Daily Insights, Trends and Solutions for Professionals, Experts, Students and Society
Your sales reps do a lot more than just selling stuff. They have meetings to attend, reports to write, customer queries to resolve, leads to convince, rude and angry customers to pacify, and a myriad of non-revenue generating tasks that are imperative for smooth business operations.
Since sales reps wear multiple hats, it only makes sense to lend them a hand. Offering sales apps is how you do it.
Continue reading “6 Reasons Sales Reps Need a Sales App!”A winery supply chain is like no other in the food and beverage industry. The acts of nature that can cut a grape harvest in half and the threat of floods that can destroy an entire field add to supply chain disruptions.
In addition, the warehousing of wine is a sensitive compendium of targeted movements to produce the wine itself. Another factor to consider is the distribution of wine, which requires thoughtful and secure planning.
Continue reading “Optimizing Your Winery Supply Chain!”
Most of us create, use, present and work with at least one spreadsheet each and every day. Spreadsheets have proven invaluable. And many businesses even observe, and complain, that they are run on spreadsheets.
Yet there was a time not that long ago when most people didn’t even know what a spreadsheet was. In the early 1980s I was given one the first IBM Personal Computers to use, along with the spreadsheet software Visicalc. Spreadsheets forever transformed my productivity and skill set.
Continue reading “Spreadsheets – A History and a Future!”
Nothing can be accomplished and no vision can be realized without leadership. But even the best leaders know that any goal that they are trying to achieve will inevitably mean some level of change. They need Change Management.
This change may manifest itself in changing business processes, changing job responsibilities and roles, changing organizations, changing infrastructure, changing products and services or even completely changing direction.
While change is inevitable change usually does not come easy. There is no end to the number of challenges, hurdles and barriers that will be put in front of you.
This all requires Change Management, or as we prefer to say, Change Leadership. In this “Featuring” series article we present our best articles on the matter of Change Management and Change Leadership!
Continue reading “Featuring Our 12 Best Change Management Articles!”Technology and automation hold a central role in the process of scaling your business. Automation allows for the creation of repeatable processes at a lower cost and increases team productivity, which is ideal to scale your business.
Implementing automation tools in the form of, for example, payroll, shift rostering, or marketing software solutions can significantly reduce the time it takes to execute time-consuming and repetitive tasks, allowing human resources to focus on strategic, high-value work and minimizing the chance of human error.
Continue reading “How to Scale Your Business This Year!”To begin I must admit that Costco is one of my favourite stores. I started thinking about the Costco Supply Chain.
Stereotypically I almost always buy more than I intended given the unique things that you find in their aisles. And the standard items are invariably great deals, even if the quantities are larger than you will find in other stores.
When you consider the physical layout of the store you are really walking through a warehouse. High ceilings, rows and rows of pallet racking, and concrete floors.
At its core the Costco business structure is a great example of a lot of Supply Chain principles implemented with great efficiency.
What is it that makes Costco’s Supply Chain so effective?
Continue reading “The Elegance of the Costco Supply Chain!”The need to strengthen supply chain cannot be overstated; it’s vital for efficiency, profitability, and reputability against competitors.
However, the chain must be streamlined to avoid wasting time and money. This means making sure every aspect of the process is working as it should, including logistics and operations, suppliers, and the internal team.
Continue reading “How to Strengthen Supply Chain!”In the dynamic world of small business logistics, the ability to optimize inventory management plays a pivotal role in achieving operational excellence. Efficient inventory forecasting is the cornerstone of successful logistics operations, empowering businesses to maintain optimal stock levels, reduce costs, enhance customer satisfaction, and drive growth.
Let’s delve into the realm of inventory forecasting, exploring innovative strategies that can revolutionize the way small businesses handle their logistics operations.
Continue reading “Mastering Small Business Logistics: Streamlining Efficiency through Inventory Forecasting!”With globalization came the increase in the shipment of goods from one country to another. This made the world more interconnected and gave more opportunities for businesses. These goods come in and out of warehouses and stores with a paper trail of Supply Chain documents, so it’s easier to know where they are.
As such, supply chain documents should be treated with the utmost care. As your business grows, the more supply chain documents you will handle. It’s important to note that supply chain documentation doesn’t only take place at the trading level. There are steps to be taken before goods can be traded in order to ensure the success of a business.
Continue reading “5 Ways to Manage Supply Chain Documents!”The Bullwhip Effect is a pretty popular phenomenon and conversational topic in supply chain management. Basically, the bullwhip effect is a phenomenon that occurs in supply chains where increased demand at the end of a supply chain can lead to higher costs and greater uncertainty throughout the manufacturing process.
Continue reading “How Do ERP Systems Help Reduce the Bullwhip Effect?”Aggregating your procurement spend for the purpose of delivering greater value is a sound objective. Theoretically you should be able to generate better service, better terms and conditions, and better cost. Therefore you should enable spend aggregation.
Yet there can be many obstacles in your way to achieving this seemingly simple goal. Loss of control, fear of job loss, questionable benefits, and a perceived loss of margin are some of the obstacles you may run across. We discussed these in greater detail in our post Procurement (Part 1!) – The Spend Aggregation Obstacle Course!
Continue reading “Enable Spend Aggregation in Procurement!”A High Performance Organization is one in which there is tremendous alignment among and commitment by the team members. And as a result this motivated team is able to achieve superior results. The level of collaboration and innovation they demonstrate is remarkable. But what are the ground rules?
There are many characteristics of the culture which allows such teams to be high performing. And when they set out to drive change and make improvements it is those cultural characteristics which allow them to succeed.
Continue reading “Ground Rules for Creating a High Performance Organization (HPO)!”I had just inherited a new department into my organization, the Product Data Management (PDM) team.
Shortly thereafter I started getting calls from the CEO. We were missing customer deliveries due to problems in getting the correct, and complete data, into the systems which enabled us to manage bills of material and manufacture products.
While Product Data Management seemed to have been a rather basic function I quickly learned that their role and responsibilities were not understood, were undervalued, and yet were absolutely pivotal and essential to the ability of the entire company to operate.
This was one of many lessons I learned about this critical part of any organization.
What then exactly is Product, or Master, Data Management?
Continue reading “What is Product (or Master) Data Management?”How many screens do you have? And is your screen time?
You likely have a Cell phone or a Smart phone. You may have a Desktop computer monitor or a Laptop, or both, between your home and your place of work. You may have a wearable device like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch. You may have an iPad or other type of tablet. And your TV may even have Internet connectivity.
We are surrounded by screens and the amount of time that we spend on them is truly remarkable.
But for those who are learning about Supply Chain, or any other profession for that matter, is it best to acquire that learning and gain that experience just by watching screens? Or is it better in Supply Chain to learn based on actual physical experiences and interactions?
Continue reading “Screen Time! Is That Enough To Be Good In Supply Chain?”No matter what industry you are in and no matter what channels you are serving your Customers expect delivery of their goods on time.
You may have different pressures, to increase profits for instance, but you must take care of the basic expectation of on time delivery first.
If you don’t have on time delivery all your other pressures will not matter. Your customers will go elsewhere and your business will fail. Even if you have a unique product that no one else in the world has (for now) you must deliver on time to your customers. If not there will always come a time when your customers will be able to go elsewhere.
Providing on time delivery may seem basic. But it is the foundation on which the rest of your business must be built.
Continue reading “On Time Delivery – Get that right First!”
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