Category: Change Management

Change Management and Business Process Transformation

Our 2017 Top 10 Blog Posts … So Far!

It’s been 6 months since we launched supplychaingamechanger.com.  Our goal has always been to share experiences and expertise.  The site has evolved.  The number of categories has continued to grow.  And the response has been absolutely tremendous. We can now present our 2017 Top 10 Blog posts.

In that time Supply Chain Game Changer was also selected by Feedspot as one of the Top 75 Supply Chain Blogs on the Internet.

So we thought that this would be a good point at which to share a list of the 2017 Top 10 Blog posts that we have published so far.  We would be remiss if we didn’t also thank the phenomenal Guest Bloggers who have given us such great content.

So here is the 2017 Top 10 Blog List, so far …

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Business Practices Disrupting Procurement!

7 KPIs Your Procurement Team May Be Ignoring!

When I was a kid, my mom had a ’93 Ford Escort.

I remember that car as clearly as I remember banging with my fist on it’s ceiling singing Tom Petty’s Makin’ Some Noise.

Days and years went by, and eventually, the ’93 Ford Escort was living in the hybrid-dominated world of the year 2004. My mom decided that the Escort had seen better days, and started a new/used car hunt. She soon selected the Prius as her car of choice for its environmentally friendly features. The Escort joined its fellow junk metal comrades in an automotive-parts junkyard a few miles away from my childhood home.

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Project Prioritization Simplified!

Are you a Game Changer? Tell us your Story!

We had the “Call To Action” from the CEO.  The business needed to be transformed to support growth.  And the business needed to be financially stronger and much more productive.

With the mandate established we had named the change initiative that we were about to launch.  We had enlisted leaders from every functional organization.  And we had began to roll out our communication strategy.

This project involved every employee, every function, and every process in the company.  We needed a simple way to prioritize all of the projects that we were about to undertake.

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The Call To Action … Where It All Begins!

The Change Leadership Process … And Guide!

“The Board is REALLY upset.  They want a plan to dramatically improve our Supply Chain inventory turnover performance and they want it now.  Will you lead this for me?”  That was a call to action.

My boss had just got out of the Board meeting and these were his words to me.  The company had historically performed very poorly in managing inventory.  And it was not only consuming a lot of cash but it was impacting our profitability with the high carrying charges and write-offs.  Also it impacted  our competitive position as customers and competitors didn’t believe we knew how to manage inventory, and Supply Chain, very well.

This was a Call To Action!

Continue reading “The Call To Action … Where It All Begins!”

Cost Cutting! Brute Force or An Intelligent Program?

Is Your Supply Chain A Cost Centre or a Value Creator?

How many times have you been asked to cut cost?  How many times have you been asked to cut costs so deeply that it is beyond your comprehension?

In those situations you can always use the Brute Force method.  Hacking and slashing resources and expenses in this way often compromises the very capabilities, skills, morale and services that are keeping your company afloat in  the first place.  But it can be quick.

But if you have the chance to deploy a proper Change Management program to drive the cost reductions or other improvements that you are looking for then you may have many more constructive opportunities in front of you.

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How to Prepare Your Business for Expansion!

International Expansion in Retail (Infographic)

Every business strives for expansion. In a growth-forward economy, business expansion is more than just an opportunity to grow profits; it is also crucial for business survival. This has been proven particularly true by the inflation crisis and ensuing recession, as spending plummets alongside spending power.

But expansion is not quite as simple as recruiting more, or opening a new physical location. Even these simple options have their own considerations attached. What follow are some of the most important questions you should be asking with regard to your business’ expansion – along with some of the better ways to secure a successful expansion strategy.

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Cash Is King! Creating a Culture Focused on Money Management

The Supply Chain Detective™! In Search of Broken Supply Chain Clues!

“We have to make a decision.  We only have enough cash to either pay our employees or our suppliers next week, but not both.”  The old saying was true:  Cash is King!

Wow!  This was what my Controller just told me.  We had just acquired another company.  The decision was made to operate it at arm’s length from the parent company.  And this meant that we had to fund the operation with our own cash, which was at a dangerously low level.

Neither option that the Controller just mentioned was palatable.  We needed a strategy to tackle the immediate cash shortfall and to then create a strong cash position moving forward.

We had the Call to Action!  This would prove to be my first real lesson in Cash Management which could not have been made more intense and immediate!

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Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with Michael Massetti, VP at Gartner!

Gartner Top 25 Supply Chain List! Is it Relevant?
Michael Massetti
       Michael Massetti, Gartner

At Supply Chain Game Changer we believe in sharing experiences and expertise from people in every industry and from across the globe.  As such we have introduced our “Seasoned Leadership in Action™” Interview series at Supply Chain Game Changer.  This interview is with Michael Massetti, Vice President for General Managers – High Tech, at Gartner.

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Double Inventory Turnover In 9 months!

World Class Inventory Turnover Infographic!

“We are a Supply Chain Services Company,” I was told.

“If we are truly a Supply Chain Services Company, then why is our Inventory Turnover only at 7?”,  I asked.

I had just joined the company and in studying their financial performance it stood out to me that if we were truly a Supply Chain Services company then having only 7 Inventory turns was extremely uninspiring.

We needed to be dramatically better at managing Inventory to convince ourselves, and our customers, that we were a trusted and leading Supply Chain Services partner.  Could we double inventory turnover?

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How Cultural and Communication Barriers Affect Business!

Our Top 10 High Performance Organization / Cultural Change Articles!

This Cultural and Communication Barriers study was part of a Supply Chain MPS focus on Lake Erie College in Painesville, OH.  LEC is building a supply chain segment of its curriculum, and the first class is “Special Topics in Supply Chain’ led by adjunct professor Ron Emery.

The class is an exploratory class looking at all the various problems in Supply chains today and why they pose such a problem to the economy.  

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Spend Aggregation Obstacle Course for Procurement!

Enable Spend Aggregation in Procurement!

The theory is simple!  If you can increase spend levels through centralized spend aggregation across entities then you increase your leverage in negotiations. This leverage should translate to lower costs and better terms and conditions.  But there is a spend aggregation obstacle course to be overcome first.

These entities may be different departments or facilities within your own company. They may be different companies under common ownership. They may be disparate companies within an industry. Or they may be unrelated companies spanning many industries.

The benefits seem clear. So why is there so much resistance when it comes to trying to aggregate spend across these entities?

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Supply Chain Investment Challenges – Real and Imagined!

The Digital Supply Chain Road is Full of Potholes, Construction and Accidents!

Everywhere you turn there is talk of a lot of very exciting technologies requiring Supply Chain investment.  The Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), Drones and Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Intelligent Analytics are front and centre.

And all of these technologies have applicability for the Supply Chain in every business and in every industry around the world.   The Digital Supply Chain vision is within our line of sight.

But most companies are still working with the same, manual, non-automated Supply Chains that they have had for at least the last decade.  And they will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.  They are faced with challenges which are going to impede technology investments to advance their Supply Chains going forward.

What are these Supply Chain challenges?

Continue reading “Supply Chain Investment Challenges – Real and Imagined!”

Our Top 10 High Performance Organization / Cultural Change Articles!

There are differences between winning teams and a high performance organization and losing teams. There are differences between winning companies and losing companies.

Some of those differences are induced by uncontrollable factors. And while every winning team does not win all the time, and every losing team does not lose all the time, there are controllable factors which determine the predominant direction of any organization.

You can create the culture and the high performance organization which allows your organization to be successful and win more than you lose. Here we present our 10 best articles to allow you to create the culture that will lead to having a high performance organization.

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Introducing Lean In Retail … Start in the Backroom!

The Agile Supply Chain! Why Agility is Trumping Lean!

The Retail company I had just joined was undergoing a massive transformation.  Fundamentally the new merchandising strategy was to curate a dramatically different set of products from that which was carried historically, but in addition to what was carried historically.  What did this mean for the backroom in every store?

This meant that an enormous number of the business processes had to be transformed to support the new product set because management of the new merchandise required much different capabilities in all aspects of running a retail company.  Not only did this transformation require new capabilities but it also required  improvements to productivity and efficiency throughout the company.  And overall this meant a need for cultural change.

I decided that I would introduce Lean process improvement techniques to this company.

Continue reading “Introducing Lean In Retail … Start in the Backroom!”

Our 2020 Top 10 List Part 2!

As we come to the end of our 4th year here at Supply Chain Game Changer we have realized some exciting milestones.

With over 4 million views across the Website, LinkedIn and Twitter our content has continued to be highly recognized. The site is viewed as a key influencer platform in the arenas of Supply Chain, Logistics, Procurement and Management. It is a must read place source for Professionals, Students and Experts alike. We have now published over 600 articles since our inception along with 3 Ebooks.

Continuing in our tradition of years past we present here our 2020 Top 10 List Part 2. As the globe continues to struggle with the Coronavirus pandemic we’ve written many several articles with respect to the pandemic and its repercussions and the future.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Here’s our list of our Top 10 articles of 2020, for the second half of the year:

Continue reading “Our 2020 Top 10 List Part 2!”