Safety can cost a lot of money. Have you identified the cost of safety in your road transport businesses or have negotiated 3PL rates in which safety of the fleet has been discussed? It is difficult to quantify safety outside of insurance premiums and training time, so what figures have you used? As an indication that safety can cost a … Read More
Changes to your supply chains takes time
Near-shoring gains prominence. This month’s McKinsey Quarterly article by Katy George is titled Near-shoring: A CEO’s Guide and provides some good thinking about trends in manufacturing, many of which will have an influence on the future structure of supply chains and operations of logistics and logistics services. Near-shoring is another term for considering your business as a set of regional (rather … Read More
Working in procurement – be able to sell
A view of Procurement. Is procurement (you can call it supply, purchasing or acquisition) just about sourcing and buying materials, goods and services? Well no – to be an effective procurement organisation and meet the targeted business outcomes requires more capabilities than sourcing and buying. What about selling? Procurement should do this both internally and externally. Inside your business there … Read More
Missed deliveries at festive times is a logistics challenge
Over-promising is a problem. ‘Any-time’ buying and ‘free’ delivery sound attractive until there are unhappy customers demanding refunds because gifts did not arrive when expected. Over the Australian summer holiday I have read articles about the challenges in America of delivering parcels in time for the recent Christmas festivities. The two parties involved in the transaction both want delivery of … Read More
Know the critical LSPs for your business
How important is each logistics service provider to your business? Your answer will depend on a range of factors, including the value of services purchased, the number of potential suppliers and the capabilities required of the service provider. The analytical approach to identify those LSPs which are strategic to your business is to segment the LSP contracts into categories … Read More