North South University: Report On Reckitt Benckiser Course: Logistics and Transportation (SCM310) Section: 2
North South University: Report On Reckitt Benckiser Course: Logistics and Transportation (SCM310) Section: 2
North South University: Report On Reckitt Benckiser Course: Logistics and Transportation (SCM310) Section: 2
on Reckitt Benckiser
Submitted by:
Name ID
Hriti Aroni 1812471630
Synthia Tinni 1621414030
Tasnuba Mahbub 1620428030
Tareq Hossen 1811685030
Aziza Anjum Ananna 1731844030
Tawhidul Azam Utsho 1811610030
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Report on Reckitt Benckiser
Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................................................................ 2
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 4
Transportation ................................................................................................................. 15
Warehousing .................................................................................................................... 19
RECOMMENDATION............................................................................................................... 23
CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................... 24
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 25
APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................. 26
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Executive Summary
Transportation system and logistics are the most essential parts of a company’s supply chain
management. No matter how big or small a company is; only good planning can lead a
company to success. Our team selected “Reckitt Benckiser”, a market leader in consumer
This report gives information about supply chain management, logistics channel and
tried to incorporate the knowledge we gained from the course and compare with the policies
in RB. Transportation activities are presented based on product sourcing and time allocation.
We discussed varies parts of their supply chain management. We created some diagrams to
give visual representation of the information we collected. Throughout the overall analysis,
we tried to relate their supply chain functions with strategies that we have learnt about
Logistics and Transportation this semester. At the end of the report, we have provided
Overall, we tried our best to provide the appropriate information and to analyze of all the
functions perfectly. We believe that, this report will give an overview of how theories and
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Introduction
Reckitt Benckiser is one of the market leaders in the consumer goods industry. To become
one of the market leaders and spread their business all over the world they needed to focus on
their supply chain management. They have to maintain quality while sourcing the cheapest
options available to win the market. The company’s goal is to improve basic human life and
In this report, we are trying to implement our theoretical knowledge to compare with the
company’s operations management to find out more about how businesses in the world run.
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Company Overview
Reckitt Benckiser Group plc (RB) is a large multinational company producing consumer
goods that operates in around 200 countries (“boosting productivity”, n.d). It produces a
range of health hygiene and home products. The company came into existence in 1999 after
the merger that took place between British company Reckitt & Colman plc and that of a
Dutch company Benckiser NV. On the 15th of April 1961 Reckitt Benckiser started their
Limited”. After the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, they changed the name of the company
after the merger with Benckiser, in accordance with parent company, the name of the
company was changed to Reckitt Benckiser (Bangladesh) Limited. As of the present, they are
one of leading company in Bangladesh and helping us to lead a healthy and hygiene life.
They are working on the frontline to ensure the latest health and hygiene information is as
Fabric care:
• Calgon
• Vanish
• Woolite
Surface Care:
• Lysol
• Dettol
• Harpic
• Cillit Bang
Image: 1: Brands under Reckitt Benckiser
Health and personal care:
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• Gaviscoin
• Veet
• Clearasil
• Durex
• Enfamil
• Nurofen
Image: 2: Most Famous products of Reckitt Benckiser
• Mucinex
• Strepsils
• Nutramigen
• Scholl
Dishwashing
• Finish
• Calgonit
Home care
• Air wick
• Mortin
This company is one of the most prominent companies in the home product industry. Rahul
2008. In Reckitt Benckiser, he has done various roles like Commercial Controller, Regional
Supply Controller, Area Financial Controller, Finance Director - Footwear Europe, Finance
Director - Thailand, Philippines & Indo-China. Moreover, Vishal Gupta is the Managing
Director and Sourav Mitra is working as CFO of Reckitt Benckiser (Bangladesh) Limited
(Flexjob, n.d). It has captured a huge market in Bangladesh in 2018 the revenue of Reckitt
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Benckiser (Bangladesh) Limited was
Benckiser (Bangladesh) Limited has different strategy to compete with them and survive in
this industry. As part of their goal to have 100% of plastic packaging reusable or recyclable
by 2025, they created a plan to phase out carbon black plastic by 2021. As of right now,
bottles are made from carbon black plastic which are sent to waste because they are very hard
to detect by optical sorting machines in recycling plants. They have now phased this out from
their Harpic and finish brand. Their mission is to protect, heal and nurture in the relentless
pursuit of a cleaner and healthier world. They fearlessly innovate in this pursuit across our
Hygiene, Health and Nutrition businesses (Reckitt Benckiser Group plc, n.d).
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According to Mr. Rashedul Hasan (Russel), Reckitt Benckiser expects to achieve a growth of
15-20% by 2022.
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Topic Discussion
Suppliers
Reckitt Benckiser (RB) believes in sustainability. With their new ideas and products, they
want to make life easier for people. They want to make people’s life happy through their
products. Reckitt Benckiser, is also very much concern about the environment. For any
• When sourcing the raw materials, they need to keep the policy and standard of
the company
The suppliers need to do a self-assessment test through sedex- a online platform where
suppliers share information with buyers regarding their labor, health and safety and
environment. RB makes sure that their suppliers practice no child labor, no forced labor,
protecting the environment, reducing energy use, water use and emitting less greenhouse gas
In an interview with the logistics and planning (supply services) manager of RB, Mr.
Rashedul Hasan (Russel) said to reveal their top suppliers are confidential. He further added
like most regular trade their suppliers are from the local market.
Location
Reckitt Benckiser needs around 20 ton of raw materials per month. Speaking about the
delivery location, Mr. Rashedul Hasan (Russel) says the company decides the location,
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according to the company’s preference, suppliers does not have the preference of choosing
the delivery location. Usually they get their materials delivered to their factory in Chittagong.
Distribution
According to Mr. Rashedul Hasan (Russel), the logistic and planning manager of Reckitt
Benckiser, the raw materials and everything else first comes to the factory and then from the
Their finished goods are handed to the distributers from there it goes only to retailers,
Bullwhip effect
Bullwhip effect basically explains the inventory fluctuation. No one wants to miss customers,
and vice versa, no one wants to stock extra inventories in the warehouse. Therefore, everyone
tries to protect themselves from stock out by ordering more than needed or ordering less so
that less products are stored in the storehouse at the end. This creates a fluctuation. To
minimize this effect every company has their own strategies. In Reckitt Benckiser, they have
SNOP (sales and operations plan) meeting once a month to decide demand for the next three
months and produce/import accordingly. Then in the next month in SNOP meeting, they
review that month’s sales and production and accordingly forecast for the next three months.
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Usually their directors and top managers participate in the SNOP meetings to make decisions.
Moreover, through that analyzed demand they precede further giving orders to their
Sub-
Warehouse Distributors
Dhaka Local
Raw and Factory Distribution
Packagin Chittagong House Retailers
g Warehouse
materials Chittagong
Distributors
Finished
goods Institutions
Forecasting
Like any other manufacturing companies Reckitt Benckiser also forecast before they produce
and gets supplies. They have monthly SNOP meetings were the directors and top managers
do a forecast of possible future demand. They consider current stock, current sales rate,
events, economy, season and political situation etc. before calculation demand for next 3
months.
Customer Service
Customer service is an essential part of SCM. But Reckitt Benckiser supply chain department
does not have close connection with their end customers. They depend on their distributors to
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reach the product to their end customers and hardly take any feedback from the end
customers.
Reckitt Benckiser has transactional relationship with their channel partners. Their suppliers
and other partners firstly need to fulfill the requirements given by RB. Then they can make a
deal. Nevertheless, RB also makes sure to give advantages and support their channel partners
meaningful relationships through a supply chain has become a high priority. There are
different types of relationship that a company can have with their supply chain partners. They
Suppliers
Suppliers Suppliers
Wholesalers
Manufacturer
(Reckitt Benckiser)
Distributors
Retailers
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They have a very straightforward supply chain system with traditional supply chain
partners. Reckitt Benckiser has a few suppliers where they buy the raw materials and other
supplies. They will then manufacture their products in their factory, which is located in
Chittagong.
Intensity of Involvement
There is a range of intensity of involvement between producers and their suppliers. The range
goes from transactional to relational. Transactional is when the relationship is not that deep
and they are just buying supplies from someone. The other end of the spectrum is one of a
strategic alliance.
Reckitt Benckiser operates on the transactional side of the spectrum. This means that they do
not really maintain a good relationship with their suppliers. This is due to the various terms
and conditions that they hold their suppliers to. If they cannot provide the perfect supplies to
the satisfaction of Reckitt Benckiser, they will quickly move to other suppliers who can
provide supplies and maintain the high standard that they have set.
When selecting suppliers, Reckitt Benckiser considers a few things. The most important
factors are cost, Expertise, and following their terms and conditions. Reckitt Benckiser are in
direct competition with a lot of foreign companies such as Unilever and domestic producers
such as square. This means that they have to engage in price competition. This is why try to
source suppliers who will give them their materials in a cheap price. While considering price,
they also have to maintain the quality of their products. Since they want to produce a better
quality product, they have very specific terms and conditions that they have set.
They have a quite elaborate and efficient method of selecting their channel partners. They
give questionnaire this is to see if they produce raw materials following TQM or any other
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quality control techniques. They see capability to safely provide the amount of supplies in a
Reckitt Benckiser checks for week coverage to manage their order cycle. It mostly depends
on products to products. All of their products have different demand and shelf life. They are
also manufactured in different places, so it solely depends on the product. They have
different order cycle for different products. Usually they see the demand of the product in
current week and order based on that for next week. For imported products, they order the
• Demand Forecasting
• Purchasing
• Requirements Planning
• Production Planning
• Warehousing
• Distribution Planning
• Order Processing
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• Transportation
• Customer Service
They employ third party logistics to manage all their inbound and outbound transportation.
They do not have any vehicles of their own. They use different size trucks for all their
Transportation
mainly refers to the overall procedure from the beginning of a supply chain to the customers
Being a one of the world’s leading manufacturers of cleaning products, Reckitt Benckiser
maintains low transportation cost through optimization of the transportation model. This also
helps them to make significant savings. They use third party logistics to reduce fixed cost and
increase flexibility. They check if the company is reliable, experienced, cheap, and can
Modes of Transportation: After the production process, the finished goods are delivered to
the depots from their manufacturing factory. Generally, Reckitt Benckiser uses three types of
modes to deliver the goods, which is air, water and motor. They use air and water
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1. Air Transportation: Reckitt Benckiser use airfreight as it is the fastest mode for
long distance. Though it is high expensive but it takes short lead-time than other
modes, which is beneficial for the company for any emergency. It also provides safety
for sensitive products like Strepsils, Nurofen, and other pharmaceutical products.
transportation. Reckitt Benckiser use water transportation for carrying large quantities
of goods in cheap rate although it is time consuming. They usually use the containers
available in Bangladesh. They use water transport for cheaper and heavy products.
the products to warehouse from their factory. In Bangladesh, for local transportation
motor transport is most flexible as they can reach everywhere. The major advantage
of using motor transport is the flexibility of changes in location, direction, speed and
timing of travel. RB uses different size trucks for their local transportation.
more mode of transport for the movement of shipment from its origin to its destination. There
are different types of intermodal transportation such as Piggyback, Fishy back, Birdy back,
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Land Bridge. Reckitt Benckiser uses Birdy back and Fishy back for intermodal
transportation.
for to pick up the shipment from the airport and deliver it to the final destination. RB
uses planes to bring their delicate products and then bring them to the warehouse by
trucks.
Image 4: Birdy-Back
transportation. Usually they bring many of their products by cargo ships then bring
The carrier: Reckitt Benckiser uses Contract Carrier. In contract carrier, the company hires a
person or a company who works as transport provider and offers service to one or limited
specified shipper under a contractual agreement for a long time. As there is common
agreement between the authorized company and the person, so it is very easy for the
authorized company to authorize the transportation of specific items over specified routes.
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Besides, there is a longer-term contract, which help the carrier to become expert in a
etc. This long-term contract also helps the carriers to make a real connection with their
customers and customers trust them, which ultimately leads the contracts to renewals. So,
contract carrier is beneficial for both the authorized company and the person. These are the
Domestic & International shipment: Reckitt Benckiser Bangladesh manages both domestic
and international shipments. They import many products from Thailand, India, and China etc.
by water and air transportation depending on the product. RB Bangladesh only uses motor
Now-a-days, transportation becomes the lifeline for a business. It creates a link between the
suppliers and consumers. The success of the company mostly depends on how fast they can
deliver products with low transportation cost. Reckitt Benckiser also calculates EOQ to
identify the optimal number of products unit they should reorder in time so that the company
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Warehousing
warehousing. They produce the products of some brands like ‘Harpic’ and ‘Dettol’ in
Bangladesh while importing some, like Gaviscon and other pharmaceutical products. Reckitt
Benckiser has two warehouses in Bangladesh. They are situated in Dhaka and Chittagong.
Their warehousing capacity is around one-lakh square feet and warehousing cost is around
three cores monthly. They only store finished goods in their warehouses. Their factory is
located in Chittagong. They have factory warehouse, where they keep their raw materials and
work in process. They had a warehouse in Kushtia as well but they decided to close it down
four months ago. Reckitt Benckiser Bangladesh rents all of their warehouses. This allows
them to be flexible when changing a location or capacity depending on demand. They have
decentralized warehouse, which allows them to reduce delay and provide products to their
distributors faster. Their logistic network is as important factor they consider before renting a
warehouse. They check route and transportation facility before deciding to establish a
warehouse in a location. Their logistics network helps them to maintain smooth operations
Warehouse BD
Dhaka Northwest
Factory Local
Chittagong Distributio Distributor
n House
Warehouse BD
Chittagong Southeast
Finished
goods
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Inventory and Inventory Management of Reckitt Benckiser
RB Bangladesh only stores finished goods in their warehouses, they have factory warehouse
where they store materials and work in process. Their warehouses are close to the market but
They usually supply in the Southeast area of Bangladesh from their Chittagong warehouse
and use the Dhaka warehouse to supply their products to northwest side of Bangladesh. Their
distributors supply to the retailers so they do not need to worry about providing products to
every area. This helps them do reduce operations cost by a lot. They calculate their inventory
import. It depends on
days. While some products have low demand which may stay in their warehouse for 7 to 14
days. It exclusively depends on the product and its demand. RB uses mostly FIFO as their
products usually have a long shelf life; sometimes they use LIFO as well for some
promotional activities. This also depends on the product nature and its demand. They have
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Warehouse Value Adding Roles
• Product mixing: This is probably the most important warehouse value adding
activity for Reckitt Benckiser. They have many products under their 18 brands, which
have different demand and different quantity ordered. So product mixing and sending
• Cross docking: Reckitt Benckiser Bangladesh usually uses cross docking to transport
their imported products to the warehouses. In the warehouses they store the product
Chittagong Chittagong
Port Factory
Chittagong
Warehouse
for Cross
Docking
• Service: They try to provide the distributors according to their demand so they can
deliver to the end customers and satisfy their needs. Importance of good service is
• Protection against contingencies: Their safety stock is for 1 week for locally
produced products and 6 weeks for imported products. However, it mostly depends on
the product and its demand. Another important thing is its shelf life, if the product
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perishes in a short period and does not have high demand they try to keep a smaller
safety stock for it. However, for products like Dettol and Harpic, which they produce
in Bangladesh, they keep a safety stock of 1 week. They cannot keep a huge amount
of stock because warehouse capacity is also an issue. However, as they have a high
• Smooth operations: They use their warehouse to maintain smooth flow of products
by managing demand and supply as well. Warehouses help them to send products to
• Consolidation: RB Bangladesh uses third party logistics system for all their
transportation activities. They use their warehouses to consolidate and decrease the
number of trucks used, to minimize their transportation cost. They try to optimize the
Reckitt Benckiser tries to achieve the optimal point of their warehouse and
warehouses are tradeoff for each other, they regularly calculate each cost and try to find
better options. As Reckitt Benckiser rents their warehouses and use third party
transportation, they have the option to change their allocation of cost in these two
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Recommendation
Reckitt Benckiser is already one of the leading brands in the health and hygiene in all around
the world. They are one of the most famous companies in Bangladesh as well in consumer
goods industry. Nevertheless, in this dynamic business environment every company need to
adapt and change to keep up. Even though RB is very successful and famous, we think they
• The company can improve its interaction with the end level customers. Customers
are fully handled by retailers, wholesalers and other institutions that sells their
products but Reckitt Benckiser doesn’t have any direct contact with the customers so
they can they can arrange a feedback system from the customers to know their
opinions, suggestions, brand essence and act according to it. This might increase their
• Reckitt Benckiser has transactional relationship with their partners. They can start
applying strategic alliance to reduce bullwhip effect and improve relationship with
suppliers. Even though they are a giant company, they should try to be more
• They do not have any reverse logistics. They can develop a reverse logistics and use
multinational giants are now focusing on being more environment friendly and
recycling. Reckitt Benckiser can recycle their plastic bottles and and reduce
packaging waste.
• They should focus on their less famous brands and increase quantity of those
products in the market of Bangladesh to make the customers more familiar with those
brands.
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Conclusion
To conclude, “Reckitt Benckiser” has quite a well planned out supply chain, they are using
sustainable measures in their activities, which means that they are likely to continue their
success. They are quite good at managing both of their warehouses and they add value by
cross docking, providing services for their vendors etc. this shows as they gave increased
their revenue by 223,404,530 BDT. They are also quite good at managing their inventory and
order cycle. This efficiency in managing inventory and handling all the logistics activity has
contributed to their overwhelming success in Bangladesh. They are using all the modes of
transport. They use air transport for perishable and expensive pharmaceutical products and
using sea transport for other products. They are using the piggyback strategy for transporting
goods in Bangladesh where they rely on road as well as on the railway to transport goods
from one place to another. They also use third party logistics. However, there are many ways
that they could improve their operations by building up good relationship with their suppliers
and creating a strategic alliance with their channel partners. They will able to get all the
strategic goals. They have a good operational strategy where they have different departments
and different teams where the work is divided in these teams and they all work together to
reach their common goal. Many teams assigned to work for each segment. However, various
kinds of products may hamper the concentration on quality of products. More emphasis on its
internal strategies and operations in a sustainable manner would surely help improve business
operations as well. In Bangladesh perspective for effective and successful business, supply
chain program is the vital an issue to ensure the quality with best effective cost reducing plan.
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References
Reckitt Benckiser (Bangladesh) Limited, (2018). Annual reports and financial statements.
Retrieved from https://www.rb.com/media/4472/annual-report-and-financial-
statements-2018.pdf
Reckitt Benckiser plc. (n.d). Offices Bangladesh. Retrieved April 26, 2020 from
https://www.rb.com/offices/bangladesh/
4-traders. [n.d]. Market screener. Reckitt Benckiser business summary. Retrieved from
https://m.marketscreener.com/RECKITT-BENCKISER-BANGLA-
20707477/company/?fbclid=IwAR2Yo9cWsPY7OL1oN-
CAMZ6nZJFwHHHeUg24EPgV6U8O6nUSCheYcjaqlFg
Nasreen.R, & Tawhidul.I. (2019, April 2019). Reckitt benckiser (bangladesh) limited
[supplementary material]. International Leasing Securities Limited. Retrieved from
http://ilslbd.com/research_reports
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Appendix
Image 1: WhatsApp Conversation
Image 1: Text massage conversation
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Image 3: WhatsApp phone call Interview
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