by Elizabeth Hines | Oct 22, 2013 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy, Supply Chain
Source: Simply Silhouettes
Within the logistics and supply chain industries, the key to providing your client with an end to end valuable offering is providing the core value yourself and outsourcing the rest. Finding the right outsource partner is critical to success. Here are seven things you need to consider when choosing a new outsource partner.
1. Culture and values
Choosing the right partner goes beyond capabilities. You have to consider the corporate culture as well. In addition to being able to do the work, the ideal partner should be able do it seamlessly by fitting with your team and with your client’s needs.
When evaluating a new outsourcing partner, it is important to look at their mission or value statements. How do these hold up to your own company’s mission and value statements? Are they well aligned? If they are, move on and explore the company further. If not, walk away. Mission and value statements speak to the core culture of the company, so if you can’t find common ground here, it is unlikely you will be able to build a positive working relationship.
2. Standards and metrics
What standards of quality and delivery does the potential partner employ? Here it is important to look at their metrics and processes. How do these compare with the ones within your company? If they are similar, it is not only likely your systems will be able to work well together, but also likely that the two companies have a similar approach to standards of quality and delivery.
3. Investments
Next, take a look at where the potential partner has made investments. Has the company spent in similar areas to your company? Similar investments show business culture or strategy alignment. If the investments are different, find out why.
4. Financial stability
What is the financial health of the potential partner? You don’t want to enter into a partnership only to find out in a few months that the company is not financial stable. Entering into a partnership with a company that does not have its financial house in order is a costly mistake. Take the time to do your due diligence.
5. Where will you stand?
What will your relationship be? That is, will you be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond? When times are good this doesn’t matter, but when there is a customer satisfaction issue, it can mean the difference between client retention or client attrition. It is essential to know where you stand inside your partner’s organizational priorities. If you are comfortable with where you will stand, that’s great. If not, find another partner.
6. Long-term strategy
It is also important to look at the long-term strategy of your company and your potential partner’s company. Does the service they will be providing on your behalf align with their continuing plans? And with your ongoing plans? Continuity and service development is important to your company and to your customers. The potential partner needs to be able to provide the specified service for the foreseeable future and also needs to be able to grow with your company’s strategic needs.
7. Credibility
Finally, look to social media. What are others saying about your potential partner in an unfiltered environment? Are people pleased with the service the company provides? Are there any red flags with respect to the company or the service they provide? Social media can help call attention to potential issues.
Also talk with others within the industry – especially people who have worked with the potential partner before. What was their experience? Again, look for red flags.
By following these steps, you’ll be able to better evaluate potential partners and identify partners that are a good fit from both a business and cultural perspective.
by Fronetics | Oct 15, 2013 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy, Supply Chain
Here are five things the supply chain industry can learn from Top Gear.
1. Speed is essential
Jeremy Clarkson advises: “Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary… That’s what gets you.”
For the supply chain industry speed and stagnation can be deadly. PwC’s Global Supply Chain Survey found that industry leaders (financially and operationally) have “supply chains that are efficient, fast and tailored – a model that lets companies serve their customers reliably in turbulent market conditions and that differentiates between the needs of different sets of customers.”
2. Innovate
At the heart of every Top Gear episode is innovation. Whether it be turning a combine harvester into a snow plow, a car into a motorhome, or designing a mobility scooter to that will “tackle the wilds of the British countryside,” the boys on Top Gear know how to get creative.
Innovation is critical to growth and to gaining (and maintaining) a competitive advantage. Innovation can also save you money. In Colin White’s book Strategic Management, he provides the example of Ikea. Ikea redesigned their Bang mug with the pallet in mind. By doing so they were able to significantly increase the number of mugs they could fit on each pallet (from 864 mugs to 2,024 mugs). The product redesign enabled Ikea to reduce shipping costs by 60 percent.
3. There is such thing as too much power
Fast cars are the lifeblood of Jeremy Clarkson. However, after driving the Ferrari F12 Clarkson surprised everyone by pronouncing that the car had too much power.
As Lao Tzu said: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves.”
4. Be social
One reason the Top Gear boys have around 350 million views each week and are entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the “most watched factual show” is because of their banter.
In a Supply Chain 24/7 article Adrian Gonzalez notes that 30 percent of supply chain professionals currently block access to social media sites. The reason being that “many supply chain executives and companies are stuck on the starting line because they can’t get past the word ‘social’ and the perception it creates.” This needs to change. As Clara Shih and Lisa Shalett point out in an HBR Blog post – it can be perilous to be a social media holdout. That is, being a social media holdout means that you let others define your company’s reputation, your company is invisible and less credible, and your company is perceived by potential customers as being behind the curve.
5. Never underestimate The Stig
“Some say he never blinks and that he roams local woodlands foraging for mouse meat. All we know is, he’s called The Stig.”
The Stig sets lap times and instructs celebrity drivers on Top Gear; we know nothing else about him. That being said he is an integral member of the team, effective at what he does, and is respected (he has a cult following inclusive of 6 million Facebook “likes”).
Within your company you most likely have a Stig – a silent performer who excels at their job. Unfortunately, the silent performer often does not receive the accolades the more outgoing employee receives. This is to the detriment of the company – your silent performer might be your star intrapreneur.
by Elizabeth Hines | Mar 4, 2013 | Blog
The bring-your-own-device (BYOD) revolution in the workplace has thrown a curve ball to those responsible for safeguarding your company’s data. Your colleagues are now accessing corporate data from their own computer, a tablet, even their mobile phone. Although the corporate finance groups are singing the praises of the trend, due to its inherent reduction in costs, it’s not all rosy in the BYOD world. It’s crucial to format a corporate strategy policy that will be inline with your goals.
Here’s why: With so many of us bringing more and more smart devices inside our office environments and hooking them to our corporate networks, the potential for data leakage grows exponentially. Combine that with the tablet revolution and the mobile/remote employee trends, and it adds up to a potentially dangerous data-leak train wreck. Technology is now mobile.
In a study conducted by the University of Glasgow, 63 percent of used smart devices purchased through eBay, other online marketplaces, and in second-hand stores, still had data on them. This data included personal information as well as sensitive business information. We can only imagine the increase in sensitive data leaks when you include the road-warrior’s best and newest smart device as they trade in for the next best thing.
The problem is there’s no chain of custody in the BYOD world. Think about it. When the corporations owned your cellphone and your PC or laptop, they controlled its issue to you, how you used it, what software you put on it, and when and how it was turned in and destroyed. A solid internal tracking of electronic assets coupled with a solid electronic asset disposal solution provider meant that, for the most part, the corporate crown jewels were safe.
In the BYOD world, the corporation does not own the IT equipment. Personal smart devices are being hooked up to corporate IT environments. This mating of personal and professional equipment and data is happening everywhere. Your corporate data is being commingled with secure and non-secure access points to the Web, cloud, etc. Not to mention the fact that those devices metaphorically walk in and out of your office every day, and you have no control.
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this problem. I have seen it addressed via software solutions at the enterprise level (think Blancco or BlackBerry enterprise), at the device level (think solutions like Apple Find My Device, etc.), and at the human resources and legal levels with policies and procedures that prohibit users’ use of corporate information. But the truth is, without a chain of custody model incorporated with these other solutions, once the corporate data is accessed or downloaded, it’s already gone — you just don’t know it yet.
The reality is that it’s going to take some time for the corporate world to catch up with what I like to call the “semi-private information revolution” like the cloud, Facebook, or social media. Secure file sharing, essential for an organization’s BYOD guidelines, is one of your best options. Services are now available to help with cloud encryption and it’s changing the way we share and monitor files. Encrypting data is crucial and minimizes the risk of sharing sensitive data and having it tampered with. And rely on your electronic asset disposal provider to help develop a strategy and process that is aligned with your corporate information sharing guidelines. Right now, your corporate data is only as safe as the process that you create.
by Elizabeth Hines | Feb 16, 2012 | Blog
As a strategic advisor in the high-tech space, more often than not, at some point the conversation turns to technology and the use of technology to “solve” some particular set of short-comings or business process issues.
To these technology questions, I have a set of hard and fast rules that dictate the purchase and deployment of technology within a business segment or organization:
- When it comes to corporate IT strategy and IT platforms, be sure you are aligned with corporate strategy before you go down an evaluation path for a particular business segment level application. The corporate IT groups are the “keeper of the keys” in this area. They should have a road map that will either confirm your place or suggest an alternate path for you to follow. Either way, it will save you time and money if you gain alignment early on in the process.
- In that same area, if you are on the corporate IT strategy side, be sure that only IT projects that align with the corporate strategy are allowed to pass the first gate or check point on the path to approval and funding. This may sound simplistic, but, look around your organization. You will see may “pet” IT projects that are one-offs to solve a specific process issue and have nothing to do with the larger strategic IT agenda. Sure, they may have been cheap, but the maintenance, dependency and legacy baggage that come along with them suck vital IT resources in the long term.
- Any IT investment that is eventually made must lead to, enhance, and support the corporate objectives. Said another and simpler way, will you make more profit by making this IT investment. If the answer is not a clear and loud “yes”. Look for an alternative to the IT investment.
- Be determined to build one technology platform for your ENTIRE organization. Sure, it is easier said than done. Especially if you are growing by acquisition or on a limited IT budget. That said, in the case of acquisitions; always look to rationalize the IT platforms early in the process. It will pay off in the longer term in big, big, ways like ease of use, information analysis, budgeting, and the financial period end roll ups. If you are “boot-strapping” your IT platforms, discourage the “buy it now” mentality for the more disciplined road-map approach. Again, this will save time and money in the longer term.
- Whichever platform you choose, be sure to get the reporting module that goes along with it. So often I see companies’ cheap out in the reporting area when they purchase IT platforms. Sure, the users are adept at manipulating the software, but if the business folks can’t access the data to drive the business forward, it’s an orphaned platform. Business knowledge is business power…enough said.
- Lastly, don’t forget social media. Yeah, it’s for businesses too. I continue to learn this lesson the hard-way.
Most organizations waste time, money and miss profit opportunity by letting their IT platforms organically grow and develop. Having a well aligned IT plan with your corporate strategy pays dividends in the short and long term.
by Jennifer Hart Yim | Sep 6, 2024
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