Tag: Business

Business is the core genre for capturing all aspects of operations, inclusive of Supply Chain in all of its forms.

Seasoned Leadership in Action™! An Interview with John Heffernan, Chief Supply Chain Officer at ModusLink!

John Heffernan
John Heffernan, CSCO 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!

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Leadership Techniques To Inspire Your Team!

Lessons from Bad Bosses!
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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.

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Welcome To The Supply Chain Game Changer ™ Blog!

The Supply Chain Game Changer ™ Blog!

Welcome to the Supply Chain Game Changer ™ blog.

The Supply Chain touches all of our lives whether it be in business or personally.  No matter what industry you are in or are touched by, all involve the movement of goods, services, and information.  So the most efficient functioning of the Supply Chain affects us all.  And it affects us in every aspect of our lives whether we are consumers, employees, or business leaders.

With a career spent in Supply Chain I’ve seen many ways of performing the processes involved in managing the Supply Chain.  Many of these processes are highly efficient.  Yet many more are highly inefficient.  Regardless, everyone strives to improve the way things are done.  And every experience has been an opportunity for growth.

Supply Chain Management

In this blog I’d like to share my experiences, and those of others, in improving, working in, managing in and being managed by the Supply Chain.  

There have been some remarkable achievements and there have been some missteps along the way.  However there are lessons to be learned and experiences to be shared in every case.  And I hope that this learning and shared experience will be of value as you seek to improve the Supply Chain you are a part of.

On top of that we want to share anything and everything related to Leadership, Change Management, Technology, Procurement, Purchasing, Distribution, Logistics, and much, much more.

Overall Supply Chain Game Changer can serve you as a guide as you do your jobs and as you progress through your career.  The issues and challenges that you face will be different for everyone on any given day.  There is something for everyone in Supply Chain Game Changer.

Additionally I invite you to comment and send me content.  By learning, not only from successes but from failures, we will all be better going forward.  There is a wonderful world of people and experiences that we can all learn from.

So again I welcome you to the Supply Chain Game Changer™ blog.

Let’s go!

What Exactly Is Supply Chain Management? 10 Different Definitions!

Starting a New Job? Be a Positive Impact Player to Succeed!

6 Reasons Supply Chain Employees Look For New Jobs!

I have seen many people join a new company and take a new job or leave for another company.  While I don’t have the precise statistics it is fair to say that as many as half of the people joining a new company will do well.  However atleast half of these people will struggle in their new roles and in their new companies.  Many will fail altogether.

What makes someone more or less successful when making such a career move?  What are the environmental factors which affect this outcome?  And most importantly what is it that the new employee does or doesn’t do that makes them succeed or fail?

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Naming Your Project Will Rally Everyone To Your Cause!

Naming a Product or Company? It’s Not That Easy!
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“I’d like you to join our company.  One of the Projects you will lead is our ‘Productivity Initiative’ unless you will be naming your project. We need to transform all of our business processes and culture and improve our efficiencies everywhere.”

Wow!  What a great challenge and opportunity to make a difference.  But calling it the “Productivity Initiative”?  That was as inspiring as watching paint dry or grass grow.

“I’ll do it!  But we need to give this Project a NAME.  A NAME that will inspire people, motivate people, and capture the essence of the change and cultural transformation that we are looking for.  And this can’t be an ‘Initiative” … it has to be an ‘Imperative’ … this is not optional … we have to transform the business and we need everyone to rally around our cause!

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Create Interesting E-Commerce Content!

Content Marketing Trends for Supply Chain!

E-Commerce content is the greatest selling point for e-commerce businesses. It makes it easier to sell products online and build strong relationships with your customers.

Hire my write experts to handle your assignments and guarantee excellent grades. 

The quality of content on your website gives your readers or visitors to the website an impression of your brand. The impression determines whether they will continue consuming your products, or they will abandon the brand for your competition.

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Network Optimization Success Criteria!

To DC Or Not To DC? That is the Warehouse Design Question!

Network optimization is a critical issue across all Supply Chains.  In Manufacturing, Distribution, Logistics and Retail the effectiveness of your network will make the difference between success and failure.

There are many environmental factors that must be taken in to account in order to define and optimize your network.  Your business may be growing or declining. You may be expanding into new channels, such as E-Commerce, or you may be pulling back.  And you may have just received a cash infusion allowing you to invest more, or you may have enormous cash and profit pressures forcing you to ratify your network.

Whatever your situation your network must continually be optimized.  Your facilities, whether owned, rented or outsourced, are the living organism which make up your network and define how your company goes to market.

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International Expansion in Retail (Infographic)

Innovations in Offline Retail! (Infographic)

The road to international expansion in Retail has been successfully travelled but it is also lined with a lot of accidents and failures. But is it that easy?

“We are going to expand in to the U.S.!”

I heard this refrain many, many times.  The growth and success that a Retailer experiences as they expand in their original, domestic market inspires a level of confidence in the company’s ability to expand beyond it’s geographic borders.

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Driving the Need for Culture Change!

Creating the Culture to Break Barriers!
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You have determined that something has to change in your company! Customer satisfaction may be low.  Employee morale may be in the dumps.  Financial results and operating performance may be falling far short of your objectives. You need culture change!

Or maybe you don’t have any of these problems. But you view that your company is performing well now yet it is not well positioned to go to the next level and be successful in the future.

Or it could be any combination of these pressures.  Whatever the reason, you have come to the realization that the culture of your company must change to get the results you need!

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A Tale of Two Companies: Different Quality Management Beliefs!

Design in Quality First!

Company 1

The CEO came in to my office carrying a product and said, “The label is off centre on this item.  It has a quality defect.”  I responded, “Is that actually a quality defect?  Quality is a measure of conformance to a standard, and we have no standards.”  The CEO didn’t quite understand the distinction.  Certainly the item was mis-labelled.  But there was absolutely no Quality management process in the company.

Company 2

I toured all of the company’s facilities around the globe.  It seemed like we had a tremendous amount of resource working on quality.  But they were spending 100% of their time on inspection.  A report subsequently  confirmed my concerns.  Over 10% of our entire direct workforce was spending the vast majority of their time doing 100% inspection.   We had a Quality management system but it’s only principle was to inspect in quality.

Whichever the situation was, proper Quality management objectives required something to change in both cases!

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Global Process Excellence ™ : A Journey From Disarray To Best In Class!

Global Process Excellence: Defining the Roadmap to Achieve Best In Class Results
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My first Management job was on the Manufacturing floor on 3rd shift.  It was company policy … anyone’s first Management job was in Manufacturing.  The principle was sound: to really understand how the business operated you needed to be at the very core of what it did, which in this case was Manufacturing.  Only then could you really learn the business and how to work with people.

So as I started a new job further along in my career, with responsibility for Distribution Centres around the world, I knew that I was not going to learn what I needed to know from behind a desk looking at Powerpoint slides with pictures and statistics.  I needed to go to each and every facility and learn about the operation right from the floor.

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Value Stream Mapping the Current State Process!

Value Stream Mapping the Future State Process!

We had to begin the transformation of the company’s business processes to support the new business objectives.  This would mean value stream mapping the current state process.  Specifically the company was going to carry a dramatically different set of products which required a new set of capabilities in Strategic Planning, Merchandising, Marketing, Procurement, Inventory Management, Retail Operations and Logistics. 

That scope defined the set of processes we needed to change first.  The overall goal was to enable the transformation of the company which would manifest itself in higher revenue, improved growth and profitability, greater customer satisfaction and superior employee engagement.

We decided to attack this by introducing the Lean technique of Value Stream Mapping to the organization.  We had to start with mapping the Current State process.

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The History of Supply Chain Management! (Infographic)

What Exactly Is Supply Chain Management? 10 Different Definitions!

Over the last 100 plus years of the history of SCM (Supply Chain Management) has evolved from an initial focus on improving relatively simple, but very labor-intensive processes to the present day engineering and managing of extraordinarily complex global networks.

We will take you through the last 60 plus years below and end the post with an amazing infographic.

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Shipping With Amazon: Cutting out the Middle Man!

Competing against Amazon? You Need A Blue Ocean Strategy!

In February, 2018 it was reported that Amazon was going to launch its own delivery service:  Shipping With Amazon!

Effectively Amazon has declared that they are officially entering the logistics business.  The “Shipping With Amazon” service, albeit currently on a much smaller scale, competes with the logistics service and delivery capabilities offered by UPS, FedEx, and UPS.

But these are incredibly large, well established logistics companies.  And they are also the major delivery service suppliers to Amazon.

So why would Amazon choose to go into this space?

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Change Leadership Success: Attack on all Fronts!

The Change Leadership Process … And Guide!
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Have you ever tried to make large improvements for some aspect of your business only to find that after a period of time you feel like you are  pushing on a balloon?

Have you ever lead, or participated in, a project with some very lofty targets only to find that you come up short of your goal because of unforeseen circumstances or unaddressed factors?

Have you ever got into a project only to find that someone else’s objectives seem to be in conflict with yours, and these competing objectives ensure that you will not succeed?

Stuff happens!

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