Abstract
GILLES PACHE IS ASSISTANT Professor of Business Logistics at the Troyes Institute of Technology, University of Reims (France). He has published many journal articles and three books (in collaboration). His research interests include new technology applications to logistics and strategy of small- and medium-sized business. In this research note, the author shows that some big industrial firms nowadays try, rather than vertical integration, to increase market transactions with small- and medium- sized businesses. They sub-contract especially the manufacturing of components, semi-products or even the integral elaboration of finished products. Through the analysis of French actual cases, the author notes that these strategies converge to the emergence of new organisational pattern, the network. Logistics management here plays a principal part in the co-ordination of externalised operations by small- and medium-sized businesses.
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