Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

How do you keep track of Supply Chain performance within your FMCG, Brewing or Pharmaceutical business? You do, don’t you? If you are not measuring KPIs then perhaps you should stop here, read this KPI piece and then pop back and carry. You can…

If you are a CEO or MD of an FMCG, Brewing, Pharmaceutical company with a perceived good reputation for service and you operate a Call Centre or Customer Service Desk then you should personally try calling it from time to time. I don’t know about…

If you are running an FMCG factory the least welcome pack sizes will be something like 50g sachets of washing powder or 50ml tubes of toothpaste, i.e. relatively slow filling and low capacity. In multinationals these small pack skus are likely to…

Everyone in multi-national companies will have experienced the “data request from head office”. Usually arriving at the most inconvenient time, with unclear instructions and no clear reason-why! These data collection campaigns are often managed by…

The car bounced over the dirt road of potholes and approached the expansive, looming warehouse building that was once so full of life and bustling activity. Paper and plastic fast–food litter gathered up by the breeze blew across the distribution…

If you ask people to list disasters that have seriously affected supply chains you will probably get answers including the usual suspects, e.g. earthquake, tsunami, flood, volcanic eruption etc. Rarely would you find snow in the list of answers yet…

When someone mentions Interim Management you might be one of many who immediately picture a crusty 50+ male wearing a suit Noah gave away at the Ark jumble sale (which now has worn leather patches on the elbows) and flying in from Western Europe to…

In Europe at least, there is a fashion for creating a new supply chain legal entity and housing it in a friendly canton in Switzerland. The prime benefit is tax although operational and efficiency savings are often claimed to offset the nasty…

You may recall I took a light-hearted look at the complexity of overpaid Premier League footballers and how they might be treated if they were skus in a business. There is a cost to having an sku on your books whether this is soup, a shampoo or a…

I came across an interesting problem on FMCG planning this week. The company in question was a blue- chip multi-national with well developed supply chain and business processes, e.g. a suite of relevant and stretching KPIs in place plus a living…

If you are honest you have probably sat bored in an airport lounge waiting for your inevitably delayed flight and listened in on a conversation. If the discussion topic is not one you are familiar with it can be as if you are listening to speech in…

All major companies run some sort of ERP to support their business whether they are FMCG, pharma, brewing or indeed anyone who “makes stuff”. Many blue-chips have invested in big name software packages while others have gone for a cheap and cheerful…

This seems like déjà-vue all over again! Only a handful of working days into the New Year and I am hearing the same old complaints about the economy and business in general being poor. Of course this is true and does not look like changing any time…

Ok, now back on line after the holidays and some demanding project work. One of the first catch-up meetings I have had this year was with an FMCG MD. No name of course, but this is a medium sized player with a broad European base and I have…

I published this some time ago and have just realised I did not follow up with the answers! Here they are, inserted in red text. People working in modern FMCG, Pharma Supply Chain use a whole host of initials and acronyms to get through the day.…