Supply chain management in emerging market economies: a review of the literature and analysis of the Russian grocery retail sector

There exists a vast amount of research concerning Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) in developed countries; with most of the papers considering the implementation of new IT systems and tightly coordinated as well as centralised retail–manufacturer supply chains. However, population rich as well as rapidly developing emerging markets have gained less attention. According to our literature survey, most of the published journal articles in this area concentrate on Asia or Latin America. Interestingly, research related to Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) is very meagre and less contemporary, although these countries have a fairly large population base near to Europe, and are demonstrating rapidly increasing wealth. In the empirical part of this paper, we show the results of a qualitative content analysis of 330 selected articles from leading Russian language business news, and enlarge the examination of key players with second-hand financial and business data. Based on empirical data analysis, we argue that the retail sector faces increasing pressure regarding restructuring, the management of growth and the implementation of modern retail management concepts. We also identified the internationalisation of this sector by German, French and Turkish-based companies. However, domestic retail companies are also making interesting moves in terms of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and acquisitions.