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Consultants
The Oxford Institute of Retail Management,
Said Business School,
University of OxfordThe Oxford Institute of Retail Management was set up within Templeton College, University of Oxford in 1985, to relate sound scholarship to the practical needs of such companies. 3 Now a research centre within the University’s Said Business School 4 , OXIRM has an active applied research programme, engages in active networking through its Oxford Retail Futures Group, and publishes the European Retail Digest. OXIRM has carried out successful research projects at the European and global level for over 20 years. The Institute is selective in the projects for which it bids; choosing projects the results from which it believes can provide the most significant benefits for retail knowledge, rather than being solely focused on revenue generation.
OXIRM undertakes a range of both commissioned and public domain research with direct relevance to practitioners but which nevertheless draws upon rigorous academic thinking. The main themes of OXIRM's research relate to those external influences affecting the retail industry:
• Planning, Location and Development for Retailing
• Analysis of International Retail Performance
• Retailing, Marketing and Technology
• Supply Chain Management
• Retail Marketing and the Changing Consumer.Our track record in producing influential conceptual as well as empirical research is well established. Our work on the Effects of Major Out of Town Retail Development for the then Department of the Environment in 1992 provided a formative input into the last fifteen years of planning policy guidance for retailing. Our examination of trends in teleshopping in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the establishment of a ‘teleshopping consortium’ (which included Tesco and Argos), predated contemporary concern over e-commerce by some ten years. Indeed, we advised Tesco on the desirable characteristics of an e-commerce service as early as 1987. Our work on retail productivity for the Department of Trade & Industry’s Retail Strategy Group in 2003-04 challenged preconceptions about the nature of and reasons for apparent productivity gaps between retailing in the UK, the US and France. Our research on scenarios for retail growth and development formed part of the DTI’s work on technology foresight during the late 1990s. Our research for the European retail association CIES in 2004 demonstrated the economic, social and political impact that the industry has across Europe and addressed issues of image and reputation.
Participating personnel :
Elizabeth Howard
