Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

You will have to bear with me for a while on this one. Do you know that on average 85% of expectant women suffer food cravings during pregnancy? Apparently, the top 5 are: Pickles 5% - yuk, that surprised me too. Cheese 11% - get those calories in.…

Let me get straight to the point on this one. Why do so many FMCG mergers or acquisitions frequently result in the apparent death-knell of once proud and promising brands? I am not going to name any names but if you think about it there have been…

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. Not too long ago a paper on Public Debt and Austerity published by 2 eminent…

Laurel and Hardy, Morecambe and Wise, Abbott and Costello, Little and Large, Hale and Pace, May and Johnson. These are examples of double acts where one party plays the straight/stooge and apparently serious man while the other plays the…

There is enough disruption and discontinuity in supply chains without the necessary evil or pleasure of new product development (NPD) and product change getting in the way. Just when everyone has become used to ordering, storing, picking, delivering…

Over the years I have seen many strange sights on various forms of transport. In the Middle East I sat next to a vicious looking falcon on a flight to Bahrain. The falcon was extremely well behaved but then again so was I! In Africa a guy jumped on…

February is here but blink and you will miss it as it is not a leap year. You cannot change January performance and February should be quite firm by now, so you need to be looking further ahead in your S&OP. Much further ahead. What is coming soon…

Where has that first post-holiday month gone? Suddenly it’s the 24th of January and there are only 7 calendar days and 5 working days until you close the month. Adopt panic stations despite what Corporal Jones of Dad’s Army would say. Are you ahead…

We already find ourselves at 17th January so not many days left to ensure your monthly top and bottom lines are on target. Good luck with that if your business (& body!) is only just shaking off the holiday excesses. What is top of mind? The sagging…

Chris Rea has finally found the correct turn off, a lot of people in Africa still don’t know its Christmas and the novelty Santa toilet seat cover is back in the box. Oh, and chocolate Easter eggs are in the shops 4 months in advance. Christmas and…

Christmas is coming around faster than ever and who better than Noddy Holder and Slade to celebrate Sales & Operational Planning (S&OP). This festive song has been heard at Christmas every year since 1973! If you have been living in a cave on a…

Hooray! Many supermarket chains now sell imperfect or misshapen fruit and vegetables at a discount. As you may know I am a big fan of buying this type of food as taste has nothing to do with shape based on my massive culinary knowledge. Whether my…

How is 2017 going so far? Are you in cruise control or is your business chaos central? Be honest now! The last quarter of the year is always difficult to manage in order to achieve 2017 results without negatively impacting 2018. When your business…

Some things never change and FMCG 4th Quarter challenges certainly do not. The same challenges are clearly present and what is astonishing is that some companies are still making short term, expensive efforts to “make the sales numbers”. I don't…

I have spent some considerable time visiting medical facilities both at home and in UK and in the latter case I was not impressed. The National Health Service is still the envy of the rest of the world and rightly so. When you consider the policies…