Hello and welcome!

Check out the links to the right for the most recent posts!

It is my sincere hope that the information shared on the pages for this site can stimulate interactive conversations that will lead to productive discussions about your supply chain strategies. If you want a more in-depth conversation, I stand ready to help you and your company improve the efficiency and movement of products within your supply chain.

To add some beginning contextual value to our collaborative supply chain conversation, allow me to ask…

Where were you in 1991?

• If you were born prior to August 1991, then you have never lived without some access or knowledge of a public Internet where information and eCommerce  B2C shopping is accessible to nearly everyone.
• Five years later, on July 14, 1996, Amazon.com started shipping books from a Bellevue, WA garage. Today, Amazon employees 270,000; and, Amazon had revenues exceeding $107 billion in 2015. During the 2016 holiday season, Amazon reported that its Amazon Prime customers placed over 1 billion orders, making 2016 its most successful season.
• In January 2007, Apple released its first iPhone, which quickly catapulted the smartphone industry into the sales stratosphere. By 2016, smartphones owned 79% of the US mobile market alone. More importantly, Amazon reported that during the 2016 holiday season, nearly 72% of its Amazon Prime orders were placed from smartphones.

No one in 1991 could have predicted the impact of these three disruptive changes to modern supply chains: (1) the Internet; (2) Amazon.com; and (3) Smartphones.

The next twenty five years?

• If the past 25 years are any indication, then the next 25 years should be even more exciting and disruptive to B2C and B2B supply chains.
• Is the next logistical challenge to find a faster, cheaper way to deliver items/products ordered via smartphones from Amazon’s Internet website?
• If so, then perhaps the first salvo in attacking this logistics challenge occurred on December 7, 2016, when Amazon.com successfully completed its first Amazon Prime Air drone delivery of an ordered item.

The total transaction time from order to drone delivery was about 13 minutes. Simply amazing!

How are you and your company positioned with your supply chain for the future?

No one argues that disruptive forces driving B2C supply chains will eventually impact the forces driving B2B supply chains. These changes, no doubt, will be influenced by the expectations of B2C consumers, who are also employees of B2B companies. At some point, everyone’s expectations will be raised and need addressing.

A supply chain moves products at the speed of your business. How do you measure your speed?

There are obvious questions to consider. What are your answers?

1. How robust is the speed of your supply chain today?
2. Will your customers remain satisfied with the speed of your supply chain?
3. What speed of business are your customers demanding that you have in place tomorrow?
4. What is the speed of business that your competitors could provide your customers?
5. Are you ready to confront the disruptions that will happen to your supply chain?

Remember and heed the advice that Benjamin Franklin once shared: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Let’s start our conversation today! Select a post on the right!