Introduction

Emphasizing its focus on the diamond retailing industry toward the end of 2008, Blue Nile and Diamond Retailing have aggressively risen as a concern for businesses in the United States due to an economic downturn. The vast majority of diamond retailers are affected by this downturn. Given the basic performance information on Blue Nile, Zales, and Tiffany, our group will be analyzing all three companies and examining their business situations. Blue Nile is emphasizing how it has taken advantage of the internet and gaps left by the brick-and-mortar retailers, in order to build a new channel of distribution and emerge as a competitor to established retailers. Whereas Tiffany Co. who has primarily decided to open small retail outlets that will focus primarily on high-value products in small prosperous areas, and Zales whose primary concern is securing demographics as its market share.

In our research we will include important drivers of supply chain performance, assumptions and uncertainties of the supply chain design, an assessment of the current supply chain design and our recommendations on improved performances in regards to each company’s strategy and structure. This will help us consider most importantly how each company affects the firms ability to respond during periods of strong and weak demand.

Assumptions, Factors and Uncertainties

Making our strategic recommendation we are assuming that the diamond industry has been heavily impacted by the current economic downturn, but rather than attempting to increase sales, we are looking for ways different diamond companies could apply techniques to survive these times. Therefore, we assume to be true that each company desires to make little changes as possibly needed due to high importance on retaining its current status and association. We assume to be true that consumers like to have that