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Case Study

UrbanLuxe: Supply chain product recall readiness

By Ralf W. Seifert, Richard Markoff and Olivier André Gléron

2 pages

May 2026

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Reference: IMD-2758

This short case exercise presents a rare but critical real-world business scenario: A large, multi-country, multi-site beauty company wishes to evaluate its capability to execute a major product recall. The need for a recall may be due to an internal quality issue or one caused by quality defects from a supplier. The CEO has seen a competitor struggle when faced with this challenge, along with the severe, potentially lasting damage to the brand, and has asked the head of supply chain to assess and provide a brief on the ability of their company’s supply chain to respond should they find themselves in the same circumstances. The case provides a vehicle for students to consider the supply chain challenges a company might face in constructing policy, processes and tools to be capable of quickly and effectively executing a product recall with customers and consumers. It will spur them to consider the need for traceability from several tiers of suppliers, through the transformation into finished goods, to inventories located at customers or already sold to consumers. The broad array of distribution channels in today’s supply chains adds another layer of complexity. Although the case is fictitious, it is anchored in the real world and will elicit challenges that are universally present in companies today.

Learning Objective

The supply chain’s responsibilities in traceability.
Key success factors in quality lot number policy and markings.
The data exchanges required with suppliers and customers to ensure traceability.
Effective cross-functional links between the supply chain and front-line customer relations teams.
The challenges presented by today’s omnichannel supply chains that present several routes to market.

Keywords

Operations, Supply Chain, Strategy, Crisis Management, Quality Management, Product Readiness, Traceability

Settings

World/global
UrbanLuxe Cosmetics (Fictionalized), Consumer Goods, Cosmetics and Perfumes
Generic

Type

Generalized Experience

Available Languages

English

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