Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

In my local supermarket over the weekend I noticed something I had not seen or perhaps not noticed before. On the shelf I was expecting to relieve of my weekend beer was a propped up sign saying “We are sorry your choice is not available. We are…

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…

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…

During the summer months I am partial to a pint of the foaming ale with a solid, woody name like Woods Quaff served from a hand-pulled pump. Add a bag of pork scratchings and a village green cricket match and there you have what would approach the…

In my D&E career I have lived and worked in many different countries on all continents except the Australia/New Zealand bits. Oh, and the North/South Poles of course – not a lot of demand for FMCG there, yet. There is one recurring theme that seems…

You may well have another corporate buzz term for the getting your products onto shelves, into restaurants and into coolers but the title above is simple and succinct. You may use Route to Market, Go to Market or Distribution but they all have the…

Hold on a minute, how did we get to this time in the year? I know time appears to hasten as you grow older but this year has flown by. One minute we were eagerly awaiting the Olympics and now we heading directly into a northern hemisphere winter and…

There is never a good time to go on a residential training course or put the car in for an overdue lengthy service or the annual visit to the in-laws or even English homework - why was the American cowboy series High Chaparral so much more…

I spent most of last weekend slightly below ground in a hot, dirty, smelly hole without light and where you could not stand up properly. No, it was not the driver’s room at your 3PLP but it was the hole in the ground that provides water to the…

The London Olympic Games 2012 are getting very close. The Olympic flame is on a tour of the UK before it finally (and hopefully on time) reaches the Olympic stadium to light the cauldron to mark the start of the games. As the flame has to pass…

Inevitable, I guess. Large parts of the UK have implemented a hose pipe ban due to lack of water in reservoirs. Almost from the minute the ban was activated the rain has not stopped and now many places are under water with houses and businesses…

Ok, I know I should not have gone there. It was a Sunday and well before the live football on the TV. The weather was cold and the air was full of drizzle and as I turned off the roundabout the scale of the folly dawned on me; the IKEA car park was…

Same small table, same two blokes, same close up camera shot. In the last RTM talking Heads episode we ended with Jeff hurriedly departing for the corner shop to see if the M&Ms Route To Market was intact or in trouble! Mal: Why the long face? Jeff:…

Small table, two blokes, close up camera shot. Mal: RTM. Jeff: What’s that then, Malaysian TV station? Mal: No. Jeff: Oh, it’s the IATA code for The Hague airport where they send all the war criminals. Mal: Er, no. It’s the business. Jeff: What…

Just a short blog today for a little bit of fun but with a serious message. If you have not studied your Route To Market (RTM) deployment recently then now would be a good time. What was appropriate even a few short years ago can be wholly out of…