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Business Strategy Alignment: Page 378

Sustainability Grows Up and Starts to Pay Off

Sustainability has for many years been growing in importance, but until recently was largely seen as a sideshow meant to burnish the image of a company and its brands. Early efforts by supply chain leaders to integrate concepts of sustainability into their operations were often meant to test notions of cost savings that align naturally with reduced environmental impacts. The results are beginning to show. - Kevin O'Marah, Chief Content Officer and Head of Research, SCM World

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CRM from a Supply Chain Perspective

Analyst Insight: Customer relationship management evolved from contact management, a sales-focused process for suppliers. In many cases, CRM must be rethought; it should be stood on its head, starting with customers' needs and working back to suppliers. Because most companies lack sufficient resources to satisfy every customer, this approach initially leads to frustration. But "every customer totally thrilled" is the wrong objective. To the contrary, it's critical to focus: to "wow" the most profitable customers, and serve them perfectly. Supply chain responses must match segmented and targeted relationships to build satisfaction and profit. - Robert Sabath, Principal Essentialist SCM, Trissential

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Enterprise Risk Management Programs Help Target Root Causes, Not Just Symptoms

As companies develop business relationships around the world into more complex supply chains, protecting these essential links from disruption is becoming harder to manage.

Adding App Layer Security Into the Supply Chain

Today's complex and connected supply chain translates into quick communication with partners. At the same time, it creates huge opportunity for data leakage and security issues that need to be addressed proactively in supply chain systems.

Best Practices for Dealing with CPG Supply Chain Talent Shortages

Analyst Insight: The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry is in the midst of a supply chain talent shortage across all functions, but particularly in planning roles. CPG companies have had to adapt many strategies to maintain an adequate level of supply chain talent in their organizations. Today, it is more important than ever for these companies to place a premium on retaining and finding supply chain talent. - Bruce Tompkins, Executive Director, Tompkins Supply Chain Consortium

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Supply Chain Focus by Hospitals Is on Cost of Devices

U.S. hospitals spend tens of billions of dollars annually on high-tech surgical implants. But the supply chain for the devices is anything but high-tech. And that drives up costs both for hospitals and implant makers.

OMG If U R Not Implementing an M-commerce Strategy, I Am LOL!

Analyst Insight: In the world today, there are 6.8 billion people; 4 billion have mobile phones. Only 3.5 billion use a tooth brush! There are more U.S. mobile subscriptions than people; 70 percent use their smartphones during their in-store experience! Why should we care in CPG? One fifth of searches are for CPG products. Online-to-offline (O2O) commerce is expected to grow 50 percent over 5 years, outpacing offline commerce and exceeding online ecommerce by over 400 percent (!), according to Forrester Research. - Rich Sherman, Principal Essentialist, Trissential

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Overcoming Trust Issues at the Executive Level

Collaboration has been an alluring concept in the world of supply chain for years, but many have found that pilots often fail to expand beyond the honeymoon phase. Part of the problem may be trust gaps at the senior executive level that are worse than at lower managerial levels. This is not irrational, but reflects the fact that top executives see a struggle over jointly created value that is less obvious further down the organisation. - Kevin O'Marah, Chief Content Officer and Head of Research, SCM World

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Your Next Perfect Employee or Job Is Waiting

SupplyChainBrain and JobsInLogistics have joined forces in 2014 for the specialized purpose of:

Job Board 2014 04

Lean Initiatives: Management Needs to Slim Down, Too, Not Just Operations

Applying lean principles to management, rather than just operations, can help large organizations re-imagine how they work and unlock value through continuous improvement.

Get Supplier Relationships Right, Then Maintain Them

Analyst Insight: If the wheels on your vehicle are out of alignment, you're in for a rough and inefficient ride. The same holds true for businesses. Alignment, especially in strategic relationships, gets businesses beyond the initial "yes" that sets a deal in motion"”it aligns the participants throughout the life of the deal, turning it into a smooth and powerful relationship. - Kate Vitasek, Faculty, University of Tennessee's Center for Executive Education, and Founder, Supply Chain Visions

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Is Your Supply Chain Transformation Good Enough?

Analyst Insight: Theoretically, supply chain transformations deliver a different set of capabilities and outcomes that customers recognize. The reality is that a transformation may simply be a radical or rapid change to the supply chain organization and operations in response to changes in the marketplace. It could be a dramatic reduction in cost or improvement in service to remain competitive. In other words, the outcomes are not necessarily different, just better than the prior state. - Michael Dominy, Research Director, Gartner

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How a Leading U.S. Floral Distribution Company Reduced Warehouse Labor Costs by 45% with RFID

Recycled Tagging Fasteners: Small Changes Make a Big Impact

Mobile geolocation service for track delivery, cargo shipment and freight transportation. Logistic Import Export business (Elements of this image furnished by NASA)

Enhancing High-Value Electronics Shipment Security with Tive's Real-Time Tracking

Franchise business e-commerce online e-marketplace or digital marketing branch expansion for growth or use technology to analyze product consumer data website management plan for sale service concept.

Moving Robots Site-to-Site