Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

Another telecommunications related tale rounds off my current trilogy of customer service mishaps. I really do hope this is the last one I experience as I have been on a run of really bad luck lately. However, I suspect a long, hot and sunny UK…

I recently wrote about how an airline dented its reputation with an overly fussy interpretation of on board baggage storage rules. In my poor customer service trilogy I now turn my attention to a well known global telecoms company. I will keep the…

This has not been a great week for customer service and from some very well known companies. People say things happen in threes and this week I have had 3 unexpectedly poor customer service experiences. Disappointment and irritation is always…

Recently I looked at how Enchange has been helping companies understand Supply Chain challenges through the use of music and verse. Our cultural theme continues here through the use of simple stories exposing some common problems encountered in FMCG…

From personal experience I know how difficult it can be to enable sustainable change in the extended Supply Chain. Communicating change is hard enough but actually seeing it happen and being maintained is a tough task for most companies. Even though…

When you are absorbed in a competitive fast moving consumer goods business there is never a good time to take holidays. Those long awaited training courses always appear on the agenda at a critical launch period or at a difficult month or quarter…

That time of year is upon us once again. This 2 week period usually guarantees rain in UK when the only relief could be an impossibly wrinkle-free and young-looking Cliff Richard leading the communal singing during the delays. “Oohs” and “aahs” and…

The sun is out and the sky is blue so what drink waits for you? Beer producers rely on the sun to drive sales and produce a distinct pull along the supply chain but how many will win the market place battle? Certainly, if they are not ready for the…

I used to be a big fan of Formula 1. Sunday afternoons in rainy UK in front of BBC2 watching either the Grand Prix or the 40 overs a side John Player League cricket – weather permitting, bliss. Jasper Carrott once expressed surprise at how anyone…

Cue the famously ominous theme music, "Approaching Menace" by the British composer Neil Richardson. A hushed, shadowy, darkened studio. Contestant number one leaves his competitors in the dark and walks in a moving beam of light to the famous black…

Some time ago I wrote about the way spreadsheets were undermining expensively assembled ERP’s in FMCG, Brewing and Pharmaceutical companies. They still are, by the way. Recently, a paper on Public Debt and Austerity published by 2 eminent Harvard…

I met the CEO of an FMCG drinks company at a recent charity event and with both being fans of the foaming ale we settled on a post main course discussion of all things beer. At this event I was not wearing my Enchange hat so the conversation was…

When a company asks me to take a look at their S&OP process yet boasts a Forecast Accuracy (FA) of 98%, alarm bells are immediately sound. If you are at a genuine level of 98% then of course there is a little more incremental improvement possible…

Do you find yellow dog biscuits stuffed in your window frames? Well, I’d expect such occurrences to be as rare as a squirrel with a nut allergy but I find it all the time. The house in Romania has mosquito nets on the windows as the summers are…

Do you agree that Supply Chains seem to evolve very, very slowly? I cannot recall any major ground-breaking innovation in recent times. Yes, we have had bar-coding, RFID and S&OP etc but nothing that sticks out as significant or a major leap…