Monthly Archives: March 2012

Commodity Prices Have Exceed the Peak of World War I

And it doesn’t look like they are going to decrease any time soon. But more importantly, recent analysis by the McKinsey Quarterly indicates that commodity prices will remain high and volatile for at least the next 20 years. As per this recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly on a new era for commodities, demand for energy, food, metals and water will continue to rise inexorably as three billion new middle-class consumers emerge in the next two decades.

And the changes will be significant. As per the article, the global car fleet will double by 2030. Calorie intake per person in India will increase 20%, per capita meat consumption in China could increase by 60%, and urban infrastructure demand will soar in both countries. A hundred years ago, this was not that big of an issue as improvements in exploration, extraction, and cultivation techniques kept the world ahead of ever-increasing global needs. But today, the potential climatic impact of carbon emissions associated with surging resource use limits exploration and extraction because we’re already at a level where global carbon emissions are significantly above the level required to keep increases in the global temperature below 2° Celsius — the threshold which has been identified as potentially catastrophic. Plus, current cultivation technology is pretty much at its limit as only so much food can be grown in a fixed space.

And everything is connected. The ripple effects of water shortfalls at a time when 70% of water is consumed by agriculture and 12% is consumed by energy production can be catastrophic. For example, in Uganda, water shortages led to escalating energy prices which led to the use of more wood fuels which led to deforestation and soil degradation that threatened the agricultural food supply.

As a result, for the short term, commodity prices are going to stay high and your organization had better be prepared.

Today Is A Historic Day For Extra-Planetary Supply Management

One year ago today, the Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103) made its final landing after 39 flights. Discovery, which flew the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit, performed both research and International Space Station assembly missions.

It was the first operational shuttle to be retired and its decommissioning was a historic event. It’s good that it will soon be on display at the Smithsonian Institution‘s National Air and Space Museum at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia (even though it will replace Enterprise which, hopefully, won’t be lost in the archives) as it’s an important piece of scientific history and supply management history. The official welcoming ceremony will take place next month on April 19th and it will be on public display soon after.

With the creation of the International Space Station, Supply Management, for the first time, became an extra-planetary concern in November of 2000 when the first resident crew, Expedition 1, arrived. Since then, the five cooperating space agencies (NASA, RKA, JAXA, ESA, and CSA) have had to insure not only the capability to continuously supply the crew with the supplies they needed, but have had to insure that the materials necessary for the station’s maintenance and continued instruction arrive in a timely fashion. Discovery was a key component in the station’s maintenance, having delivered modules and supplies over the last twelve years.

The twenty-first century introduced us to the beginnings of Solar Supply Management, and if Space Adventures has its way, the ISS and the Supply Management challenges it created are just the beginning. Space Adventures is proposing a Lunar Mission and the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) is proposing a Lunar Ark. If either of these projects, or a replacement project, come to fruition, we may soon be managing orbital supply chains. It could be a very interesting century for Supply Management indeed!

No Service, No Tax: Haligonians Demand Your Money Back!

My apologies to my global readers, but this is a local issue that is growing more pressing by the day and I feel the need to get the message out any way I can.

HRM residents pay 0.156% of the value of their property on their
property tax bill each year in the form of an area tax for Metro
Transit. Last year, the HRM collected 34 Million dollars to fund Metro
Transit, and this year the HRM expects to collect over 35 Million
dollars for the same purpose. In other words, we are paying almost 3
Million dollars per month for a service we are not getting.

We, the residents of HRM, demand that one twelfth of the are tax be
credited back to us for each month that Metro Transit is not running.

There is no reason that the strike should be prolonged unnecessarily.
We should not be responsible for the failings of management. Almost
100,000 people are affected by the lack of service, and their voice is
not being heard. Students are being forced to drop out of school and
people are losing their jobs. We feel that the only way our collective
voices will be heard is if we unite and demand our money back.
Furthermore, we are tired of all of the in-camera sessions and secret
negotiations. It’s our money, and our service, and we want some
transparency and accountability.

No Service, No Tax, One Voice!

If you agree, please sign our petition at Petition Online Canada.

Best Buy Experience? Not At Best Buy! Part II

Yesterday’s post recounted the recent problems that has had Best Buy in the sights of Storefront BackTalk, which include coverage of how Best Buy is Making the Same Data Mistakes Again, while being the latest example of a Black Friday Fiasco, and offering free Wi-Fi Porn to minors in its store. And the last story was the doozie — not only can it apparently not keep its own in-store networks secure enough to prevent porn from being displayed on HD TVs for half an hour, but when a customer asks for the manager, he’s told “You want to see the manager? You go get him. He’s over there.”.

As far as examples of bad customer service go, that’s a response that always take the cake. So, not only does their IT suck, as highlighted by their now not-so recent website update to BestBuy.ca which prevents those of us still on Mac OS X 10.6 from adding more than one item to our cart for a purchase (which we can only do if we log-in first), but their customer service, in-store and on-line leaves much to be experienced. So, not only can we buy only one product at a time (which is a great inconvenience if we want to buy five items, as this would require five separate session and purchase processes, but a cost-prohibitive inconvenience if the items are small as multiple purchases means multiple shipments which means multiple, unnecessary, shipping charges), but they don’t seem interested in doing a damn thing about it. I reported the issue back in the end of January when I first noticed it, received an e-mail saying someone would contact me within 2 days, but over a month later, still no response. I reported it again last week when I again tried to purchase more than one item (with no luck), got the same e-mail, and again no response.

But it’s their in-store customer service that takes the cake. I’ve been to the new Best Buy in Halifax exactly three times, and each time was a customer service nightmare. I’ll just describe the last visit, last week, as it was just a repeat of the problems I experienced in the first two visits, with a few extra aggravations thrown in.

This time, I went there to return an item I ordered in early February that was defective before my time ran out as I would otherwise have to deal directly with the manufacturer directly (which was not a pleasant thought given that they have been in financial and media trouble lately and were certain to be understaffed in their customer service department). Best Buy allows you to return / exchange items in-store that were ordered online and this sounded preferable than trying to deal with an agent over the phone to explain “it literally shorted out”, try to get a pre-paid shipping box, try to insure that someone actually processed the item when it was returned, etc.

So I go to the store. I explain the situation, show my on-line receipt, and ask to exchange in-store (because I know they had stock) as I only had a couple of days left before their return policy expired on the item. The rep said “sure, but you have to go back to computers and get the replacement — I can’t leave the desk”. Huh? You can’t leave or call back and get someone to get it? O.K., Fine. So I go back and ask an associate to get me the item, behind a glass door, right in front of me. First thing, “I don’t think we have any more of those”. They were right there and I was pointing at a row of three. “Oh, well, I have to go get a key.” Fine. I wait, and wait, and five-or-so minutes later notice him half way across the store talking to someone else, with obviously no interest in trying to track down someone with a key. So, I wait for another associate to become free, ask if he can help me, and note the item I want is in the case. He says sure, follows me to the product, and says “Oh, I don’t have a key for that. I’ll have to get someone behind the desk.” So I wait a few more minutes, and finally someone comes and says “What can I help you with.”. This associate should know, as I explained it to the associate that fetched him, and then again I get “Oh, I need a key. I’ll have to call the manager.” Well, I guess that’s progress as he actually called the manager, but it took three associates and over ten (10) minutes to get a product out of a case that the customer knew he wanted. Had I been trying to buy it for the first time, I would have given up and went to a different store.

But the fun didn’t stop there. The manager hands the item to the associate, who brings it to the desk, and on my return, the associate says “I can’t do this return, as the item was purchased on-line, and I haven’t been shown how to do that, I’ll have to get someone else”. Uhmm? I told the associate it was purchased online before the associate said she could do the return. Fine. Wait for another agent, who goes through most of the return process only to mumble something along the lines of “Oh, it’s above my limit, I need a manager’s authorization.” The price was clear on the receipt. So I wait again. Finally, after a few more minutes, a manager comes buy, punches in a code, and walks away. And after some stumbling (which, based upon prior experience, makes me want to swear that they didn’t train anyone on their own systems), finally completes the exchange.

And the fun didn’t stop there as I also wanted to pick up a game for my son. I should have tried the games store across the street first, but I happened to have checked the on-line system before I left and knew there were over 10 in stock when I checked the quantity reported on the website earlier that day. I go to the section where the games are, and where I believe it should be, only to find it’s not there. I ask an associate in the section as to where it is, only to hear him say “I don’t work in games. I think it should be here”. This was annoying, but not as annoying as him taking me to a section for games for a completely different console by a manufacturer. So I take him back to the section and say “It should be here, as this is where the other games are for this console, but it’s not. Where else could it be?” I’m told “if it’s not here, we don’t have any” and he walks away.

Since I couldn’t believe they’d sell 10 in a day as it was not a brand new release, and there was no sale on, I go to the back of the store, find a tablet with working Wi-Fi (which, I’m happy to report, appeared to be porn free), go to their mobile site, pull up that there are still nine (9) in the store, go back, find the associate, and tell him this. He stumbles around, fails to find it, so decides to ask the customer service desk if there are any in stock (and ignore the fact that I just checked their online system less than five minutes ago). They say yes, and when he asks where, they say they don’t know. He says I’ll have to ask someone who works in games, but that he doesn’t know if anyone’s working in games tonight. Great. So I decide to check ends of rows, displays, etc. and basically wander around until I eventually find one. Then I go to the cash, where the cashier, of all people, tells me (when she is struggling to get the security device off of a $40 game) that it would have been faster if I had just came to the cash and asked for one to be pulled out of the locked game cabinet next to the customer service desk. That’s right, the customer service agents apparently didn’t know about the game cabinet right beside them! (And this wasn’t even the most ridiculous customer service experience. On my first visit, where they didn’t know how to process an American Express card, which, as you know, has the security code on the front, and not the back, the associate also didn’t know how to listen to a customer who repeatedly tells him: “No, the security code for AMEX is on the front – you can type the numbers on the back as many times as you like, it’s not going to work”.)

So what is the lesson to be learned — it doesn’t matter how good your supply management organization does if the retail / merchandising side can’t get its act together. Because, at some point, customers will get fed up with the bad customer service and go elsewhere (as I have with most of the electronics I order on-line — I like the selection, price, and/or speed of delivery less, but it’s still less aggravating dealing with these sites). That’s why Supply Management has to make itself the go-to organization that other organizations in the company come to for advice. This is the only way that it will be able to insure that best practices are applied down the chain as well as up, as, otherwise, all of its effort to source quality product won’t mean squat when customers won’t be able to put up with the shoddy experience of trying to acquire the product and just give up entirely.