Jan C. Fransoo

“Retail fragmentation is pervasive and will be the new normal, reducing big-box and limiting online retail in the coming 5 years – provided the commercial and supply chain function get it right and aligned”

“The opportunities for AI in supply chain planning are primarily in assisting the planner to collect, handle, filter, and visualize information, and much less so in the actual decision making”

“Real-time information is usually too late as most supply chain decisions need to be made ahead of time”

Jan C. Fransoo is Professor of Operations and Logistics Management at Tilburg University’s School of Economics and Management in Tilburg, the Netherlands..

He joined Tilburg University from Kuehne Logistics University in 2020. At KLU (Hamburg, Germany) he was on the faculty as a Professor of Operations Management & Logistics and served as the University’s Dean of Research and Member of the Executive Board.   Prior to KLU, he held a tenure of 22 years at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, where he was the Dean of the University’s Graduate School and still holds a courtesy professorship in its School of Industrial Engineering. He is currently also affiliated to MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics where he teaches in post-experience programs and advises PhD students. Fransoo holds a Master of Science (ir.) degree in Industrial Engineering and a Doctor of Philosophy (dr.) degree in Operations Management and Logistics, both from Eindhoven University of Technology.

Professor Fransoo’s research studies operations, logistics, and supply chain management decision making in the retail, chemical, food, pharmaceutical and transport industries. His current research focuses in particular on retail distribution and channel management in developing markets, on intermodal container transport, and on sustainability and social responsibility in supply chains. His recent books include Reaching 50 Million Nanostores: Retail Distribution in Emerging Megacities and Sustainable Supply Chains: A Research-Based Textbook on Operations and Strategy.

Fransoo has published over 130 academic journal articles and book chapters in journals such as Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Operations Research, Transportation Science, and European Journal of Operational Research. He currently serves as Associate Editor of Production and Operations Management, Operations Research, and Management and Business Review and on the Editorial Board of several other academic journals.

While at KLU, as the University’s Dean of Research, he was responsible for faculty development and research strategy; he set up the university’s PhD Program and managed its growth from 15 to about 40 PhD students in an interdisciplinary business setting. At KLU, he also served as a member of the Executive Board, taking responsibility to define the university’s international and growth strategy.

During his tenure at Eindhoven, Fransoo was Founding Program Director of the MSc program in Operations Management & Logistics, and subsequently served as Dean of the University’s Graduate School and Director of the 4TU School for Technological Design. Fransoo co-founded Dinalog (Dutch Institute for Advanced Logistics), a Netherlands center of excellence in the area of supply chain management, and served as the academic member in the Strategic Platform for Logistics, setting the national research and innovation agenda in logistics, mandated by the Dutch government. As part of his academic activities, he has conducted dozens of projects with industry, mainly through and with his PhD, PDEng and MSc students, and has consulted with the World Bank and various national governments in developed and developing countries. Fransoo held visiting appointments at various universities, including Clemson University, Stanford University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). He is a regular visitor to Tsinghua University (China), MIT (USA), and the Tec de Monterrey (Mexico).