-vis customers as well as suppliers, which stress the importance of the retail operator to keep an attentive outlook. With this, environmental issues has raised questions to what extend retail transportation can be carried out with greater consideration to environmental aspects, which increases the pressure on retail operators to act responsibly. Service Management literature describes relationships as a key value-adding function on a long-term basis. The food retail market has undergone a consolidation trend in the last decade and this raises the question to what extend the power balance has shifted towards the large retail operators on a B2B-perspective. In terms of a supplier-retailer relationship perspective, we feel the need to investigate the different relationships that a food retail operator is a part of. Our focus lies on how the balance of power is displayed in the operator’s daily cooperation, which also relates to the operators forms of trust and the will to act responsibly. Furthermore, we investigate the incentives and possibilities that the retail operators have to form more environmentally-friendly transportation solutions, focusing on intermodal transportation with train as the main carrier. Our investigation is based on qualitative interviews with four of the main retail operators on the Swedish market, along with interviews with one supplier and one transportation operator. Our result implies that many food retail organizations have a hierarchal control which might restrain the store manager’s ability to conduct business according to the conditions formed on the local market. Furthermore, large-sized retail operators have a power advantage vis-à-vis suppliers and have therefore the possibility to control the relationship according to their on demands. The food retail operators need to put focus on how they can act more relationship-friendly internally on store level as well as externally in collaboration with both suppliers as well as other business partners. The result also show some difficulties as to how intermodal transportation can be truly value-adding in the food retail market, due to the great quality demands that operator put on the transportation. We believe that the environmental debate on retail transportation is steadily increasing and might put pressure on the government to solve the problems that arises from lack of capacity that comes from increased freight train transportation.