Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

Sacred blue, mon petite pois, bonjour as Del Boy would say. Against all odds, a very young and experimental England rugby team defeated France in the 2012 6 Nations. Add in the fact that this match was in France and the home team had not lost there…

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…

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…

I recently had a lengthy discussion with someone from the Armed Forces who was preparing to lead his men into a currently dangerous part of the world. I enquired about the logistics of delivering people, arms and machines to the right place at the…

The sharp, customer end of the extended supply chain continues to receive attention as companies implement and hone S&OP and RTM-style programmes. The multiple drivers include cost of course, but also customer service and a desire not to be out of…

Barcelona won the Champions League finally quite easily and to actually hear Sir Alex say something like “they gave us a good hiding” was refreshing. Messi was far from untidy and several Barcelona players looked head and shoulders above their…

The average job description will run to a few pages of A4. Even after you have read your own it may not be completely clear what you should be doing. Here I have tried to encapsulate a selection of supply chain roles and processes in just a few…

Once upon a time there was an FMCG company that I will refer to as “Foresight”. “Foresight” had spent many years and many dollars creating an acknowledged slick inbound Supply Chain. Top class global buying Flexible factory network State of the art…

Do FMCG, Drinks & Pharma Companies delude themselves on Customer Service? I think some may well be doing this and may or may not know it! Whatever service related KPI you measure the aim is designed to see how you are performing both internally and…

After two incidents (three really) of poor Customer Service on the same day I felt compelled to put fingers to keys and share the experience! All of you working in FMCG, Drinks or Pharma - amongst others – should look closely at how your Customer…

So, we have reached April and Q1 is already done and dusted; how were your results? Be honest, did you push, push, push to make last year’s final number and shoot yourself in the foot for Q1? From what I understand very few companies will have had a…

“Dashing through the snow In a one horse open sleigh…” How many of you actually started to sing then? Yes, the festive period is fast approaching and the biggest and best Supply Chain in the world is almost ready to activate. There is no way Santa…

Nobody doubts the difficult market conditions we find ourselves in. Every single company is trying its hardest to take their share of a diminishing consumer purse to meet their targets. In reality, not everyone can achieve their annual numbers but…

We finally got going (sailing that is) yesterday when the wind dropped to a breezy Force 4 on the beam (that’s from the side) - wonderful sailing weather. And it was marvellous – whizzing along at 7-8 knots. Mind wandering territory again ...…

Sku's sneak onto price lists when nobody is looking. Sales & Marketing colleagues like launches with lengthy lists of skus; different flavours, different sizes, different colours. How many shelf facings do they want? How do these decisions get…