Enjeux et dynamique d'évolution des critères de performance en contexte inter-organisationnel : les enseignements de l'industrie textile française

In this paper, we focus on the way cost, quality and time are dealt with in the specific context of client-supplier relationships. The increasing demand toward suppliers in terms of multicriteria performances is an important evolution factor for these relationships and contributes to the definition of the geography of sourcing. We show that the management of the different performance criteria is becoming an obligation for clients as well as suppliers. We rely on a study of the new purchasing techniques set by French clothing retailers. Even if the clothing industry is often described as a traditional industry, it is an industry in which management techniques are quite original. All the history of this industry can illustrate this idea. Our study of the industry rely on interviews made with buying directors, buyers, suppliers and shareholders of twenty of the biggest French retailers. This study allows us to observe the strengthening of the importance of the three traditional criteria (cost, quality, time) and the growing importance of new criteria referring to societal performance. It shows the difficulty to set tools enabling the management of the three criteria at the same time. Finaly, we propose that only new purchasing techniques can answer these difficulties (multisourcing, sustainable supply chain). That is why we conclude that the buyer is to be back because he is the only one who can integrate all the criteria that have to be taken into account.