Business Project Assessment Sample

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Introduction - Business Project Assessment Sample

In the dynamic business environment, numerous challenges are faced by the organizations, ranges from the economic to technical and ethical issues and has a significant impact on its stakeholders and overall performance. The context of this report is to identify the current issue faced by the L’Oreal Paris in Europe, a well-known multinational brand of personal and beauty care brand and its impact on its business operations and on its stakeholders. This consultancy report emphasise son the critical evaluation of the identified issues and provides a practical recommendations to mitigate the issue faced by the beauty care brand.

L’Oreal Paris is known as one of the leading multinational French brand of cosmetics in the world with the creation of luxury beauty products from hair and skin care to cosmetics (L’Oreal Paris, 2024). Currently, the brand is facing the issue related to supply chain difficulty results in complexity in the forecast of supply and demand for products. Moreover, it adversely affects the operations of suppliers, results in increase in the price of good and non-availability of the products at right time to the consumers. Issue of supply chain difficulty has negatively affected the business performance and profitability and has an adverse impact on the organisational stakeholders.

This report includes the current challenges faced by L’Oreal Paris in the European market and discusses its potential impact on the brand’s efficiency and competitiveness. The purpose of the report is to identify and analyse these challenges in the current business environment of Europe. Additionally, this report delves into the impact of the issues on stakeholders. To support this, secondary data from various sources is analysed and critically evaluated to enhance the report’s effectiveness. At last, appropriate recommendations are provided to overcome supply chain difficulties related to demand forecasting within the organization. For those seeking academic assistance, expert help with writing assignments is available to ensure high-quality and well-structured project submissions.

Challenges Faced By L’oreal Paris

In the competitive landscape of business, a systematized management of supply chain is vital for the maintaining the brand image, competitiveness and profitability of the business (Lee et al, 2022). An effective management of supply chain aims to provide the services and products to the customers at right time to meet the objectives of the brand. It is crucial for the brand to maintain the loyalty and satisfaction of the consumers and to reduce the operating costs of the brand. However, L’Oreal Paris has currently facing the issue of difficulty in supply chain in multiple contexts such as transformation and demand forecasting, leads to interrupt the flow of sales, production and distribution of products and service to the potential target customers (Beauty Tomorrow, 2020). It results in the creation of inefficiencies or difficulty in the process of production, supply and distribution of the brand’s products.

There are multiple reasons identified due to which brand is facing supply chain issues. The primary reason the issue is identified as high inflation, as it leads to increase the cost of manufacturing and transportation and logistics, reduces the availability of raw material and resources (Alzoubi et al, 2022). Besides that, it adverse influences the preferences and needs of the consumers towards the purchasing of brand’s products exacerbate inflation within the management of supply chain of L’Oreal Paris. The Euro area annual rate of inflation was recorded at 2.4% in June, 2024, leads to increase the prices of raw material and human resources (European Commission, 2024). Besides that, the power of purchase of consumer has drastically decrease, leads to disrupt the forecasting of demand in terms of products. This result in arise of difficulty in supply chain of the L’Oreal Paris reduces its purchasing power, leads to decreased efficiency of supply chain.

Another reason behind the issue of difficulty in supply chain is identified as rising prices of resources, raw materials and packaging (Hugos, 2024). Due to inflation, prices of raw material and human resources have been increased. In addition, non-availability of the resources required for the production of brand’s products leads to reduce the production of L’Oreal Paris. This emerges as another reason by which L’Oreal Paris faces the issues in managing its supply chain in efficient manner (Yadav et al, 2020). In addition to that, there is a shortage of skilled and qualified labour due to which the brand is facing the issue of low production within its supply chain management.

Business Project Assessment Sample

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The current economic condition of the European market revealed that the nation is facing the scarcity of skilled and talent human resource due to which 82% of the organizations are find complexities in managing its business and supply chain operations (Statista, 2024). Apart from that, due to the increased rate of freights and transportation, L’Oreal Paris faced the issues towards the fulfilment of demands for its products. Currently, the brand has operated its business in more than 150 countries. However, due to the increased rate of transportation and freight charges, shipping delays, traffic and weather issues, L’Oreal Paris finds it difficult to manage its product supply in best possible manner to its target customers (Barman et al, 2021).

Purpose Of The Report

The purpose of this consultancy report is to analyse the supply chain issues faced by the L’Oreal Paris at Europe. It highlights the key reasons or factors related to increased inflation and transportation issues due to which brand is facing the issue of difficulty in managing supply chain. This report will suggests practical recommendations about the reduction of potential issue of supply chain in L’Oreal Paris. This will help the brand to enhance efficiency in its supply chain, leads to increase satisfaction and loyalty of the customers along with the improvement in brand’s profitability and competitiveness in the external business market.

Analysis Of Stakeholders

In business world, stakeholders plays a vital role in accomplishment of strategic objectives and has a significant impact on the overall business performance (Frazelle, 2020). L’Oreal Paris comprises its business with external and internal stakeholders. An internal stakeholder includes board of directors, shareholders, investors, managers and employees. On the other hand, external stakeholders include customers, suppliers, financial institutions, competitors, regulatory agencies, and government. In relation to the context of difficulty in supply chain as an issue, interest of the stakeholders related to the efficiency and business performance has adversely affected (Kouhizadeh et al, 2021). As a reason of this issue, competiveness, brand image and efficiency of management of supply chain has been drastically reduced, leads to negative impact the internal stakeholders of the L’Oreal Paris.

The internal stakeholders of the L’Oreal Paris are connected with the issue of difficulty in managing chain of supply as they are directly connected or linked with the supply chain operations (Blanchard, 2021). For instance: directors, employees and managers are the key internal stakeholders of the L’Oreal Paris as they have a full control over the business and supply chain operations and responsible to meet expectations and demand of diverse range of customers by ensuring the smooth supply chain operations (Gupta et al, 2020). However, due to current supply chain issue, the internal stakeholders of L’Oreal Paris are adversely impacted due to increased cost of operations and decline in supply chain efficiency by which there is a massive decline in sales. Furthermore, Ghadge et al, (2020) critically acclaimed that the decision making ability of the board of directors and regulatory body related to the formulation of decisions has drastically affected due to the mismanagement in supply chain operations. In addition to that, there is a decline in the value of shareholders due to the inefficient brand performance within the section of supply chain, leads to minimize the revenue turnover and operational efficiency

Power Grid Matrix of Stakeholder analysis

The power interest grid would help in evaluation of impact of current issue related to the difficulty in managing operations of supply chain (Bekrar et al, 2021). Matrix of interest grid critically evaluates the impact of issue on potential stakeholders in terms of their interest and power level. This matrix helps the L’Oreal Paris to analyse the impact on the stakeholders in terms of their interest and power. Board of directors, shareholders and regulators are the stakeholders with high power and interest towards the organizational performance. Albertzeth et al, (2020) mentioned that these groups of stakeholders are required to closely manage as plays a vital role in decision making to accomplish the brand’s objectives. On the other hand, supplier and customers are the external stakeholders with high power and low interest as they do not influence the daily business operations of the supply chain management. Therefore, it is required to keep them satisfied and addresses their issues and concerns to manage organizational effectiveness (Tirkolaee and Aydin, 2022). Conversely, Employees, managers and partners of the L’Oreal Paris have low interest and power and required to monitor as they hold minimal impact on the supply chain performance.

On the other hand, external stakeholders are not directly linked with the brand, but they are indirectly affected by their outcomes and decisions (Song, 2021). Issue faced by L’Oreal Paris related to supply chain difficulty has a vital impact on the external stakeholders. Customers are majorly affected by this issue as their demand and preferences related to the brand’s products remain unfulfilled due to difficulty in managing operations of supply chain. This leads to minimize their satisfaction and loyalty, results in reduced brand’s turnover and productivity. In addition, supplier’s acts as a key player of supply chain network (Abolghasemi et al, 2020). However, due to supply chain disruption, suppliers are unable to deliver the brand’s products in timely manner to the target customers. This often leads to missed opportunities related to market expansion, reduced sales and decreases overall supply chain performance of L’Oreal Paris.

Evaluation And Analysis Of Data

Global events in the past decade have an adverse impact on the business performance among which supply chain issues are one of them. Seyedan and Mafakheri, (2020) analyses that combination of high inflation and complexities in management of supply chain operations with reduced pace of growth reduces the competitiveness and productivity of the business. Currently L’Oreal Paris faced complexities in managing operations related to management of supply chain. This issue arises due to multiple reasons such as increased inflationary pressure, non-availability of resources and raw material and along with the transportation issues (Nozari et al, 2022). Due to these reasons, L’Oreal Paris is unable to manage its supply chain operations in effective manner, results in loss of brand loyalty and lack of satisfaction among consumers. As per the view of Sharma et al, (2022) inflationary pressure in the European economic market emerge as one of the significant cause behind the issue of difficulty in managing operations of supply chain. The Euro area rate of inflation was measured at the rate of 2.5% in the month of June, 2024 (European Commission, 2024). 

Figure 1: Annual rate of Inflation in Europe

Due to inflationary pressure in Europe, the purchasing power of the European consumers was reduced by 47% along with a significant change in the consumer’s preference (Tirkolaee et al, 2021). Besides that, supply chain management of the L’Oreal Paris has faced the complexities of reducing consumer power and finds complexities in forecasting of demand in effective manner. The European Inflationary pressure affects the supply chain of L’Oreal Paris in adverse manner by changing purchasing power of its consumers. Furthermore, supply chain management inflation had reduced the purchasing power of the brand, as it already struggles with increased cost of operations. Fildes et al, (2022) mentioned that high customer’s demand with low supply of product leads to raise the situation of inflation in the nation’s economy. Difficulty in the management of supply chain leads to create product shortage, results in reduced satisfaction and brand loyalty by the consumers.

Furthermore, inflation in European market leads to increase the situation of resources scarcity due to which the production capacity of the L’Oreal Paris has massively reduced. As a result, brand is unable to meet the demands of the consumers by providing required number of products on time. Besides that, Fosso Wamba et al, (2024) stated that transportation and logistic plays a crucial role in managing smooth operations of supply chain as it ensures the smooth delivery of products on timely manner. This leads to fulfil the demand of the consumers, results in higher productivity and efficiency in the supply chain operations (Ogbuke et al, 2022). However, L’Oreal Paris has faced complexities in managing supply chain operations due to transportation and logistic issues. Due to this, the brand faced high cost of maintenance of inventory and complexity in managing supply as per the market demand. Infrastructural limitation and traffic congestion leads to unnecessary delay in smooth product supply and causes inefficiencies. As a result, the efficiency of the overall supply chain in Europe has been reduced by 23% in the year 2024 (Hadwick, 2024).

Figure 2: Reasons behind difficulty in managing operations of Supply chain management in Europe in 2024

Lee et al, (2022) critically acclaimed that rising cost of fuel is another factor that posed extra challenge on the supply chain disruption of the L’Oreal Paris. Due to these reasons, the supply chain operations have adversely affected and unable to meet the consumer’s demand. Apart from that the logistics and transportation issues leads to increased transportation cost and inventory management cost results in incurring additional expenses of the supply chain within L’Oreal Paris (Alzoubi et al, 2022). This factor arises the issue of delay in shipping, or cause damages to product due to traffic and weather issues, affects the supply chain operations in negative manner. Moreover, due to these issues, brand is unable to meet the expectations of its consumers due to delayed delivery and supplying the defected products (Hugos, 2024). Along with the, L’Oreal Paris has faced the issue of increased transportation cost within the management of operations of supply chain by 23%, as a result, brand faced the issue of low profitability and efficiency within its supply chain (Hadwick, 2024).

However, the brand could implement the theory of resource dependence to enhance the effectiveness in its supply chain. Yadav et al, (2020) analyses that theory of resource dependence will help L’Oreal Paris to enhance collaboration and dependency with an aim to seek increased supply chin performance in long run. This theory will guide the brand to maintain its relation with environment and other organizations in order to acquire resources and raw material to manage its production and other factors of supply chain (Barman et al, 2021). This theory outlines the capabilities of the internal resources of L’Oreal Paris such as IT systems and organizational culture, are leveraged to improve the performance of SCM. Furthermore, this theory focuses on the assessing the role of external resources of the brand analyse their impact on the strategies of L’Oreal Paris (Frazelle, 2020). This will help the brand to transform its SCM process with the improvement in its supply chain strategies in order to ensure the effective supply chain operations with minimized chances of difficulties.

In addition to that, the European economy has suffered with a severe shortage in availability of human resource (Kouhizadeh et al, 2021). Currently, the availability of the raw material and other resources required by the organization for the production process has been reduced by 32% due to inflation and other geographical conditions. The chain of supply within L’Oreal Paris is labour intensive due to which the brand faced the shortage of skilled workforce in managing the production, demand and operations of supply chain. According to the view of Blanchard, (2021) labour shortage leads to arise fluctuation in product’s demand due to non-availability of human resources with organizations. Moreover, the brand’s supply chain impacts the quality and efficiency of the supply chain in negatively manner. Gupta et al, (2020) stated that it causes delay in process of supply chain operation as the brand requires skilled and talented workers to maintain the critical areas of supply chain, its operations and logistic. It was reported that the European market has faced the issue of lack of talented and skilled work in its management of supply chain by 44% due to which the competitiveness and efficiency of the brands supply chain has negatively affected (Hadwick, 2024).

As per the view of Ghadge et al, (2020) brand can implement the theory of transaction cost economics to maintain the cost of operations within its supply chain management. This theory would assist the L’Oreal Paris to manage the coordination with the operations of supply chain, leads to determine the structure of governance in better manner. Moreover, it will enable the brand to focus on the resources, costs and operations in effective and efficient manner to accomplish the objectives of organization (Coyle et al, 2021). The transaction cost theory integrates the activities of supply chain with the current market dynamics to promote the supply chain performance. Albertzeth et al, (2020) critically evaluated that the transaction cost theory helps the L’Oreal Paris to become more accountable and responsible towards the maintenance the cost of production, includes the contracting costs, transportation cost, searching cost and coordination cost. Besides that, this theory aims to foster the transactional relationship as the stability of the suppliers has been minimized by 28% (Hadwick, 2024). To maintain the stability of the suppliers within the European market, the transaction cost theory would assist the brand to foster effective relations with its suppliers to maintain the costs and overall efficiency of the supply chain by eliminating the complexities and challenges.

Operations within supply chain of L’Oreal Paris has been drastically affected, results in raising challenge of demand forecasting due to the unpredictable behaviour of consumers and changing dynamics of marketplace (Tirkolaee and Aydin, 2022). Due to these, L’Oreal Paris faces difficulty in mapping actual demand of the consumers for the products. The rapidly changes expectations and preferences of customers and their shopping patterns have an adverse impact on the inventory management and demand of the L’Oreal Paris (Song, 2021). It was reported that the supply chain of the European market has been disrupted due to the changing preferences of consumer’s results in increased storage of products by the brand. This causes the situation of lack of warehousing availability by 11% in the European market.

Additionally, there is intense competition in the European beauty and personal care market, due to which the performance of the supply chain has diversely affected (Abolghasemi et al, 2020). Even though L’Oreal has maintain a diverse portfolio with a strong brand image in terms of offering diverse range of products across nation, it faces the issue of disrupted supply chain due to intense market competition. There are multiple competitors of L’Oreal in the European market such as Revlon, Estee Lauder, Unilever and many other has influence the customers by offering best products at affordable rates (Seyedan and Mafakheri, 2020). This leads to arise the issue of demand forecasting within the supply chain of L’Oreal due to which its performance has been adversely affected.

L’Oreal has known for its continued dominance with the industry of cosmetics and beauty care as it has a strong ability of change adaptation as per the shifting trends of consumers (Nozari et al, 2022). However, the brand has faced issues in the anticipation of current or shifted market trends and consumer preferences due to its ineffective supply chain. Its consequences emerge in the form of decrease in the number of consumers, reduced satisfaction and loyalties of consumer, ineffective supply chain operations and high revenue loss (Sharma et al, 2022).

Figure 3: Predicted Disruptions in European supply chain in 2023 versus 2024

The supply chain performance within the European has been declined due to multiple factors. It was predicted for the research that European market is not favourable for managing supply chain operations in effective manner. As results, brands such as L’Oreal Paris have faced challenge of difficult in managing its supply chain operations. Tirkolaee et al, (2021) stated that it leads to arise huge financial burden in the brand due to increase on the cost of production and massive decline in sales due to disruption in supply chain. Brands are required to source raw materials and resources at increased prices, needs to invest in additional or expedited shipping, results in reduction of production (Fildes et al, 2022). Moreover, the profitability of the brand has been decreased due to inefficiency of supply chain. In addition, delayed delivery is another reason behind revenue loss of L’Oreal Paris, has a negative impact on future sales too. The European supply chain faces the issue of global recession, due to which its overall performance has been reduced by 34% in the year 2024 as compare to the previous year (Hadwick, 2024)

Apart from that, the European economic market has faced the issues related to geographical instability, identified as the cause behind arising inefficiencies and vulnerability in the supply chain operations of the brand (Fosso Wamba et al, 2024). L’Oreal Paris could adopt the theoretical framework of supply chain risk management, focuses on the identification, analyse and critical evaluation of consequent losses and risks within its supply chain. Ogbuke et al, (2022) mentioned that it will guide the brand to implement the practical strategies with a coordinated approach to minimize the issues within the SCM such as inaccurate demand forecasting, resources scarcity and logistics and transportation issues. This theory will assist the L’Oreal Paris to analyse its supply chain speed, time, and frequency and associated losses to overcome with the effective implementation of risk management within SCM (Blanchard, 2021). This would ensure the productive outcome of the supply chain with minimized costs and increased profitability and organizational efficiency.

Conclusion

From the above report, it was summarized that L’Oreal Paris, one of the leading brand of beauty and personal care has faced the issues of difficulty in managing the supply chain operations. There were multiple reasons behind the creation of complexities, such as increased inflationary pressure, scarcity of resources and raw material, non-availability of skilled and talented labour and logistics and transportation issues. As a reason of increased inflation in the European market, purchasing power of the L’Oreal Paris was reduced in drastic manner. Apart from that, it leads to increased prices of raw materials and resources have an adverse impact on the cost of production, thus, reduced profitability of the brand. On the other hand, issue related to scarcity of human resources has a crucial impact on the supply chain productivity as the brand’s supply chain was majorly relied on the human resource. This resulted in shortfall of products and creation of inefficiencies within SCM. As a result, high revenue loss, missed deadlines and increased operational cost was faced by organization.

Moreover, logistics and transportation issues related to delayed and defected product supply, lack of real time tracking of product’s shipments and increased prices were concluded in this report. This leads to disrupt the operations of supply chain and minimizes the brand loyalty. Additionally, it was outlined that L’Oreal Paris faced challenges in supply chain due to lack of shifting towards the preferences and trends of consumers, result in decreased loyalty and revenue turnover of brand. Theory of resource dependency was analysed with a view to assist L’Oreal Paris towards the increased collaboration and dependency in order to promote the higher supply chain performance. It enables the brand to gain advantage of appropriate utilization of resources and increased competiveness with drastic decline in complexities within SCM. In addition, theory of transaction cost was discussed in this report with a view to minimize the overall cost of supply to gain high profitability and efficiency within the SCM of L’Oreal Paris.

Besides that, the impact of issue related to difficulty in managing operations of supply chain was evaluated with the use of power interest grid. Board of directors, managers, shareholders and employees were identified as the internal stakeholders of the L’Oreal Paris within the context of issue, whereas, consumers, suppliers, government, partners and regulatory bodies were identified as external stakeholders. With the implementation of matrix of power interest grid, the actual impact in terms of acquired power and interest was evaluated to analyse the impact of complexity in SCM on the potential stakeholders of the organization. Along with that, theoretical framework of supply chain risk management was analysed. This framework assists the L’Oreal Paris to manage risks in effective manner with the formulation of risk management strategies.

The above report highlighted the complex supply chain as key issue faced by the L’Oreal Paris and key reasons behind which the brand faced these issues. Here are list of practical recommendations for the L’Oreal Paris to minimize the difficulties in its supply chain operations, which are as follows.

• Firstly, it is suggested to the L’Oreal Paris that it can implement the automation techniques and technological advancements within it supply chain operations to minimize the challenge related to logistics and transportation within management of supply chain. These technologies transform the supply chain management and aimed to improve the issue of demand forecasting and enhance efficiency of the supply chain operations (Ghadge et al, 2020). With the adoption of system of intelligent transportation, advanced software for real time tracking and route optimization, L’Oreal Paris can mitigate the transportation issues within its supply chain. In addition, it can adopt the alternate transportation methods which are sustainable in nature, such as use of electronic vehicles, to mitigate the adverse environmental impact.
• Moreover, it is recommended that the brand could promote the information sharing and collaborations among the key partners of supply chain and its stakeholder to minimize the difficulties in SCM. This will ensure the SCM of L’Oreal Paris by facilitating better coordination and minimizes the lead times to promote efficient supply chain. Besides that, it can implement the advanced tracking technologies of GPS and RFID to monitor the real time location of the shipments along with providing the benefit of increased transparency (Coyle et al, 2021).
• Apart from that, with the improvement in the demand forecasting by way of using technological advancements such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain technology and Machine Learning or through automation was suggested to L’Oreal Paris to overcome the supply chain issues. With the maintenance of balance between consumer demand, warehousing cost and inventory levels, brand can improve its demand forecasting (Bekrar et al, 2021). To achieve this, L’Oreal Paris can adopt the forecasting tools and software, trend projection or through conducting appropriate market research, it can forecast the product’s demand in accurate manner and reduces the issue of complexities in managing SCM.
• Also, it is suggested to L’Oreal Paris that it can transform its supply chain with the implementation of augmented technology to minimize the demand/supply complexities. Along with that, the Augmented SCM enhances the resilience and promotes high transparency and visibility within the management of supply chain. In order to maintain efficient SCM, brand can implement the advance technology of order and inventory management to minimize the logistic issues within supply chain (Seyedan and Mafakheri, 2020). This will reduce the total supply cost of L’Oreal Paris and promote satisfaction of its consumers by supplying products on right time.
• Besides that, with the formulation and implementation of risk management strategies, L’Oreal Paris can mitigate the supply chain complexities in effective manner. It has been suggested that with the identification, assessment and strategic evaluation, brand can formulate its risk management strategy with an aim to prevent organization form the supply chain risks in near future (Fosso Wamba et al, 2024). Furthermore, it can monitor its supply chain performance to identify the potential risks and maintain its security from external threats within supply chain.

References

Books and Journals

• Abolghasemi, M., Beh, E., Tarr, G. and Gerlach, R., 2020. Demand forecasting in supply chain: The impact of demand volatility in the presence of promotion. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 142, p.106380.
• Albertzeth, G., Pujawan, I.N., Hilletofth, P. and Tjahjono, B., 2020. Mitigating transportation disruptions in a supply chain: a cost-effective strategy. International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, 23(2), pp.139-158.
• Alzoubi, H.M., Ghazal, T.M., Sahawneh, N. and Al-kassem, A.H., 2022. Fuzzy assisted human resource management for supply chain management issues. Annals of Operations Research.
• Barman, A., Das, R. and De, P.K., 2021. Impact of COVID-19 in food supply chain: Disruptions and recovery strategy. Current Research in Behavioral Sciences, 2, p.100017.
• Bekrar, A., Ait El Cadi, A., Todosijevic, R. and Sarkis, J., 2021. Digitalizing the closing-of-the-loop for supply chains: A transportation and blockchain perspective. Sustainability, 13(5), p.2895.
• Blanchard, D., 2021. Supply chain management best practices. John Wiley & Sons.
• Coyle, J.J., Novack, R.A., Gibson, B.J. and Langley, C.J., 2021. Supply chain management: a logistics perspective. Cengage Learning.
• Fildes, R., Ma, S. and Kolassa, S., 2022. Retail forecasting: Research and practice. International Journal of Forecasting, 38(4), pp.1283-1318.
• Fosso Wamba, S., Guthrie, C., Queiroz, M.M. and Minner, S., 2024. ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence: an exploratory study of key benefits and challenges in operations and supply chain management. International Journal of Production Research, 62(16), pp.5676-5696.
• Frazelle, E., 2020. Supply chain strategy: the logistics of supply chain management. McGraw-Hill.
• Ghadge, A., Er Kara, M., Moradlou, H. and Goswami, M., 2020. The impact of Industry 4.0 implementation on supply chains. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 31(4), pp.669-686.
• Gupta, H., Kusi-Sarpong, S. and Rezaei, J., 2020. Barriers and overcoming strategies to supply chain sustainability innovation. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 161, p.104819.
• Hugos, M.H., 2024. Essentials of supply chain management. John Wiley & Sons.
• Kouhizadeh, M., Saberi, S. and Sarkis, J., 2021. Blockchain technology and the sustainable supply chain: Theoretically exploring adoption barriers. International journal of production economics, 231, p.107831.
• Lee, K., Romzi, P., Hanaysha, J., Alzoubi, H. and Alshurideh, M., 2022. Investigating the impact of benefits and challenges of IOT adoption on supply chain performance and organizational performance: An empirical study in Malaysia. Uncertain Supply Chain Management, 10(2), pp.537-550.
• Nozari, H., Szmelter-Jarosz, A. and Ghahremani-Nahr, J., 2022. Analysis of the challenges of artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) for the smart supply chain (case study: FMCG industries). Sensors, 22(8), p.2931.
• Ogbuke, N.J., Yusuf, Y.Y., Dharma, K. and Mercangoz, B.A., 2022. Big data supply chain analytics: ethical, privacy and security challenges posed to business, industries and society. Production Planning & Control, 33(2-3), pp.123-137.
• Seyedan, M. and Mafakheri, F., 2020. Predictive big data analytics for supply chain demand forecasting: methods, applications, and research opportunities. Journal of Big Data, 7(1), p.53.
• Sharma, R., Shishodia, A., Gunasekaran, A., Min, H. and Munim, Z.H., 2022. The role of artificial intelligence in supply chain management: mapping the territory. International Journal of Production Research, 60(24), pp.7527-7550.
• Song, D., 2021. A literature review, container shipping supply chain: Planning problems and research opportunities. Logistics, 5(2), p.41.
• Tirkolaee, E.B. and Aydin, N.S., 2022. Integrated design of sustainable supply chain and transportation network using a fuzzy bi-level decision support system for perishable products. Expert Systems with Applications, 195, p.116628.
• Tirkolaee, E.B., Sadeghi, S., Mooseloo, F.M., Vandchali, H.R. and Aeini, S., 2021. Application of machine learning in supply chain management: a comprehensive overview of the main areas. Mathematical problems in engineering, 2021(1), p.1476043.
• Yadav, G., Luthra, S., Jakhar, S.K., Mangla, S.K. and Rai, D.P., 2020. A framework to overcome sustainable supply chain challenges through solution measures of industry 4.0 and circular economy: An automotive case. Journal of Cleaner Production, 254, p.120112.

Online

• Beauty Tomorrow, (2020). Transforming L’Oréal Supply Chain? A fascinating challenge! Online. Available through: <https://beautytmr.medium.com/transforming-lor%C3%A9al-supply-chain-a-fascinating-challenge-95b1ae0c32cb>. 
• European Commission, (2024). Annual inflation down to 2.5% in the euro area. Online. Available through: <https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w/2-17072024-ap#:~:text=in%20the%20EU-,Overview,down%20from%202.7%25%20in%20May>.
• Hadwick, A., (2024). The state of European Supply Chain. Online. Available through: <file:///C:/Users/Administrator/Downloads/the-state-of-european-supply-chains-survey-2024.pdf>.
• L’Oreal Paris, (2024). About Us. Online. Available through: <https://www.loreal-paris.co.uk/about-loreal-paris#:~:text=L'Or%C3%A9al%20Paris%20is%20the,scientific%20excellence%20and%20restless%20innovation>.
• Statista, (2024). Labor and skills shortages in Europe - statistics & facts. Online. Available through: <https://www.statista.com/topics/11864/labor-and-skills-shortages-in-europe/#topicOverview>.