Well, in Home Depot’s case the article premised that Home Depot was so focused on new store openings through the first decade of the 21st century that they lowered their focus on technology in the stores and their overall operations. Because of this they are now doing what amounts to a “tech catch-up” with Carol Tome leading the charge. Here’s the thing….I have to call some serious BS on this one. Why? Simpy put, you can’t be a publicly traded company with a $60 billion market value and somehow wake up in 2008 and decide that the Internet and technology may be a good idea to explore. It’s embarrassing.

The reality, if I must speculate, is that the executive team at the very top was out-of-touch with the operational environment that the store managers and staff were dealing with. Unfortunately, in today’s market it is not enough just to have operations that can execute effectively. In Home Depot’s case they were executing in the early 2000′s, they were growing revenues and expanding their store footprint. However, the tragedy was they WERE NOT doing this WHILE also improving their technology.

For supply chain companies the lesson to be learned from Home Depot’s story is you have to develop an operating environment in your company that assumes technology is a key enabling tool to facilitate achievement of more revenue, higher profits, and delighted customers.

In the supply chain arena a key reason for ensuring your technological initiatives are a basic part of your operational plans include:

1) Heightened Expectations from Customers – The great thing about technology is that we can now be connected almost anywhere. The bad news for logistics entities is that this era of instant access has altered what your customers want. The 60-year old procurement guy who is nearing retirement will be replaced by a 25 year old. And guess what happens. The 25 year old has grown up with iPods, iPads, Twitter, Facebook and a bad case of ADD. His questions, view and approach will baffle the provider organizations that haven’t caught up.

2) Dwindling Resources – Not to sound ominous but the reality is natural resources like oil and their by-products are not infinite. This limited quantity coupled with a rapidly increasing populous that is entering the middle class creates some staggering calculus. The result of this environment is that companies should always be in a fight internally to understand how they can push initiatives that reduce waste and protect valuable resources. Ultimately this translates right back to the bottom line.

So the moral of the story is simple – Don’t Rationalize. Figure out a way to drive your operational plans while also improving the basic infrastructure of your operation. After all, isn’t that why executives get paid… in the middle-management world its called “multi-tasking“.

Technology, A Key Tool for Your Supply Chain

“Four-who?…Oh FourSquare you say? What’s that – a new coffee shop?”

Go inside your supply chain department and start talking with the folks that make up your broader team and I suspect the above is the type of conversations you’ll end up having with many of your peers and leaders when it comes to new technologies.  I will say right off the bat – I don’t think anyone is a bad logistician or supply chain operator if they don’t know who FourSquare is or how to Tweet. The broader point to be made is that today’s supply chain organizations need to make sure they are keeping up with a broad spectrum of technologies that could mean big changes for their companies and their supply chains.

I think the supply chain, in particular, suffers more than most organizations when it comes to technology awareness because often times the supply chain leaders are those that got their start as operators. Whether they did their time in the supply chain fulfilling positions like warehouse managers, planners, or on the transport side, many of today’s supply chain execs are all people who have come up through the heavy-duty ranks of operations. As most of us operators known, I started on commercial vessels sailing the ocean-blue (see below pic), the operational setting is a spartan one where you often times make do with what you have. This make do with what you have is great for the income statement but not so great for ensuring you’re always one step ahead of your competitors. In the last twenty years, the supply chain has undergone a radical transformation. The advent of MRP and then WMS and TMS systems has created dramatic efficiency in just about every nook and cranny of the supply chain.

I believe the best has yet to be seen and the next ten years of innovation in the supply chain is really going to be incredible. We are just now starting to scratch the surface of various technologies that could all have a significant effect on supply chain costs. Some of these technologies include things such as:

• Mobile Technologies
• Analytics
• SaaS Platforms
• Alternative Fuels
• Vehicle Monitoring Systems

This is certainly good news for all of us. I think the rational majority is clear-headed about the inevitability of higher fuel prices and rising shipping costs associated with higher security standards and governmental regulation.

The message is a simple one for all of us supply chain operators.  Get comfortable with technology and be equally adept at innovating as you are at driving margins and making that operation hum.

About the Author, Douglas Ingram

That's me! This particular ship was a Trans-Atlantic vessel that carrier heated asphalt at 300 degrees.

Geolocation_in_the_Supply_Chain

As the old saying goes, “change is a coming”. These winds of change are multi-variant and are carrying a wonderfully potent mixture of geolocation, analytics, and SaaS to today’s businesses. In fact, the supply chain stands to be one of the biggest benefactors of this sweeping change.

For many years, supply chain practitioners have discussed and envisioned a future whereby geolocation data could be seamlessly linked with order execution, warehouse management systems (WMS) and or transporation management systems (TMS).  The benefits of being able to assemble this location data in real-time for the supply chain and effectively disseminate out to enterprise decision support systems and business users includes:

1. Better Planning – understanding inventory flows at a pallet or case level and being able to understand the velocity of movement, in transit product and the position of inventory could have significant impact for corporate planners trying to appropriately allocate manufacturing capability, purchasing decisions and procurement of input materials.
2. Optimization of Network - today the supply chain network of companies large and small is constantly in flux.  Things such as seasonality, promotions, rain fall, weather, fuel costs and other variables can significantly alter product flows from traditional patterns.  This constant flux makes it difficult for supply chain tacticians to understand their operating environment in real time.  What typically happens in today’s world is that supply chain leadership is always looking at a dated snapshot of the network and resulting product flows.  If supply chain tacticians had the ability to visually understand their environment in real time then the possibilities become quite endless and very interesting.
3. Audit Precision & Compliance Initiatives – Another benefit of maintaining geolocation data that may not be so obvious is the financial benefit that could be realized.  In transportation, a common variable used in calculation of costs for over the road type movements is mileage.  With geolocation capability tied to various gates in a shipment’s lifecycle such as order confirmed, pick confirmed, in-transit, and POD, a procurement team could use time stamp data correlated with latitutde and longitude information to deduce actual mileage transited, cost estimates, route traveled, and velocity at various checkpoints.  With the same geolocation information described companies could reference rules and ensure compliance with either internal policies or insurance mandates.  An example of this could be the idea that a tractor-trailer cannot exceed some average speed.i>
4. Green Initiatives – As green initiatives continue to take over old-school industries geolocation data can help  supply chain departments to gather the critical intelligence they need to undertake carbon footprint measurements and other green related initiatives.  Other capabilities provided by having precise location information
5. Customer Service – An excellent use for geolocation data could include the ability to more accurately measure transit times from frequented origins to destinations.  For example, consider the case where a large distribution facility in a metro area restocks materials to numerous homes, stores or smaller warehouses in the state.  By maintaining geolocation data the distribution facility could more accurately assess transit times to each end destination, by time, by day, etc.
6. New Service Offerings & Market Differentiation – The market for transportation services and third party logistics services continues to grow and become more competitive each year.  With geolocation capabilities transportation entities can offer new services to their customers and help differentiate their offerings from a sea of competitors and look-alikes.
7. Safety – As the recent bomb incidents on board UPS planes indicated, we live in an increasingly dangerous world where cargo operations are being used as a mask for potentially nefarious activities by terrorists and wrong-doers.  Geolocation and its integration into asset management systems, inventory control and transport management could help provide corporations with clear visibility into key personnel, assets and product flows at all times.

So the question beyond what benefits will geolocation bring is one of how does it become a reality, what are the steps and what may be some of the most present obstacles today.

To usher in the type of benefits that can be realized from geolocation organizations need to have a few basic building blocks in place.

• Centralized Data w/ Well Defined Schemas
• Integration with Key Order Management, Inventory Management and Transportation Systems
• Modern Applications Frameworks  (SOAP, REST, etc.)
• Deployment of Applications to Diverse Devices (Web, SmartPhones, iPads)
• Capability to Assimilate and Make Sense of Data (i.e. Business Intelligence Platforms)

The last point may be one of the more important points to make.  The premise of geolocation by default also means a literal avalanche of data.  In the example that was given above imagine a distribution facility normally has 100 orders a day to local destination points. With geolocation enabled these 100 orders could potentially produce tens of thousands of records with juicy tidbits like latitude, longitude, time, vehicle ID, driver ID, temperature, etc.  Without proper business intelligence platforms this data is somewhat useless.

Geolocation has some awesome capabilities for the supply chain and I am hopeful that with recent announcements and initiatives from government entities and startups alike that the promise of geolocation will soon be supplanted by a more widespread reality and many real-life implementations.

Supply Chain Partners

You can review a quick video summary of the below article here

I’m sure we have all heard the saying, “You get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar.” Its a fairly common phrase. I was recently involved in a large project that involved many partners and some ground-breaking technology coupled with a very new business model for the supply chain industry.

It was during this go-live, and in the weeks following it, that this expression popped into my collective conscience and spurred a much larger internal conversation about what is a “partner” in the supply chain / 3PL context. For many of us that have worked on all sides of the supply chain and logistics ecosystem from sales to operational delivery the term “partner” is one that pops up pretty often and is part of the standard vocabulary of deal makers and wanna-bes alike.

In fact, I think the word “partner” is one of those words that is thrown around so loosely and incorrectly that it has lost much of its meaning, similar in the way that an improperly used tool loses its efficacy when not taken care or incorrectly applied.  Throughout my career I’ve played both sides of the table, the vendor side where you’re trying to win the business and you use the partner term to connote how much your “vested” in the relationship and the customer side where you tell your vendor you need a (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) partner. The customer definition of “partner” is often code for bend over. Not to be crass, but seriously, most often the “partner” term when used by your customer is another way of saying I need somebody who is going to deliver a Rolls Royce, with all the benefits, but at a Yugo price. Too many times when a customer uses the term partner they are using it improperly. By definition a partner is one that is united or associated in an activity of common interest. This “common interest” qualifier is the area where the partner term sometimes begins to first break down.

Customers and Vendors by default often times have differing common interests. The customer wants to get the best product at the least cost (typically), conversely, the vendor wants to get the most volume sold at the highest price possible with an acceptable end product to the customer. To try and link these two worlds together in a quasi-kumbaya moment is…well… dumb. I am all for partnerships, but when the term is used the buyer and the seller need to be clear on the definition. The partner definition by design should always be oriented towards “we all win”. Often times in my career I see the partner term used in the beginning of the relationship to only find out later that the customer really meant “I win first”.

I would stipulate that a “True Supply Chain Partnership” is one that is focused on a mutual tenet of winning together. Seldom in today’s global marketplace can any one entity achieve true success in their business endeavors without a motivated collective of teams, companies and people helping to steer towards the common goal. Partnerships in the supply chain context are good when both entities have a healthy mutual dependence on one another and have commitment at the highest levels of their respective organizations. Partnerships that are primarily cost-cutting endeavors for the customer should check the fancy partner language at the door and instead indicate what they are really after at the onset of the relationship.

After careful thoughts here are the key characteristics that a true supply chain partner should exhibit:

1. Deep and comprehensive understanding of the operational & marketplace realities of the environment
2. Strategic thinkers that are problem solvers by design
3. Entrepreneurial mindset
4. Fast movers (*no room for bureaucratic group-think in a high performing partnership)
5. “We Win” orientation

Here are some additional characteristics of an engagement that will help foster the partnership:

1. Measurement & KPI frameworks that are mutually agreed
2. Clear expectations from both parties regarding performance expectations both operationally & financially
3. Quarterly business review meetings that delve into the health of the partnership (Ops, Finance, Marketing, Sales)
4. Open communication
5. Incentives & goals that provide mutual reward to entities involved

In today’s technological environment, the competitive barriers for most companies have dropped precipitously and made “partners” even more of an important concept in business.  This is especially true in the 3PL non-asset world.  An entity with smart, experienced folks can quickly get up to speed and leverage relationships and on-demand models to compete against all but the biggest of providers.  The word “partner” and the partnership approach is something that should be protected and reflected on by each business executive seeking to employ it in their respective pursuits.

In the end, we all know that “You get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar” but …. what we may not all know is this: “The bee stays not in a hive that has no honey.”  I hope that each supply chain executive out there can reflect and begin to understand that partnerships are a two-way street.  Ultimately, a successful relationship depends on empathy, honesty, open communication and a shared commitment or goal.  Supply chain partners should always be mindful of this and seek to create the most high-performing and successful relationships they can to propel their organizations and their partners to the next level.

NOTE: I’ve included an excellent video from Arizona State University’s Carey School of Business regarding Supply Chain Integration.  I thought it was appropriate to include this as supplement to my partnership discussion above.

As I write this article I’m on the plane heading back from sunny, beautiful and delicious California.  To be more specific the bay

area, that bastion of innovation where one feels like they are surrounded by greatness and all is truly possible. On this particular trip I was working with a client on an exciting project that is centered around the supply chain and in particular delivering heightened levels of operational execution and visibility through a mix of business process automation layered in with multi-channel communication systems. Hopefully someday in the not too distant future I can elaborate more fully on this really ground-breaking work and the importance of it.

I digress…. I was talking about sunny, beautiful and delicious California. Everytime I am in this area I can’t help but be in awe of the density of truly ground-breaking, innovative, “changing-industries” companies that call this area home. A quick jaunt on 101 takes you into the realm of well known companies like Oracle, Google, SUN Microsystems (now part of Oracle), Salesforce.com, Apple and the next round of up-and-comers like Pacific BioSciences, Zynga, Azul, Workday, Xirrus, PivotLink and on and on and on. For anyone even remotely interested in business this is a living lab full of fantastic case studies and mixed with its own blend of unique Silicon-Valley drama (i.e. Apple’s lost iPhone 4G skunk-works phone). It was this kid in a candy store feeling that made me want to put “ink-to-paper” regarding this special ecosystem that exists and things that corporate supply chain practitioners and stakeholders might learn from it to improve their own operations.

Supply chains by design are complex, highly-variant, and at times unwieldy creatures that always require constant care and feeding. In a very macro sense, the supply chain with its many stakeholders, variables and complexities comes close to paralleling the operating environment of an early to mid stage technology innovator like the ones described earlier. I know, I know – I can hear it now. You hard core warehouse operations guys are going to tell me I’m full of you know what and the high-altitude of my Delta flight is getting to me. But hear me out. The innovators in silicon valley deal with:

• Complex Operating Environment – what’s our weekly burn? can we get to break-even with version X? why is our cost of acquisition per customer rising so dramatically? if we add another work hour to the 24 hour work day can our huge team of 2 deliver the new software module on time?  …. You get the picture.  Its a difficult environment to operate in and takes a special and dedicated breed.
• Hyper Competition – If you read the story on the lost iPhone (linked above) you will have gained some perspective on the competitive forces these companies deal with.  Fortune 100 companies have nothing on some of these nimble startup companies when it comes to the multi-faceted aspect of their competitive sphere.
• Visibility Challenges – Just like corporate supply chain practitioners seek comprehensive visibility, these companies have different visibility challenges but similar in scope.  In summary, lots of people wanting lots of answers at the drop of a hat.
• Numerous Stakeholders - Even though some of these companies are small, only a few employees, the extent of the stakeholder value chain can be immense.  From VC and private equity interests to patent holders and those gray-haired board of advisers – each startup has many stakeholders they must interact with.

It is amazing that in such a pressure-cooker type environment that these companies are able to produce such great technologies, businesses and industry-defining advances.  I certainly recognize that out of every 1 Google-like star there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of failures that are equally defining but in more of a failing star (i.e. black hole) type of way.  With such an environment and with all the complexities what is it that makes this area so amazing that success after success can occur?  Is it something in the water? Or better yet, maybe it is a general over-consumption of Mountain Dew and Skittles by hopped up software programmers.  Oh no, I have it…..it is a Steve Jobs conspiracy and all inhabitants of the greater bay area are cyborgs…and the Guvenator is overseeing the whole thing. (video included for your enjoyment…)

So the cyborg thing is a bit far-fetched.  The reality is that I think there are some very easily captured characteristics that are exhibited by these companies and their leadership that can be applied directly into your corporate supply chain to drive better results. I’ve prepared the below list as a small highlight of some of the characteristics that I believe are most applicable:

1. Flexibility / Adaptability - Companies in this area seem to have a unique ability to adapt to the frequent changes in their operating environment.  This adaptability doesn’t come through luck or happenstance, instead these companies make it their job to stay plugged in and cognizant of the ecosystem around them.  It is a conscious, day-in and day-out investment of time and resources.  Quite possibly the biggest difference is that startups view change as healthy, each new variable or tact is just another on the path to success.  In large corporations it too often appears that change is the enemy.

2. Communication - Naturally the communication in a small startup will be superior to that of a large corporation with hundreds or thousands of team members.  To take you way back to your corporate training – its a simple matter of fewer senders and receivers.  However, I believe the communication in a startup is superior for another reason and that reason is candor. In a startup environment the clock is always ticking, the next product launch, the next funding round, and so on.  It is in this time sensitive environment where team members learn a different approach, its called being candid.  I once saw a note somewhere in my readings which went something like this, “I’m candid with you because I care enough to be candid and I value our relationship.”  The message is simple, life is short – dispense with the niceties and corporate political BS.  High performing startups seem to have a knack for developing the type of camaraderie, common vision and straight talk that drives results.

3. Outreach to Academia – Startups, their founders, stakeholders and associated are allied and plugged in to the academic and research powerhouses in the area. They recognize that no matter their industry there are always big changes, new thoughts and new opportunities present.  I would presume that some of these startups view their involvement with academia as food for their collective startup “brain”.

4. Fail Fast Mentality – A giant characteristic in the “black magic” potion of startup success could very well be their affinity with the idea of failing fast.  This put it on the line, assimilate feedback quickly, and build it or dump it is certainly something that could have direct correlation to the environment of supply chain.  Often times, supply chain practitioners take too long in instituting changes and wait too long in cutting it loose if it doesn’t work.  In the startup environment, I know many entrepreneurs take pride in their hatchet mentality when it comes to dropping those losing ideas, products and enhancements that are not bringing the company closer to success.  This idea may be the simplest of all, if it isn’t working drop it and focus your efforts elsewhere.  Unlike fine wine and cheese, bad ideas don’t get better with time.

There are other characteristics that I could list out but these are a few of my favorite ones. Do you have some characteristics that you would like to share that you think are important?  If so please email me at douglasringram [at] gmail [dot] com.  I always love new ideas and thoughts !!!  (see above point #1)

Before I get any nasty emails let me say it is very easy for me to paint with a large brush.  Clearly, there are large corporations and supply chain functions that work well and need just a few refinements.  The main point of this article is that a well-oiled startup machine has some unique characteristics that each of us could take back to our companies and refine to help make us better.  Besides who doesn’t want to be better, and along the way maybe you’ll develop your own Google-esque success story!

Supply Chain SaaS

Anyone who has been involved in business for any length of time knows that today’s winning formula can quickly turn sour. Certainly, the job of a leader of any organization is to closely monitor the environment in which they compete to “read the tea leaves”.  Reading the tea leaves involves picking up on nearly imperceptible movements in the market, monitoring casual organizational chatter, watching competitors activities, and in general staying plugged in.  Part art and part science, these combined activities require “Sherlock-Holmes-esque” investigative abilities combined with a knack for piecing it all together.

I’ve been pulling the pieces together for a bit in the broader supply chain industry and have been observing some very interesting trends that appear to be converging in a more rapid fashion that most in our industry are accustomed to.  This convergence centers on the adoption of cloud-based solutions (aka Software as a Service (SaaS)) within the supply chain industry to facilitate challenges to common problems.  The reasons for SaaS adoption are numerous and I will spell them out further in the post.  However, let me first point to some of the anecdotal data which starts to draw the first brush strokes of this very interesting picture:

NOTE: In case you have been living under a rock for a few years follow this link to get a better understanding of SaaS.

Anecdotal Data Relating to SaaS & Supply Chain Adoption

• Trade publications & industry followers, leaders and authors are commenting and talking more frequently about impact of SaaS specifically in the supply chain
• Major consulting shops are augmenting and setting up departments devoted to advising & helping to roll-out SaaS solutions
• Major supply chain oriented publications begin displaying larger & more frequent advertisements for SaaS solutions in WMS (Warehouse Management Systems) and TMS (Transportation Management Systems) areas.
• Traditional software vendors are beginning to release “cloud-based” versions of their standard offerings
• Emergence of more case studies focused on SaaS type deployments and the resulting efficiencies gained by coalescing processes, data, and analytics

Technologists would look at the above points and most likely reply with a giant…”Duh”…or, “Your point is what exactly?”.  To them I would say this.  For supply chain operators and hard-core logistics guys the migration to the cloud and impact of SaaS is just now starting to be more broadly discussed.  These discussions are being driven because of the economics associated with Saas, economics that I have seen first hard in my business dealings.  Ultimately, some of the big advantages of SaaS for the supply chain industry are:

• Ease of Roll Out: Instead of getting bogged down with install disks, scripts, instructions for loading, etc. – many of the SaaS tools are as easy as a web link, a user name & password and you’re up and running.  For highly diverse environments like the supply chain this is a definite advantage.
• Immediate Upgrades: Worried about the latest patches and the most recent version? With SaaS solutions the versioning, patches, etc. becomes transparent to the user.
• Right-Sized Infrastructure: Another benefit of the SaaS model is that companies can start enjoying the benefits of a system that might otherwise require too much up front capital to deploy.  For example, if the fixed cost of deploying a traditional software package is $100,000, a company might choose to not deploy because the fixed cost hurdle is too extreme to warrant a payback in a reasonable period of time.  However, in the SaaS environment, a company is generally able to get started for a considerably lower fixed fee and then pay a more manageable subscription or transaction fees.
• Centralization of Data: In today’s environment, data and the resulting insights for an enterprise are critical.  Through SaaS related deployments enterprises are able to start moving their organizations towards a common environment.  In the supply chain world that is full of sub-contractors and third-parties that are located in different geographies with different technical backgrounds the SaaS model becomes a unique tool to help enterprises coalesce operations, processes and data.
• Process Compliance: In the supply chain adherence to process is critical.  This process adherence becomes very difficult as product moves across the globe and is shuttled from warehouse to carrier to customs entities and back again.  With SaaS oriented modalities, large 3PLs and others can start to orchestrate systems and applications that facilitate compliance to standardized organizational processes.

In the complex business environment that is supply chain, the benefits of SaaS are very compelling.  A few of the areas / functions where I believe we will start to see increased adoption in the supply chain around SaaS include:

• Analytics
• Warehouse Management
• Rate Audit / Spend Management
• Transportation Management
• Order Management
• Inventory Control

The next 12 months promises to be a wonderful and exciting time as more and more companies migrate key functions to the cloud.  For supply chain entities looking to stay competitive this is one emerging trend that cannot be discounted.

Adapthing Battlefield Insights to the Supply Chain Industry

On one of my recent business trips I was doing the obligatory late-night channel surfing.  I came across an interview with General David Petraeus and a well known news man, although I can’t remember his name at present.  The interview was being shown on PBS and I was immediately intrigued by General Petraeus’ overall demeanor and his humble, succinct and direct responses to a series of rapid-fire questions.

One question centered on the role of a leader.  Specifically, what did General Petraeus believe was the key role of a leader.  Excellent question for the General given his role as head of the U.S. Central Command.  General Petraeus’ response to the question was what I would have expected from a battle-hardened veteran and patriot,  profound wisdom in a strikingly succinct and simple veneer.

As I listened to his key points I fumbled around for a hotel notepad to capture them.  The points that the General identified were not just battlefield applicable but instead applicable to any industry that values leadership and execution.  In my particular case I wondered how many supply chain entities have leaders that embrace and practice the types of items denoted by General Petraeus.

Without further delay here is the list from General Petraeus.  I’ve added some additional commentary that is not representative of General Petraeus thoughts but rather my own analysis.

1. Focus on the Big Ideas

General Petraeus discussed the fact that leaders focus on the big ideas of the organization.  Certainly in any organization there are thousands of ideas, initiatives, and daily discussions occurring.  The job of a leader is to distill this “chatter” into those top items, those big ideas, that will really help propel the organization forward.

In a supply chain context big ideas could be mobile technology adoption, predictive analytics, advanced transportation audit, labor management, warehouse picking technologies, green chain and others.  I know in my own career I have worked at organizations that did an excellent job when it came to focusing on the big ideas and I’ve also worked at others where everyone, including leadership, became accustomed to managing the minutiae.

2. Communicate the Ideas through the Breadth and Depth of the Organization

After the idea(s) have been identified and the focus is set the next area is communication.  Any organization can have great ideas, critical paths, and clear direction but if the CEO is the only one who knows this info then there are bound to be problems.  The easiest analogy is this.  An organization more closely resembles a truck convoy then it does a train.  A truck convoy is composed of numerous individual entities that are all coordinating movements to arrive at the same end destination.  A train on the other hand has no choice but to arrive at the same location because each car is physically linked to the next.  A truck convoy can be disrupted by weather, mechanicals, and any number of other variables.  The same is true in life.  An organization can easily leave behind its other “trucks”, especially if upon the start of the voyage there was not a clear agreement on the interstates & roads that would be followed and what the end destination would be.

Petraeus intelligently asserts that any leader must be an expert at ensuring the big ideas are appropriately communicated throughout the organization.  I think about my own experience in the companies I’ve been involved in and often times the difference between success and failure was how well the company leaders helped to socialize the ideas throughout the company.

3. Oversee & Facilitate Implementation

After the big ideas / goals are known and the communication has occurred the next step of a leader is helping to ensure that the implementation is overseen.  Petraeus discussed the idea that leaders must help not only oversee the implementation but also must help facilitate.

Regardless of the industry, the leader must always keep perspective on the big ideas and help the organization overcome obstacles to adoption.

Summary

With the many new challenges and opportunities present in the supply chain I believe General Petraeus’ insights on leadership are both timely and at the same time “timeless”.  The first point is clear.  If you are to obtain progress on any initiative you can’t have 1000 initiatives that are all designated high priority and ‘critical’ to the success of the organization.  Think about a laser, its power isn’t in pushing light in 10,000 different directions, its power is in accumulating all of that collective energy in one highly focused stream.  Like a laser, a leader’s value is in their ability to cut through the “BS” and help the organization focus its resources on what is critical.

The second point concerning communications is important because a leader also recognizes that important initiatives and big ideas are useless unless the organization can willingly and enthusiastically adopt them.  Certainly in a military situation an order is an order, but morale is still important.  Just like the truck convoy example, if the lead truck gets separated from the rest, it shouldn’t mean they all get lost.  Instead, in an organizational context, the lead truck communicates before they leave as to the end destination.

Not only does a leader cut through the “stuff” and communicate but they also make sure they knock out all obstacles that stand in the way of effective implementation.  Clearly the battlefield insights that General Petraeus has garnered can be applied to any industry and adopted by any leader wishing to push his/her organization to new heights.  Put in  three words: DISTILL, COMMUNICATE, & FACILITATE.

Wireless apps a key differentiator for supply chain entities

Take a stroll through your local mall, grocery store, airport or teen hang-out and you can clearly see how truly ubiquitous mobile technologies have become.  Pick up an article from Business Week or any other well know industry publication and you get statistics on mobile phone penetration, the success of the iPhone and the million dollar rags-to-riches stories of pre-pubescent children writing their own mobile phone apps and selling them like hot-cakes.  It seems everywhere you look our world is becoming one of mobile technologies and user-friendly apps designed to handle everything from to-do lists to telling you the latitude and longitude of your lost pet Rufus.

However, take a close look at the modern day critical supply chain and you see a different world.  A world juxtaposed to that of our mobile-social lives.  In this world, the large transport companies and service providers of the world invest in proprietary hardware platforms and non-uniform technologies.  This cobbled patchwork of devices, software, and communication protocols makes integration between service providers and visibility difficult and expensive.  In this world, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than receiving real-time tracking of your critical part supply chain.  This is the world where corporate IT departments and large bureaucratic organizations drive corporate standards and old-line technologies while the rising tide of cloud-computing, SaaS and ground-breaking technologies surround them.

I recently sat down with Venus Desai, a co-founder of IT Anyplace, to get his perspective on how mobile technologies can change the game for supply chain companies seeking to be more competitive and deliver better value for their customers.  Venus and his team of co-founders at IT Anyplace have seen quite a bit of change in the mobile landscape in their 50 combined years of delivering ground-breaking technology products to big businesses and he provided some great insight.

Q&A with Venus Desai, Co-Founder, IT Anyplace

Q: What are the common challenges encountered when companies try to extend their enterprise applications to mobile devices?

A: We see primarily 3 common challenges in these environments:

• The first challenge is one concerning the lack of device standardization.  Corporations have to determine which devices they will build for.  Additionally, they have to try to make a determination about how long these devices will be on the market & what regions or particular challenges may exist across the whole geography that the company does business in.
• The second challenge surrounds how a company will extend multiple legacy systems on the wide variety of handsets available.
• The third challenge we most commonly find when we go into an organization concerns the lack of internal talent that is well versed in application development for the mobile market coupled with limited knowledge from vendors of the legacy systems and applications that they need to tie into.

Q: As we survey the BRIC countries and look outward to the developing world it seems that the traditional wireline communication method is being largely skipped in some areas.  Do you have any particular insights on this trend?

A: The mobile subscribers of the world are already significantly outnumbering the traditional wireline subscribers.  Infonetics Research estimates that in 2007 there were approximately 3.3 Billion mobile subscribers to 1.1 Billion wireline subscribers.  Even more interesting, in this same report they found that the wireless subscribers were growing at a rate of approximately 31% versus a decline of 5% in wireline.

From a personal standpoint, and having family in India, I believe that we are seeing in countries like India and China a phenomenon whereby some persons don’t use a PC but instead access data, the Internet, and other functions directly from their mobile phone.

Q: Given the 3 to 1 trend in mobile to wireline and the expected 4 to 1 ratio by 2011, what do you think are the key takeaways for supply chain companies?

A: The takeaway is that any company that is not yet thinking about how to deploy their businesses on mobile devices is already behind the curve.  Supply chain related entities in particular can derive great value through mobile applications and providing customers additional functionality.

Q: If I were an established supply chain firm looking to extend my presence and application(s) to a mobile device what would be your advice?

A: My first advice would be to take your existing web presence and have it formatted so it is easily accessible from a mobile device.  The next piece of advice would be to identify the features of a mobile phone that have value for your business.  For example, in a supply chain setting the GPS on a phone could be used for tracking, the camera could be used for package condition capture / bar-code type conversion, etc.  Once you’ve identified these valuable features that you would like to use from the phone you would then seek to integrate with your legacy systems.  This is where a company like IT Anyplace comes in.  We help companies do this in a fashion that is more cost effective then can typically occur internally.

From my discussions with Venus it is hard to understand why any enterprise wouldn’t be already involved in mobile application development to extend and improve the operational efficacy of their enterprise as well as their value proposition for their customers.

Today’s supply chain firms should be aware of some key trends that have the ability to leap-frog their enterprise into the future or relegate them to the long list of “use-to-be” industry players.

Key Trends & Observations:

1. Current usage of “off-the-shelf” smart phones in supply chain environments for system integration / usage has been limited. Historically, larger firms have invested in proprietary and highly customized devices for their field networks.  This will change and we will start to see both larger & smaller entities develop and deploy applications to off-the-shelf smart-phones, both internally for operational personnel, as well as externally to customers.
2. Smaller supply chain entities will begin venturing into markets that may once have been off limits due to the Capex requirements.  These smaller entities will be able to offer compelling, technology-forward solutions by leveraging capabilities inherit in off the shelf mobile handsets.
3. Particular benefactors of mobile technology adoption for their operational and customer constituencies will be critical supply chain environments such as spare parts, courier services, and time sensitive flyers (NFO services).
4. Proliferation of smart phones will pave the way for real-time tracking and alerting of package movements.

Without a doubt the next five years will feature continued steady adoption of smart phones across the world.  In fact, just in mid-September (2009), Fedex announced that they would begin migration to the MC9500, a rugged handheld device, manufactured by Motorola that is an off-the-shelf handset.

fedex makes the switch

The true opportunity and challenge for supply chain oriented businesses will be if they can capitalize on this trend by developing compelling applications that leverage the mobile device capabilities at a price point that makes sense.

Many thanks to Venus Desai and his team at IT Anyplace for their interesting insights and industry statistics that were provided for this article.  Information on IT Anyplace and their work in the mobile community can be found at their website located at www.itanyplace.com

Statistics of Note:

• Current mobile handsets offer as much as an 80% cost break to similar proprietary hardware platforms used by large transport entities, etc.
• 50% of mobile Internet traffic in US comes from iPhone
• Worldwide Smart Phone operating system share: Nokia (45%); RIM (20%); Apple (14%); Android (6%)
• Expected number of worldwide mobile subscribers in 2011, 5.2 Billion

About IT Anyplace:

ITAnyplace is a start-up based in Atlanta, Georgia that was founded in late 2007 to build a platform that accomplishes two main goals, critical to any enterprise IT team.
1. Extend multiple, diverse legacy IT systems within an enterprise to the mobile device.
2. The second goal is to make this capability device/platform agnostics so that it can be accessed from any mobile device/app store, without having to create it individually for every device in use within the enterprise or not having to commit to any device type.

IT Anyplace have completed their core platform development, tested it and are now deploying it with major customers, some of which are in the logistics field.

A recent case study was published by Bloomingdale’s and the University of Arkansas RFID Research Center.  The case study

RFID-on-package-in-supply-chain

detailed the use of RFID in one Bloomingdale’s store where it was used to help monitor inventory levels of approximately 10,000 jeans.

The case study found that the system helped to improve inventory accuracy 29% percent while decreasing the labor requirements for inventory significantly.  In fact, the research center has found that with traditional bar code approaches to inventory, approximately 209 items per hour can be counted, whereas with RFID techniques applied, more than 4700 items can be counted per hour.  This creates an effective 97% increases in productivity around the inventory process.

The applications for RFID in today’s modern global supply chain are exciting and could spell great efficiencies, visibility and competitive edge for those companies deploying RFID in their environments.  Today, the promise and vision of RFID is greater than the actual real-world case studies of deployment.  The broader RFID challenges to adoption in a global recessionary environment include:

1. Education for decision makers in the supply chain
2. Vendors and integrators demonstrating hard-dollar savings or heightened revenue through RFID adoption (i.e. more case-studies like the Bloomingdale’s one cited above)
3. More pressure from end-consumers for features realized through RFID implementation (i.e. Wal-Mart’s challenge to its providers)
4. Affordability of RFID components such as labels, readers, hand-held devices, and integration software for already existing enterprise systems.

As these items are addressed and RFID reaches critical mass across the global supply chain the impact on all stakeholders will

Employee Using RFID in Supply Chain (Retail)

be game-changing.  More importantly, the Bloomingdale’s example shows a case study of RFID at the Item Level versus other case studies that have been focused at the case or container level.  Benefactors of item level tracking are numerous but include any enterprise that has high-value inventory tied up in small components or parts.  For example, the service parts industry for technology manufacturers could realize much value through the deployment of RFID including better part visibility and increased service levels.

I look forward to the next 24 months because I believe the global supply chain is set for a broadened adoption of RFID that will deliver value to all supply chain stakeholders.

LINKS:

University of Arkansas – RFID Research *(has page dedicated to the Bloomingdale’s RFID case-study)

MIT – Supply Chain Forum (RFID)

Whether you are 3rd party logistics provider or managing your own in-house fleet of transportation assets, the need for comprehensive analytics has never been more crucial.  Today’s world of transportation, distribution and overall supply chain networks is a complex one  where the traditional lines between customer, partner, supplier, and competitor is sometimes hard to differentiate.  As these vital networks continue to elongate from a geographical standpoint and shrink from a time perspective, the need for comprehensive and more real-time analytics becomes even more important for companies wishing to realize cost savings, improve performance, and increase overall customer satisfaction.

There is an adage which states simply “anything that is measured will improve”.  It is a powerful concept and one that I have seen work in both personal and professional lives.  For example, imagine that you are wishing to shave some pounds and get in better overall fitness.  You decide that you need to take in 1600 calories per day.  You currently don’t keep track of your calorie count but decide that you will track every morsel of food and liquid that touches your mouth.  In your trusty notebook you begin to take detailed notes on everything and magically you realize you have a tendency to snack heavily in the evening and blow through your 1600 calorie goal.  Long example, point is this.  If you set a goal and don’t track your activities towards the goal, the goal itself is always elusive.

This old adage can be a powerful force in your supply chain practice and help your division, group or company achieve even better results than you do today.  In today’s world, most companies have some form of metrics tracking in place.  In the various positions I have held with numerous companies my general experience is that the tracking and measurement falls into 2 general categories:

1. Abundance of Data – Dearth of Analysis > In this world, the company or group of companies have massive amounts of data through connected databases, enterprise systems, etc.   The challenge is the proper assimilation of the data and drawing meaningful relationships between the various points of information.  This environment is analogous to having a Ferrari with only 2 gears. (i.e. – all the right machinery is present to take you to 200 mph, but its not connected properly)
2. Stove Pipe City > This environment features data, reporting and insights.  The typical problem in this environment is that the reporting is somewhat one dimensional and doesn’t properly join in the other reporting environments.  The real challenge here is that different constituencies start to draw their own conclusions so that the organization ends up with several “opinions” on the state of the business versus one de-facto, cooperative data-store.

Within each of these general environments the opportunity exists to take your corporate reporting around the supply chain function to loftier heights.  The keys for a successful and comprehensive analytics program in the supply chain starts with these key ingredients:

Supply Chain Dashboard

• Support – from the executive office to the line manager, the company must have support for the initiative.  A key part of building support is specifically identifying the benefits of a analytics initiative.
• Vision – a compelling view of analysis and reporting and how it will help accomplish the stated goals.
• Inputs – ensuring that each part of data that the business needs access to is made available.
• Accountability - key stakeholders must be accountable for results but also be empowered with varied resources and the proper mandate to achieve the stated results.

With these ingredients and the properly placed momentum any organization can start to leverage data in their businesses into meaningful and actionable insights.

Update: 9/7/2009 > Thanks to Kinaxis (www.kinaxis.com) and their discussion of this article on their Blog titled: “How do you track metrics against your supply chain?” published on September 4, 2009