Strategic commitment versus postponement in a two-tier supply chain

In this paper the trade-off between strategic commitment and operational flexibility is examined as it arises in a supply chain when a supplier offers competing buyers opportunities to make early purchase commitments for a product with a short life cycle. Traditionally, the use of incentives for early purchase commitments for short life-cycle products has been justified on the basis of a supplier's production lead times or capacity constraints. An alternative explanation has been proposed by offering early purchasing opportunities, a supplier can influence the form of competition in the downstream market. Using a single period model, it has been shown that, below a threshold level of demand uncertainty, the supplier can benefit from providing adequate pricing incentives to entice downstream buyers to commit to purchase quantities before demand information is revealed. Moreover, such early purchasing opportunities can benefit the supplier as well as the buyers even in the absence of production lead times or capacity constraints. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.