Route to Market & Supply Chain Blog

Supply Chain nuts & bolts Last week I looked at some basic definitions of a Supply Chain and what Supply Chains are designed to achieve. After enjoying the wet UK Bank Holiday, one of my first meetings was with an established FMCG CEO. No names of…

In an earlier blog this year I covered the subject of Joint Business Planning. This particular blog came after a discussion with a fellow RtM professional and senior commercial manager. As a recap, this lady managed several markets in a region and…

At Enchange we have been delivering a lot of Cost to Serve (CTS) work for clients in the last few years. In all cases our work has resulted in considerable savings for clients. I thought now would be a good time to write about this very important…

I was talking to a fellow RtM professional at a recent event. The subject of Distributor performance came up. My colleague was clearly frustrated with the performance of her distributors – she managed several markets in a region. It transpired that…

In a number of articles this year I have covered many of the aspects of distributor selection and management. The challenge for many organisations, particularly multinationals, is to ensure a consistent application and execution of best practice. In…

In an earlier article and post, I covered the internal and external considerations related to distributor selection. I now want to focus on an increasingly important topic of the integration of online and offline distribution. This is a key issue in…

In an earlier article and post, I covered the internal and external considerations related to distributor selection. I now want to focus more on the distributor and how we make an assessment. We call this a Micro-Assessment. It involves spending…

Going Underground I am not a frequent traveller to London or the UK in general for that matter so getting around is always a challenge and particularly when travel by the Tube is required. In the rush hours at each end of the day there must be more…

T.E.A.M - everybody achieves more? Eventually, the success of a manager really depends on their team and how they interact and support each other. In business, your people will be required to work in teams if success is to be achieved. Each team…

Morning woes I have just had one of those mornings. I missed the alarm and the 10-minute snooze and from then on everything went downhill. Jumped in the shower for a brief cleanse but then once waterlogged I realised there was no soap, not even a…

In my last article and post I covered the topic of distribution performance, specifically the topic of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or Metrics. In our journey, we have now selected our Distributor, by considering what an ideal Model Distributor…

In my last article and post I covered the topic of distribution performance and how we establish the right processes and behaviours. I now want to address the topic of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or Metrics. Before I do this, a quick recap. In…

When we start the process of distributor selection, we need to be very clear about what we are looking for. A key question is this. What is our ideal Distributor Partner, or Model Distributor, we sometimes call them, and what do they look like?…

I am often asked what is the single most important thing that should be done after selecting a new distributor. Before I answer this question, let me recap the process of distributor selection. The three phases of Distributor Selection are: The…

A little bit of fun this week after the dreary focus on the UK General Election and England performances. Here comes the world's greatest drink sales guy! Summer is here and drinks producers across the globe will be battling for an increased share…