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.
The Division I had just joined was enjoying great success in Sales and Development. They had created a modular building block design for their products. Simply there were over two dozen different building block designs which could be configured in innumerable combinations to create the end product.
Each building block was designed to be a low-cost item. Based on the customer requirements and specifications the building blocks could be combined in varying quantities. Then a custom outer case, with the appropriate inputs and outputs, would be created to house all of the building blocks, interconnected on a master mother board.
It sounded great on paper and on Powerpoint slides. But what came next was an absolute nightmare.
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.
E-Commerce is the fastest growing avenue for doing business anywhere. It has been for many years and it will be for many years to come. In support of this your operations need to be World Class.
It is certainly a challenge to establish the sales, marketing, merchandising and transactional infrastructure to offer an efficient and effective E-Commerce solution to your customers.
At the core of the Supply Chain an enormous challenge is to have a highly competitive and compelling E-Commerce Fulfillment solution. So what are the key principles that you must have in place to design, construct and deliver a leading E-Commerce Fulfillment solution?
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!
Anywhere you go anywhere in the world you will find truck drivers delivering goods. Roads and highways are filled with trucks of all shapes sizes. Tractor trailers of all configurations are everywhere on the roads.
If you are driving a car you may be annoyed by all of these trucks. Or if you are an environmentalist you may be concerned by the fuel consumption of these behemoths.
But the reality is that these truck drivers are the backbone of our societies and our economies. They deliver the goods that we need to live the lives that we enjoy. Without them the economy would stop and life as we know it would not be the same.
Truck drivers are truly the unsung heroes of the Supply Chain!
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?
Amazon has reigned supreme in e-commerce for years, but Walmart is well on its way to making the e-commerce giant a little nervous. Amazon acquired Whole Foods and dropped the price of Prime Pantry through Prime Perks. Amazon began looking into brick-and-mortar storefronts, hoping to capture a new slice of the omnichannel pie.
Walmart has a different approach, and in several ways, Walmart is positioning itself to best Amazon in e-commerce through an innovative, omnichannel return strategy. To understand the true scope of this accomplishment, supply chain leaders need to understand the precursor steps Walmart has taken.
It’s time for the Retail Brick and Mortar Store to stand up and be counted! All of the talk about the demise of Brick and Mortar stores is premature.
In this age of E-Commerce the vast majority of retail sales are still conducted face to face in a physical store. Even Millennials shop in a physical store 50% of the time.
The phenomenal growth of E-Commerce is undeniable. But more importantly we must remember that customers want an OMNICHANNEL experience, NOT a Single Channel experience.
At the intersection of what the Customer wants and what the Retailer wants is the Brick and Mortar store! This is where the Brick and Mortar Store is uniquely positioned to leverage its significant advantages!
A strong political sentiment these days seems to be more about protectionist behaviour and protecting one’s own national territory and interests rather than those of the Global community.
Yet we have for a long time been a global economy with unprecedented levels of international trade and commerce. Virtually every company and country relies on goods and/or services from countries all around the world.
In going door to door trying to sell a Freight Management service, as well as in my experience working in companies, I have had the opportunity to see a variety of ways in which companies, large and small, were managing their Freight and Logistics spend.
Most everyone felt they were doing a good job already. But I’ve seen instances where Freight is one of the top 5 largest expenses within a company. Yet it is managed by one or two people, with no support, and no visibility from upper management.
Depending on the industry your transportation spend can make up anywhere from 1-10% of your company’s total revenue. Aside from the cost impact the service implications of a poor Freight management system are enormous.
So do you have a strategy for managing Freight and Logistics or are you spinning your wheels?
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.
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!
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.
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.
