In an article last Thursday, The Wall Street Journal announced that the Coca-Cola Company was nearing a deal to buy the bulk of its largest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises. This was interesting news to me because the acquisition, like PepsiCo’s deals to buy its two biggest bottlers, The Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas, was driven in large part by the need for distribution flexibility.
A little refresher course on… Continue reading
This Week in Logistics News (Feb 22-26 2010)
· CommentsI spent a few days this week at the SAP Insider Logistics and Supply Chain Management 2010 conference. I’ll share my takeaways from this event next week. In the meantime, here’s some of the news that caught our attention this week:
- RedPrairie to be acquired by New Mountain Capital
- Walmart Announces Goal to Eliminate 20 Million Metric Tons of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Global Supply Chain
The Importance of Design for Logistics
· CommentsI recently spoke with Ralph Rupert, Director for Unit Load Design at Virginia Tech. If you are not familiar with what a unit load is—I must confess, the term was new to me too—a unit load is “a single item, a number of items, or bulk material which is arranged and restrained so that the load can be stored, picked up, and moved between two locations as a single mass.”… Continue reading
Buying Supply Chain Outcomes, Not Software
· CommentsOver the past year, we’ve been discussing how performance-based outsourcing (aka Vested Outsourcing) has the potential to transform 3PL-customer relationships. But can the principles that underpin PBO also transform the way companies procure supply chain and logistics software and the way they work with software vendors?
I believe the answer is yes, but only if software vendors are willing to augment their product offerings with managed services—and if… Continue reading
“Are people who travel in town cars and on corporate jets different—on a psychological level—from you and me? Does the availability of luxury goods ‘prime’ individuals to be less concerned about or considerate toward others?”
The answer to these questions seems to be yes, based on research conducted by Roy Y.J. Chua of Harvard Business School and Xi Zou of London Business School. Sarah Jane Gilbert interviews Chua in… Continue reading
How Objective are Category Captains?
· CommentsAs I’ve mentioned before (here and here), I’ve been researching the ROI associated with consumer goods (CG) companies using downstream data (e.g., POS, store level inventories, and DC-to-store shipments). One of the conclusions that I have reached is that Category Managers get a better ROI from their investments in this area than other consumer goods manufacturers.
Category Management might be new to many supply chain professionals, so… Continue reading
This Week in Logistics News (Feb 15-19)
· CommentsI’ve been on the road these past two weeks, so it’s been a bit difficult keeping up with everything that’s been going on. But here are a few items, from this week and last, that escaped my delete button:
- Transplace Provides Retailers Efficient Supply Chain Operations for Fixtures and Displays
- Retail Container Traffic to be Up 25 Percent First Half of 2010
The Unbiased Forecast
· CommentsI’ve been interviewing supply chain executives at consumer goods manufacturers to learn how they are using downstream data. A key focus area for these executives is using this data to improve the accuracy of their demand forecasts.
A couple of the executives I interviewed raised an interesting point about forecasting that I don’t remember coming across before: the importance of having an unbiased forecast. Forecasts, by their very nature… Continue reading
