I recently spoke with Robert Thiemann, the Founder of BPM-Lux and Advisor of BPM, Logistics & Transport to discuss recent changes in cross-border geoblocking regulations in Europe and the implications for consumers and sellers.
As a result of these changes, Thiemann details why online retailers will need to consider how to design last mile supply chain solutions to facilitate cross border deliveries and the return of unwanted goods for end consumers.
One of the scary supply chain campfire stories I like to tell is of the CEO who stands in front of Wall Street to explain a revenue miss due to lack of visibility into the inner workings of its supply chain. A real-life version of which was recently lived by adidas.
During its annual earnings call, adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted explained to investors that the company’s slow sales growth in North America was attributed to supply issues as the company expands from high-end products into a mid-price range. According to Rorsted the volume increased faster than anticipated, and they didn’t respond quickly enough to the demand signal.
In adidas’s recent earnings call, CEO Kasper Rorsted warned that adidas would miss its 2019 growth target because its supply chain was unable to meet the huge demand for its mid-priced apparel, especially in North America.
adidas expected this to result in a one to two percentage point drop in its revenue growth, translating to a drop in revenue between €100 and €200 million.
For a company operating at almost 52 percent gross margin, that’s not an insignificant amount.
In part one of my inventory management best practices series I argue that inventory cannot be managed until it is controlled, and present the notion our general willingness to apportion blame upon unreliable data from enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems is misplaced.
This isn’t because the ERP system is flawed. Further investigation reveals that external forces—controllable forces—exert influence upon the system, skewing data to a point at which it becomes unreliable.
In the final part of my inventory management best practices series, I take a look at some additional practices that are important, or even crucial, to successful supply chain efforts.
Happy Pi Day! 
What a great day. You have to love a special day where eating all the pie you want is acceptable, the math jokes are endless, and there are always some clever shirts, memes and memory contests to keep you entertained for weeks.
Not only that, as I see the tweet count climb on Twitter, it is clear that Pi Day isn’t just for mathematicians, engineers and scientists anymore. It has expanded to the masses and can serve as a fun way to get people talking and engaging in STEM conversations.
Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just reserved for sci-fi movies anymore – supercomputers going rogue on humans and launching them into deep outer space. AI is creeping into our everyday lives – at work, home and play. Enterprises who are able to harness AI’s full potential will likely thrive into the future while those that don’t will be left behind.
What will the rise of AI mean for the supply chain? Will AI assume full control while the human element is shown the exit? Quite the opposite. AI will play an important role in the planning process, but so will humans.
In part one and part two of “Regaining control: Inventory management best practices”, we talked about controlling inventory, before being able to competently manage inventory.
Here in part three, we’ll explore what other important supply chain inventory management best practices.
This time around, we make specific recommendations on units of measure, the importance of repacking and resealing, and value of dedicating time to cycle counts.
In part one of “Regaining control: Inventory management best practices,” Kinaxis guest blogger Richard Cushing talked about the fundamentals of controlling inventory and why it’s vital to have before being able to competently manage inventory.
With that in mind, Cushing outlines additional inventory management best practices in part two of his four part series.
From part numbers and labeling to being strategic about the location of your warehouses, getting organized will help you better manage your assets and regain control of your supply chain.
