Daily Insights, Trends and Solutions for Professionals, Experts, Students and Society
Everyone experiences an overload of ads daily. YouTube, Facebook, and even your email inbox are full of them.
They’re effective, and for companies, digital marketing methods are efficient. Unfortunately, that’s led many people to look past the high value of offline marketing.
Offline marketing is crucial, and you can make it modern, effective, and efficient.
Continue reading “Offline Marketing in the Modern Age!”The Internet of Things (IoT) and digital transformation have opened the doors to what should be limitless transparency and Supply Chain visibility, even across the most complex supply chains. It would seem that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and Industry 4.0 would demand its implementation.
I’ve worked for major manufacturers in CPG, Automotive, and Defense Contracting, and I can honestly say that some of the largest organizations are nowhere near accomplishing this. In the past 5 years, I’ve found myself constantly asking the question, “Isn’t there some sort of software that can do that?”.
Continue reading “Supply Chain Visibility – An Overcomplicated Challenge!”Modern transportation and trucking is currently experiencing major changes thanks to transformative transportation technologies. Although we’ve become accustomed to long international flights, jam-packed public transportation and diesel trucks that only get 20 mpg, the future of transportation promises to change all of that and much more — and it’s closer than many people realize.
Let’s take a look at 6 transportation technologies sure to impact the trucking and transportation industries forever.
Continue reading “6 Technologies that will Change Transportation and Trucking Forever!”
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. This interview is with Grant Chapman, President at Kroeger Inc.
Kroeger is a wholesale distributor of toy, games, puzzles, gift and hobby servicing the Canadian retail and e-tail retailers. Kroeger has exclusive distribution of such brands as Rubik’s Cube, Toy State, Winning Moves Games, Endless Games, Ceaco Puzzles, WoodWick Candles, , Silly String, and other spectacular brands.
Continue reading “Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with Grant Chapman, President at Kroeger!”This year was supposed to be the year of recovery. Instead, we’ve seen the supply chain system go from bad to worse with extensive Supply Chain disruption.
Literally all types of raw materials have been hit with shortages in the face of mass demand as businesses seek to hoard and pre-order as much as possible, deal with the freight gridlock from Asia to the rest of the world, and satisfy the huge demand of the consumer.
Continue reading “Supply Chain Disruption From Small to Large Businesses!”In the world of electronics, the importance of selecting the right electronic components distributor cannot be overstated. Whether you are an individual electronics hobbyist, a small startup, or a large-scale manufacturer, the quality and reliability of the components you use can make or break your project.
To ensure your success, it’s crucial to find a distributor who can provide you with the best electronic components and meet your specific needs. This guide will walk you through the essential steps to find the perfect distributor for your electronic components, ensuring that your projects run smoothly and efficiently.
Continue reading “How to Find the Right Electronic Components Distributor!”
In my experience when you embark on driving any kind of Game Changing Transformation you will most likely also need to break barriers and change behaviours if not the Culture. As the saying goes, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results”. So in order to get different results you may have to break through barriers and drive different behaviours from what are inherent in the current Culture.
Your organization is an ecosystem of policies, practices, processes and procedures that are the result of decisions, beliefs and behaviours. Over time much of this generally gets accepted as the way it’s always been done and is not open to challenge or to change. Therein sacred cows, whether real or perceived, can become obstacles to making the changes needed to derive different results from the status quo.
Having your Call to Action in Place, A Project Name and mandate, and a Holistic Approach are critical. But the “X” factor that you also need to have a strategy for is Cultural Change.
Continue reading “Creating the Culture to Break Barriers!”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. This interview is with Dr. Muddassir Ahmed, Founder and CEO at SCMDOJO.
Continue reading “Seasoned Leadership in Action™ – An Interview with Dr. Muddassir Ahmed!”A new survey from Brightpearl found that 42 percent of U.S. retailers say they have seen an increase in the number of returns and “serial returners” over the last 12 months.
What’s more, 61 percent of the retailers surveyed said they would ban serial returners.
This is an interesting change in an industry that has put so much emphasis on facilitating free returns and exchanges.
Continue reading “The Downside of Free Returns and Exchanges!”Like any other industry, Supply Chain Management comes with its own Supply Chain myths and misconceptions that can easily mislead many businesses.
This is especially true when people try to seek out the best way to optimize their Supply Chains – only to actually be slowly sabotaging them and making them more inefficient than they should be when they fail to do ample research.
Here, we break down some of those Supply Chain myths that you should watch out for and avoid.
Continue reading “5 Supply Chain Myths and Truths!”In April, 2022 I was invited to present at Unicorn Partners’ Supply Chain Intelligence Summit. They wanted to have “an intensive and critical examination of the reality and the dream of end-to-end supply chain visibility”.
For anyone who follows Supply Chain Game Changer, you know that we view end-to end Supply Chain connectivity and visibility as the foundation to create the Digital Supply Chain of the future.
Further, we believe that we are now at a massive inflection point in the history of Supply Chain Management. This was a great opportunity to share our view of the current reality and our vision of the definitive Supply Chain of the future.
Continue reading “Supply Chain Intelligence Summit! (Video)”Having a productive and efficient supply chain is very important for a business. In supply chain management, it is essential to keep all unnecessary costly errors mitigated. However, common mistakes can happen that lead to higher overhead.
Missing opportunities that make your chain more efficient will make your supply chain sub-optimal. By locating the mistakes and correcting them, you can optimize your supply chain.
Continue reading “How to Avoid Costly Errors in Supply Chain!”While you probably wouldn’t target solar panel manufacturing as the supply chain most in need of sustainable management, solar improves sustainability. Commercial solar panels and solar technology are at the cutting edge of efforts to make the supply chain more sustainable.
A variety of efforts are underway to make solar panels more renewable.
Continue reading “How Solar Improves Sustainability in Supply Chain!”E-commerce is defined as the buying and selling of products or services exclusively through electronic channels. If you’ve made an online purchase through eBay, Shopify, Amazon (through Amazon FBA), and other platforms, then you have made your purchase via an e-commerce site. More and more people spend their time browsing on the internet and the more likely they are to buy stuff online.
Admittedly, the e-commerce industry is booming. Retail e-commerce sales in the United States are projected to grow at a fast pace in the coming years, going from 322.17 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to just over 485 billion US dollars in 2021.
If you’re looking for a business that will eventually get you out of your 9-5 job, or looking to expand your existing business, having an online presence and web-based store could fulfill this goal. For beginners in the e-commerce trade, what do you need to do to get more sales, with a lot of online businesses competing for customers’ attention?
Customers want products that will give the best bang for their buck with speedy delivery, and good after-sales support. Here’s where the different companies offering order fulfillment services come in.
Order fulfillment is defined as the steps involved in receiving, processing and delivering orders to end customers. A fulfillment service is defined as a third-party company that provides these order fulfillment steps on behalf of another party, such as an online seller.
Let’s look at the pros and cons of using either Amazon FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) or a 3PL for your fulfillment needs.
FBA, or Fulfillment By Amazon is a business model wherein e-commerce sellers on the Amazon Marketplace, big or small, can have their products stored in any of Amazon’s giant warehouses, pack and deliver them to customers, handle customer support, and returns.
Amazon has one of the most advanced e-commerce fulfillment service in the world, can help you scale-up or grow your business and as of the last measured period, the source estimated 90 million paying Amazon Prime subscribers in the United States, up from 63 million in June during the previous year.
Amazon Prime customers are eligible for 2-Day Shipping, Free Shipping and other benefits. If you sign up your products for Amazon Prime, your products are eligible for free shipping, too.
FBA handles customer service and returns. Listings are displayed with the Prime logo, so customers know that Amazon handles packing, delivery, customer service, and returns.
They handle the fulfillment services side of the business and saves your time, so you can focus on the other aspects of your business.
With Multi-Channel Fulfillment, you can fulfill orders from other sales channels using your inventory stored in Amazon order fulfillment centers. Single-source your inventory to streamline your fulfillment operations, manage your inventory through an online user interface and can direct Amazon to return your inventory in e-commerce fulfillment centers at any time.
Little to no order customization. Sellers must comply with existing Amazon .processes.
Items are shipped in Amazon boxes. Sellers can ship in generic boxes which may cost extra.
Storage fees are generally higher compared to 3PLs and usually rise during holidays.
Higher order handling fees for non-Amazon orders.
Solutions are based in standard processes which may pose little opportunity for dialogue.
The fact that Amazon may actually be a competitor to the seller. Amazon is in the business of selling, they just happen to offer shipping services. For Amazon, it’s free product and market research, and they’re making money off you.
Third–party logistics in logistics and supply chain management is a company’s use of third party businesses to outsource elements of the company’s order fulfillment services.
Boxes/bags and all internal packaging are customized to a specific brand. Processes are adapted to your business’ operation and specification.
Attractive storage costs that is variable. Customer pays storage space on a given month. Some 3PLs even offer free warehouse storage for a limited time.
Has onboarding processes, frequent communication before and after product launch. Collaborative approach is encouraged.
Certain 3PLs can handle both B2B and B2C (Business to Consumer) fulfillment, resulting in one e-commerce fulfillment partner for all sales channels.
Not all 3PL providers are created equal. It takes time to find a good company to work with from the beginning. Once you find someone you can trust, you can rest assured that your goods are being properly cared for. The initial search could be stressful but it will all be worth it once you find a reliable 3PL company.
An inefficient 3PL provider could make your company look bad. Your customers do not care who is in charge of getting the product to them. All they care about is the end result. It is very important to look for a good distribution center early on to avoid customer-satisfaction issues in the future.
Order Fulfillment Services are a crucial part of your business and a major factor in determining its success or failure. Whether you entrust your fulfillment services to FBA or a 3PL, there is a greater chance that you will be in good hands – these are fulfillment experts, after all. The key difference is you as the owner, – what do you want for your brand and what kind of customer experience you want to give to your consumers.
If you are happy to use Amazon’s existing system and tap into their wide customer reach, FBA may be a perfect fit for your company. If, however, you would like more control over your order fulfillment services, partnering with a 3PL could be the best solution. Make sure your order fulfillment service provider is experienced with the type of operations you need before you entrust them with your reputation.
How many times have you looked at your Distribution Centre operation and thought about how you would re-layout and streamline the process flow if you had the chance?
When you are starting with a new, empty facility it is clearly much easier to layout the operations to make the best possible flow of materials and processes. But when you have an existing operation which has evolved over a long period of time, you are likely faced with utilities, equipment, infrastructure, walls, and paradigms all of which have resulted in a rather inefficient flow of materials and people and processes.
This was the situation we had in one of our Distribution Centres. In this particular Distribution Centre the current layout of the operation had been the result of many iterations of adding new customers, new products and new processes over time with the associated fluctuations in demand for everything.
Yet with the launch of our Global Process Excellence project we had unleashed our employees to make the improvements they had imagined could be made for a long time.
Continue reading “Streamline your Entire Distribution Centre or Warehouse at One Time!”
EBOOK HERE
