Supply Chain management and Financial

Performance of Agora

Prepared By:
ID

Name

05-51

Md. Asibur Rahman

05-63

Moheuddin Ahmed Hemal

05-101

Md. Golam Sarwar

Submitted To:
Dr. Md. Abdul Hannan Mia
Pofessor
Department of MIS
University of Dhaka

Date: 25.11.2014

Contents
History of Agora ......................................................................... 4
Supply Chain Management of Agora ......................................... 5
Supply Chain for Agricultural Products ................................... 5
Supply Chain for Consumer Products ...................................... 6
Supply Chain for Imported Goods ........................................... 7
Overall Supply Chain Activities ................................................. 8
Financial Performance of Agora ................................................. 9
Supply Chain Performance Metrics Framework of Agora ....... 9
Financial Performance ........................................................... 10
References ................................................................................ 11

History of Agora

Rahimafrooz Superstores Ltd. (RSL) launched Agora the first ever retail chain in Bangladesh in
2001. Agora promises a valuable shopping experience that provides quality and fresh products at
the right price. It aims to consistently provide a remarkably satisfying and valuable shopping
experience through a business that improves the quality of life for customers and team members.
With outlets in major locations throughout Dhaka, and many more being planned in Dhaka and
other major cities, Agora is endeavoring to fulfill the everyday needs of its customers by
providing the right quality, assortment and price through stores of various forms and sizes.
While Agora mainly focuses on food items - ranging from a wide variety of fish, meat,
vegetables, fruits, bakery, dairy, and grocery - it also carries a vast array of other grocery,
personal care, and various other consumer goods and household utensils.
Agoras interior is similar to most supermarkets in design and layout due to trends in marketing.
It produce tends to be near the entrance of the store. Various kinds of products and services are
sold (at least 2500 products and services). Milk, bread, and other essential items are located in
the rear and other out of the way places. This is purposely done to ensure maximum time spent in
the store, strolling past other items and capitalizing on impulse buying.
The front of the store or Front-End is where one might find point of sale machines or cash
registers. Agora has plans to implement self-checkout devices in their stores in an attempt to
reduce labor costs as well as bringing complete customer satisfaction. Understanding the
historical context from which some of today's organizational structures have developed helps to
explain why some structures is the way they are but Agora using a structured which is more
horizontally capitalizing on the innovativeness of their employees. Part of the reason, as this
section discusses, is that organizational structure of Agora that has a certain inertia.

Supply Chain Management of Agora

As we have seen in the history Agora has very diversified products ranging from kitchen market
to consumer goods and cosmetics. Some of the products they sell are import oriented. So
designing a supply chain for their wide product variety was not easy for them and moreover
maintaining this huge network is very costly too. They have different types of supply chain for
their different types of products.

Supply Chain for Agricultural Products

As we can see from diagram above they procured the products from the local supplier then store
it in their warehouses and then send the products to the retail outlet when it is necessary. They
try to send the degradable products to the retail outlet as early as possible. They use inbound
logistics and outbound logistics to transport the goods.
5

Supply Chain for Consumer Products

As we can see they procure their consumer products from different manufacturer and store them
in their warehouse and distribution center, they use inventory management system to maintain
the inventory and requirement order from the retail outlet. After storing the products they send
them to the retail outlet according to their requirement.
In the outlet they arrange the products according to their values. Price tags are given to the
product in the warehouse and distribution center. Procuring consumer products are not easy as
different manufacturer produce same valued products.

Supply Chain for Imported Goods

Agora use two types product procurement approach to procure imported goods they are given
below:
Direct Import: Agora directly imports some products from the manufacturer abroad. The main
objective of this is to reduce the cost of imported goods.
Procure from the Importer: Agora procures the goods sometimes from the importers as
importing the goods directly sometimes have some difficulty.

Overall Supply Chain Activities

As we can see from the cycle above it starts from the supplier and it ends in the supplier as
supply chain is a never ending process. Every step here is very important. Agora tries to procure
the products directly from the supplier and try to run their entire operation by their inbound
logistics but at some points they need to hire other means of transportation. They operate several
advertisement campaigns to attract the customers and try to rearrange their pricing strategy.

They have pretty good customer service to encourage the employees more customer friendly
they have designed attractive remuneration packages.

Financial Performance of Agora

Supply Chain Performance Metrics Framework of Agora

Financial Performance

We had some difficulty to collect financial data from Agora as they have said that financial data
is strictly confidential. We tried our best to collect the financial data. Information showed above
was stated by one of the employee of Agora who happened to be in its management committee.
So we presumed it is credible.

10

References
1. http://www.rahimafrooz.com/OurBusinesses/Companies/RahimafroozSuperstoresLtd/tabid
/112/Default.aspx.
2. Mr. Jahid Uddin Ahmed, Executive Member of Rahimafrooz Management Committee.
3. Operations Management process and Supply Chain, Krajewski, Bitzman, Mlahotra and
Srivastava.

11