Reversible Supply Chain in function of competitiveness

Supply Chain makes the flow of goods, services and information from suppliers, through transport, producers, distributors, retailers to end customers. Big producers opt for a strategy of outsourcing logistic services, especially storage, delivery, and distribution services to end-customers. Commitment to the strategy of outsourcing, at the same time, is the strategy of focus on the core business. Small producers, especially manufacturers of agricultural food products, have recently opted to avoid intermediaries in the transport and distribution of the product to the end customer. All in order to increase the quality of their own products and increase the competitiveness by eliminating the costs of intermediaries in transport and distribution. This is achieved by merging and shortening the supply chain. The EU has established an institutional framework regulating the operations of producers through a short supply chain. The market situation requires further optimization by producers due to lack of labour and the need to increase competitiveness and leads to the emergence of a reversible supply chain phenomenon. In the paper, the author, by applying general and special scientific methods of cognition, explores the advantages and shortcomings of the short and reversible supply chain, derived from the traditional and modern supply chain model.