Be noticed at board level. To ensure the board of directors at your business take notice of Supply Chains and Logistics, the board must review financial performance measures that are the responsibility of the supply chain group. The most applicable measures are: cash flow, working capital and return on investment (ROI). Of these, working capital and its derivative, the cash … Read More
Know your Cost To Serve for increased profitability
The real profitability of your customers. How much does it cost to serve your customers? What changes to product mix, order size and delivery times will increase your profit.How profitable are your customers, or a particular channel or a market segment? It is difficult, if not impossible, to know if the analysis is not done. But to do the analysis, … Read More
Measure your Customer Service through Logistics
Achieving the perfect order. An empty shelf at a supermarket results in dissatisfied consumers, less sales by the retailer and if the item is not available at the retailer’s warehouse, then questions of the supplier, For logistics, the overriding requirement of your customers is that each of their orders is a ‘perfect order’. A perfect order means: the initial customer … Read More
What is best – cut costs or improve your supply chains?
Cut costs to get a better business I read this week of more businesses cutting costs – a copy of what so many businesses do when the going gets tough. This may gain favourable articles in the business media and shows shareholders that management is doing something. In addition to retrenching employees, favourite cost reduction actions are to: outsource non-core activities … Read More
Management by Walking Around is not that Difficult
Your focus – metrics or observation. As a business gets larger, the challenge for managers is whether to only believe the performance measures (metrics) presented or to also take notice of the views from staff and customers. If only metrics are considered, managers are entering dangerous territory. I have been reading about a major retailer in Australia that relied on … Read More