Pain points are a part of business. They create opportunities to innovate, diversify and grow. Without customer pain points, there is no reason to be in business. Trading goods and services is as old as mankind itself.
Continue reading “Pain Points – An Opportunity to Innovate and Expand!”Category: Change Management
Change Management and Business Process Transformation
To Infinity and Beyond! Ultimate Principles for Creating a World Class Team!
The Supply Chain team was generally viewed as lacking in skill and capability by those outside the organization. Customers and other internal functions viewed Supply Chain as a dysfunctional organization as evidenced by the poor Supply Chain performance metrics. And external benchmarking placed our Supply Chain last amongst our competitors. Going to infinity and beyond was a tall task to say the least.
Inside the Supply Chain organization there were a lot of very smart people. But there was no trust, teamwork or synergy. The culture was one more of complacency than of trend setting. And there was a lack of inspired leadership.
Something had to change!
Continue reading “To Infinity and Beyond! Ultimate Principles for Creating a World Class Team!”The Digital Supply Chain Journey: Step 4 – Supplier Onboarding!
The foundations of any Digital Supply Chain is the real time, end-to-end electronic connectivity of every node and aspect of your Supply Chain. Unless your company is entirely self-sufficient this connectivity requires extensive and exhaustive Supplier Onboarding.
And this onboarding is not restricted to the first tier suppliers with whom you have direct contact. You must connect with second, third, and fourth tier suppliers, many of which you will often never have even heard of before.
And that is an enormous challenge, to say the very least.
Continue reading “The Digital Supply Chain Journey: Step 4 – Supplier Onboarding!”Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with Skip Boothby!
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. The first in our Interview series is with Skip Boothby, a colleague and good friend for many years.
Skip Boothby is a tremendous Leader and Executive with phenomenal experience in running businesses and operations through every stage of their evolution. Skip’s background and insights are valuable for all of us to learn from and share.
Continue reading “Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with Skip Boothby!”Process Based Inventory Turnover Improvement!
EBOOK HEREInventory management is a critical area for most companies. And breakthrough improvements require a process based inventory turnover improvement strategy.
Too much inventory, especially the wrong inventory, can negatively impact cash flow, return on investment, customer satisfaction, and profitability. Too little inventory, especially the wrong inventory, can result in lost sales, inability to delivery to customers, and also impact cash, ROI and profitability.
Despite these devastating and far reaching implications of poor inventory management too often this area is not given the respect and attention that it deserves. You cannot just wave a wand a wish inventory levels will be magically lower.
Brute force approaches will at best result in short term gains. In our experience the best way to systemically, and sustainably, optimize inventory is to take a process based inventory turnover improvement approach.
Continue reading “Process Based Inventory Turnover Improvement!”Our 2018 Top 10 List!
It’s been a tremendous start to our second year at Supply Chain Game Changer. Our goal has always been to share experiences and expertise, including our 2018 Top 10 list. In the first half of 2018 our readership continued to grow substantially over our first year, 2017. And we were selected as one of the Top 25 Procurement blogs in the world.
In 2018 we added video content and introduced our “Seasoned Leadership in Action” Interview series. For the purpose of this Top 10 List we have excluded all “Seasoned Leadership in Action” articles as we are not trying to promote a popularity contest amongst individuals. That being said the response to the Interview series has been absolutely outstanding.
We also continued to add more and more Guest posts provided by industry leaders. We have 17 new Guest contributors so far in 2018 on top of the outstanding roster of contributors who started with us in 2017.
As we end the first 6 months of 2018 we wanted to publish our Top 10 List, so far.
Thank you for your tremendous, ongoing support. If you haven’t subscribed yet please sign up! Subscribe Here!
So here is our 1st Top 10 List of 2018…
Continue reading “Our 2018 Top 10 List!”Global Process Excellence™: Defining the Roadmap for Best In Class Results
“Global Process Excellence™” was to be the platform on which we would propel the company’s Operations upward toward Best In Class status. Our Call To Action objectives were clear:
- We had a clear requirement to improve our profitability
- We needed to respond to customer expectations for increased value and a consistent, exceptional customer experience in all Distribution Centres
- We needed to lean out the operations and improve our productivity
- We needed to create Best in Class capabilities
- We needed to enable profitable growth on the back of an enhanced Operating model, capacity and capabilities
- And we needed to unleash the tremendous experience and expertise that resided within our employees
Now we needed to formulate our Roadmap: the Approach, the Mandate, a set of Ground rules, and a process of Governance to bring together everything that would now be called Global Process Excellence™.
Continue reading “Global Process Excellence™: Defining the Roadmap for Best In Class Results”Revolving Door Management – Who Wants a Spin?
How many times have you seen new Management being brought into a company, only to see them leave and be replaced, through the revolving door, in a very short timeframe?
This happens a lot on Sports teams. Coaches and Players alike are replaced after a relatively short stint with no tolerance for poor performance.
I’ve seen it happen several times. Basically the CEO or Chairman gets rid of the entire Management team and brings in a new team. Within a couple of years the process is repeated. The entire team is replaced even though these people were considered saviours when they were brought in.
Does that kind of Revolving Door, or Turnstile, Management Strategy really work? Is it really a reflection of the performance of those being replaced or is it more a reflection of the poor leadership of those doing the replacing?
Continue reading “Revolving Door Management – Who Wants a Spin?”10 Signs You Should Reboot Your Lean Program!
How many people make a New Year’s resolution to adopt a Lean program and “Lean” yourself out only to abandon it shortly thereafter?
One of the top New Year’s resolutions is to start exercising. In January the local gyms are filled. But by February those gyms are much emptier and many of those well meaning people are still at home.
What do you do when your Lean program at work suffers the same fate? How do you know when your improvement program needs to be improved?
Continue reading “10 Signs You Should Reboot Your Lean Program!”Essential Change Management Tips for Business!
Businesses have always been innovators. They know how to perfect their products, optimize supply chains, and grow relationships with customers. They’ve developed processes, tools, and strategies over their existence that set them apart from the competition. These change management tips and strategies have brought them success and made them who they are.
But when it comes to change management, the strategies that made them successful in the offline world do not apply to the new digital era. That’s because innovating a product, optimizing a single process, or seeking out a new relationship is not the same as introducing an entirely new way of doing things.
Continue reading “Essential Change Management Tips for Business!”Stop Your Project From Becoming “Just Another Program”!
Many a project starts off with very lofty objectives. And with a lot of work and a little luck those desired results are often achieved. In every case those results usually have been achieved within a certain timeframe and with a lot of momentum.
Yet once you achieve those goals in many respects the energy and momentum which got you there may start to fade. Yet your work has just begun. The next question that always comes up is whether you can sustain, and further improve, those results.
Additionally if you are trying to drive Cultural Change and long term transformation after a while your initial project may become stale and your participants demotivated or distracted.
To avoid your project becoming “just another program” you need to proactively recognize when your project needs to be reinvented or rebooted to avoid irrelevancy and the back-sliding of your results.
Continue reading “Stop Your Project From Becoming “Just Another Program”!”Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with John Heffernan, Chief Supply Chain Officer at ModusLink!
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 John Heffernan, Chief Supply Chain Officer at ModusLink.
I met John on my first day at ModusLink. He was presenting to the Board of Directors. John was one of the Global Operations Executives for the company. He had complete command of his facts, situation, direction and strategy. He was so knowledgable that his expertise and experience came shining through in everything that he said.
As John and I continued to work together we knew that we needed to make serious, game changing improvements around the world. John and I continued to positively challenge and build on each other’s ideas and thinking. This culminated in the deployment of a phenomenal program and the achievement of world class, industry leading results. We raised each other’s game to the benefit of all!
Continue reading “Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with John Heffernan, Chief Supply Chain Officer at ModusLink!”How to Prepare for Your Cloud Adoption Journey!
Cloud technology is the new norm in today’s digital world, with many organizations embracing its benefits for their businesses. With cloud technology, you can go paperless, have better data storage, access resources from anywhere in the world and more.
While it can help save business costs, transitioning to cloud technology is complex.
Continue reading “How to Prepare for Your Cloud Adoption Journey!”Our 2021 Top 10 List!
In the middle of our 5th year here at Supply Chain Game Changer we are proud to publish our 2021 Top 10 List. Here we are showcasing our 10 most popular articles for the first half of the year.
Since we’ve started we have amassed an extensive library of over 750 articles. There is something for everyone no matter what your interests, challenges and needs may be from one day to the next. And that fulfills our mission of sharing experiences and expertise for the benefit of all.
Still there is always more to right about to help our readers.
So let’s take some time to reflect, and look back on our 2021 top 10 list … so far!
Continue reading “Our 2021 Top 10 List!”Leadership Techniques To Inspire Your Team!
Leaders and leadership techniques are worth their salt are those who inspire others to be great.
Whether you’re a sales manager or a CEO, bringing out the best in people you work with is key to the success of your organization.
Continue reading “Leadership Techniques To Inspire Your Team!”