Research On The Supply Chain Management Of The Publishing Industry Based On The Collaboration Theory

With the gradual market-orientation of China’s publishing industry, the industrial hierarchy has been established, and all the market entities and chains have combined to form a supply-chain network in which they intertwine and influence one another. The chains regarding traditional publications refer to the initial supply of book manuscripts and paper and so on, the intermediate processes of editor design, printing, distribution, and logistics, the delivery of publications to consumers, and the sharing and transmission of publishing and distribution information. As Martin Christopher, the British logistics and supply-chain expert, has indicated,"Competitions in the21st century is no longer that between enterprises, but that between supply chains." And the core of supply chain and supply-chain competition lies in the competence of collaborative management of the supply chain. Actually, nowadays, the problems in the collaborative management of China’s publishing supply chains stand out, and have greatly hindered the healthy and long-term development of China’s publishing industry. These problems include a gradual increase of the publishing supply chain’s cost, the book stock running high (which is due to the bad collaboration between the publishers’production and the distributors’sale), a frequent book return and a high return rate, and the publishing industry’s failure to fully meet the readers’personified and diversified demands. Meanwhile, in recent years, the developments in web and digital technologies have transformed the procedure of China’s traditional publishing supply chain, new production chains have been added to the supply chain, the consumption of digital reading has made redundant the traditional publishing logistical chain, on-line and off-line coordinated marketing has been gradually employed in the sale of publications. Therefore, the problems in the collaborative management of the publishing supply chain have become more and more complicated and diversified.Based on the above-mentioned industrial reality and technical background, the thesis (or dissertation) is aimed at introducing the collaborative management theory into China’s management of the publishing supply chain, so as to solve the incompatibilities in the development of the publishing supply chain. As a theoretical basis, the thesis conducts an analysis of the content system, technical requisites in the collaborative management of the publishing supply chain. After that, it attaches importance to generally analyzing the overall implementation strategies in the management, and respectively analyzing the detailed implementation strategies from the aspects of suppliers’collaboration, collaboration between producers and distributors, logistical collaboration, and inventory collaboration, which are of the main constituents of the supply chain. Following that, the thesis appraises the performance of the collaborative management of the supply chain using the empirical method, which can provide scientific criteria for the publishing and distribution enterprises’improvement of the collaborative management ability.At first, on the basis of analyzing the collaborative theory and supply-chain management theory, the thesis expounds the necessity and feasibility of the collaborative management of the publishing supply chain. Due to the bullwhip effect that the supply chain innately varies and amplifies the demand, together with a lack of strategic sense of collaboration, a failure to fully share information, and the retardation in the procedural and functional management, the collaborative management of the publishing supply chain has become currently essential. After analyzing the collaborative management experiences of foreign publishing supply chains, and the current conditions of China’s publishing and distribution enterprises, such as favorable policies, enlightening practices and the digitalization turning-point, the thesis points out that the collaborative management of China’s publishing supply chain is practically feasible.And then, the thesis comprehensively expounds the content system, technical requisites and implementation strategies in the collaborative management of the publishing supply chain. After analyzing the factors which influence the collaborative management, it explicates the content system of the collaboration of the publishing supply chain, which includes the collaboration subject, the collaboration partner and the selection method. On the basis of this, it puts emphasis on analyzing the formation mechanism, running mechanism and stimulus and decision-making mechanism of the collaboration of the publishing supply chain. After explicating "standardization", the precondition of the collaboration of the publishing supply chain, and " information-orientation ", the realization basis, it puts forward the strategies of information collaboration and integration of the publishing supply chain, and respectively explicates the establishment of various types of collaboration information platforms for the publishing supply chain, especially the implementation strategies for establishing comprehensive information collaboration platforms. The implementation strategies for the collaboration management of the publishing supply chain are the highlight of the thesis,.which is mainly deliberated from4distinctive aspects------the publishing suppliers’collaboration, collaboration between producers and distributors, logistical collaboration, inventory collaboration. These are detailed implementation methods proposed for comprehensively and systematically solving the incompatibilities in the management of the publishing supply chain.In the end, it expounds the methods of appraising performance in the collaborative management of the publishing supply chain, and conducts empirical research on the publishing and distribution enterprises on the basis of data investigation. Because the thesis establishes an index system for the performance appraisal in the collaborative management of the publishing supply chain, and on basis of that, employs the Fuzzy Synthetic Evaluation method to appraise performance of the collaborative management of the publishing supply chain so as to judge the collaboration level in the management of the publishing supply chain, the rationality and practicability of the dissertation has been greatly strengthened.