dolution

 a Pareto curve for the sales per SKU  of a book stockist. A small number of ‘hot sellers’ constitute most of the sales, whilst  there is a lengthy  tail of slow-selling lines and new introductions. The operations  people are pressing for the ‘tail’ to be chopped in half, arguing that it adds cost,  not value, to the business. They argue that each order is taken at fixed cost, regardless of size. Sales order processing and pick and dispatch from the warehouse are  examples of such fixed costs. ‘Instead, we should focus on the core of the business:  90 per cent of our business comes from just 10 per cent of the titles,’ the operations  director argues. ‘We could chop our costs in half and lose only 5–7 per cent of the  business. Think of the effect on margin!’ Sales, on the other hand, are reluctant to  give up any of the titles, arguing that it is customer choice that drives the business.  ‘We  have  built  up  this  business  on  the  strength  of our  product  range,’  the  sales  director argues. ‘Retailers come to us because we are a one-stop shop. If we haven’t  got  it  in  stock,  we  get  it.’  Explain  the  above  in  terms  of  a  lean  versus  agile  debate, using the concepts of market winners and qualifiers and benefiting from small  volumes.