Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Can we Sustain the Global Food Supply Chain?

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The threat of contamination can be disastrous for both public health and businesses, thus prompting companies of all sizes to focus on sustainability initiatives designed to ensure the health of the entire food and beverage ecosystem.
Aberdeen Group, “Sustaining the Global Food Supply Chain”, January 2009

In their research preview, which noted that global food production, processing, distribution, and retailing have never been under greater scrutiny by both regulators and consumers than they are today and that their upcoming study will explore pressure points, planned actions, and best practices in supply chain management, Aberdeen points out that thought leading food and beverage companies have taken on aggressive goals to ensure end-to-end visibility and quality, reduce negative impacts on the environment, and enhance positive change on society through frameworks of shared value.

But sustainability requires organizations to change and innovate in fundamental ways and represents, in and of itself, a sea change in the way society views the role of business and the centrality of business ethics. And in this economy, despite the need, not many companies are changing. This is a disturbing thought when you take into account that last year, global food reserves reached fifty, if not one hundred, year lows and that global shipping is currently responsible for 4.0% of all global climate change emissions due to an utter lack of regulatory requirements compared to the automative and trucking industries.

So can we sustain the global food supply chain?

We thought Global Warming Would Be Good? Were We Wrong?

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Back before we knew it was an inconvenient truth, we Canadians were all for global warming … thinking it would skyrocket our property values and help us take over the world. But now, after a summer of miserable wet, dank, allergy and asthma inducing weather … we have to ask “were we wrong”?

I don’t know. Canadians for Global Warming

Speculation is Fun … But You Should Get the Facts

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Speculation, a favorite pass-time of many bloggers, is fun, but you should get the facts before you sponsor any blog.

That being said, it never hurts to latch on to a winner early (especially if a sponsorship is being priced competitively), and there are a few up-and coming winners out there, particularly if your focus is narrower or broader than supply chain innovation, education, and best practices. So, if you are a forward-thinking marketer who knows your traffic is going to the blogs (after all, the only traditional publication that appears to get more regular web traffic than this blog is Purchasing), I’d highly recommend that you consider putting your logo on multiple, complimentary blogs and make your brand #1 in the eyes of your prospective, and discerning, customers.

First off, in the supply chain space, I’d recommend taking a close look at Bob Ferrari’s Supply Chain Matters. While still on the low end of the middle ground in the rankings (between Procurement Insights and Supply Excellence), Bob has been churning out high quality content since day one. If Bob decided to make Supply Chain Matters a daily blog, stepping up from his sporadic posting schedule of about every three days on average, I think Supply Chain Matters could shoot up the charts and quickly become, without question, the third most visited blog in supply and spend management space.

Secondly, in the related Metals space, I’d highly recommend Aptium Global’s Metal Miner. Now augmented with it’s MetalMiner IndX service, Metal Miner, which now claims to be the fourth largest online metals publication (and the traffic engines appear to support this claim), has been bringing you quality information on the metals market since it’s launch in December of 2007. It’s no-nonsense approach to quality information day-in and day-out, coupled with it’s metal pricing index that is updated daily, has allowed it to climb to the point where it is now also the third most trafficked supply chain blog (which you can verify through external triangulation across the five major traffic ranking sites). Quite impressive.

Thirdly, in the broader enterprise solutions space, I’d recommend Vinnie Mirchandani‘s Deal Architect. While Vinnie doesn’t tend to do deep dives into particular solution offerings very often, he offers a myriad of insights on a regular basis that can help you get a very strong understanding of the enterprise software space if you read it regularly. And that is one heck of a useful service … especially since you’d have to subscribe to Gartner or Forrester to get the same quality of insight, and they’re certainly not free!

Well, those are my recommendations if you’re on the market for (multiple) blog sponsorships as an innovative, thought-leading organization.

Package Diversity May Combat A Sales Slump …

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… but it may also lock you into single source relationships, which could be bad for business if your supplier is on, or is close to, shaky ground.

While it’s always nice to stand out from the crowd, I have to wonder if Coca-Cola’s recent decision to “shake up its packaging” is the right decision from a supply chain viewpoint. I’ll admit that the 16-ounce bottle might give it a key price point, but it could come at a cost. There’s a reason most soft-drinks come in standard package sizes (2 L, 20 oz bottle, and 12 oz can) … that’s the sizes that most manufacturers have standardized on. Every time you change a size, you change a production line. That requires investment. A manufacturer is not going to do that without a significant commitment on your part. This locks you in … and even if it insures a stable supplier, it also takes away any negotiating leverage you might have as a buyer if your sources are limited. This may not matter if your product sells like mad at a decent profit point … but if the sales campaign backfires, it could cost you.

I’ll admit that Coca Cola most likely has the brand, the marketing prowess, and the supply chain optimization capabilities to pull it off (as a very early adopter of strategic sourcing decision optimization and supply network optimization technologies), but I don’t think there are many companies that could pull this off in today’s economy. Anyone have a different viewpoint?

Defining Senior Management Support in the Context of Your Supply Chain Projects

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A recent article over on Supply Chain Digest asked a very good question — “what is senior management support for supply chain projects”. We all know that no project can succeed without senior management support, but what precisely does that mean? According to the author, two types of support are necessary:

  • support from the supply chain executive for projects in her organization and
  • support from each executive whose division is impacted by a cross-functional initiative.

But that still doesn’t define what, precisely senior management support is. The question is, can it be defined? Especially when the needs of every project are different?

I think it can, if you take it on a project-by-project basis and take the advice of Gene Tyndall and define a “Project Charter” for every project. If this charter identifies the executive sponsor, specifies the objectives, defines the success requirements — and what is required from the sponsor, and specifies the steering committee, then, if the sponsor(s) agree(s) to it, then you just might have what you need to achieve project success.