Supply Chain Execs Shift Focus From Sustenance to Survival
While we usually reserve 1990’s nostalgia for fashion, film, and music, a glimpse back at the technology landscape is just as jarring. Many remember a time before the internet was a necessity, but what about the pre-SCM age? For today’s large manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, supply chain management (SCM) has become such an indispensable area […]
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Who Are You Doing Business With?
In our ever-connected and increasingly global economy, aggregated, real-time global trade data—such as denied party screening results—helps businesses ensure protection and compliance. Denied party screening is critical in shipping and international trade, and essential for minimizing business risk today. Country governments and international organizations maintain lists of people, organizations, and countries they are prohibited from […]
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Prepare Today for the Workforce of Tomorrow
In the past decade, consumers have embraced the internet to gain control of the shopping landscape. Shoppers no longer clip coupons or wander big box stores without information. Instead, they compare prices, seek out deals, and research and review products on their smartphones—from wherever they happen to be. In response, retailers have to increase consumer […]
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Panama Canal Expansion: Four Keys to Unlocking its Potential
The Panama Canal’s new set of locks offers the opportunity to increase ocean transportation by more than twice the number of containers on one ship, creating a potential sea change in economies of scale. Here’s what shippers need to know. Today’s global macroeconomic and cross-border logistics environment is already incredibly complex, with higher U.S. domestic […]
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Does Your Supply Chain Need an Alignment?
If your supply chain isn’t aligned with your overall competitive strategy, then performance may fall short of expectations, with higher costs, poor execution, and reduced revenue and profits. When a company develops a strategic growth plan, it has to decide which priorities—cost, quality, time or flexibility—to focus on. It must then manage the supply chain […]
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How Secure Is Your Air and Ocean Cargo?
Air and ocean cargo security remains a high priority for supply chain managers across the globe. While cargo theft has been a concern for years, organizations also contend with the risk of terrorist groups uncovering vulnerabilities in global supply chains to carry out illicit cross-border operations. While the United States introduced the C-TPAT program in […]
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10 Steps for a Win-Win Shipper-Forwarder Partnership
While many companies rely on forwarders and brokers for compliance, it is ultimately the importer/exporter’s responsibility. Here are 10 key steps to create a win-win partnership with your forwarder where compliance is the top goal. Create SOPs. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) clearly communicate how you expect the forwarder to proceed in certain situations and should […]
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Dialing In to the Secondhand Smartphone Market
More than any other mobile device, our gadget-centric society loves smartphones. The next big thing is always right around the corner. And that’s the phone we want. This compelling trend has spawned a budding market for secondhand smartphones. Many consumers are content to chase the next product generation one or two years behind if it […]
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The March of Technology
How are you going to make money at the lower margins of 2016? Freight is down, trucks are plentiful, and fuel is down so much that you need to get a lot of new business just to keep your revenue even. Not an easy environment. And it’s going to get tougher. Margins have been coming […]
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Is It Time to Think About Logistics Outsourcing?
Changing consumer behaviors, increasing consumer expectations and rapid advancements in technology are converging to create the need for supply chains to be more global, transparent, agile and responsive. We are at a unique point in time with all of these dynamics in place simultaneously that the supply chain function is evolving in its breadth of […]
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