Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

You will have to bear with me 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. Crisps/chips…

One of the commonest responses I receive when discussing Sales & Operational Planning (S&OP) with prospective clients having growth problems is “….but we have S&OP in place so we do not need any assistance”. “Ok, then why do you have negative…

What supply chains are meant to do has been very well documented but source, plan, make deliver disciplines are the core activities. Add in a potential warehousing and logistics role and if the company is forward thinking, a customer logistics role…

Let me get straight to the point on this one. Why do so many FMCG mrgers 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…

Imagine Manchester United needed to score 5 goals in the last match of the season to win the English Premier League yet they do not start attacking with any intent until the 80th minute. Or the England cricket team needing to take 6 wickets to win a…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…

Increasingly, most multinational FMCG/Brewing/Pharmaceutical companies have implemented some form of Sales & Operational Planning (S&OP) or further integrated planning. They will have gone through the undoubted pain of getting people together to…

Whether your deployment of Sales & Operational Planning (S&OP) is as solid as a fine old Cheddar or is more like Emmental, you will benefit from This new free e-book. The Enchange S&OP e-book tells you what S&OP is, does, how it works and how to…

I spent Easter in UK suffering the bitter cold, visiting the heiress and once more watching Tranmere Rovers lose live. Whether on TV or in person I have not seen them win for several years now so I am developing a jinx complex. This season they have…