Articles
Commentary
How SMBs Can Re-evaluate Risk
Supply chain disruption has been a major issue since the onset of the pandemic, affecting consumers’ ability to get everything from toilet paper and pharmacy items to cars and houses. At the same time, porch-pirated theft is on the rise, with around 210 million packages disappearing from porches across the United States in 2021, according to a Safewise study.
Read More
Attacks on Energy Attack You
Can you walk and chew gum at the same time? Leaders in the United States and globally cannot when it comes to balancing green energy initiatives with common sense energy requirements.
Read More
How to Unlock Opportunity With a Procurement Control Tower
With market volatility and sky-high inflation driving shifts in the price of oil and other commodities, it’s not surprising to see businesses adjust sourcing and inventory strategies in anticipation of future roadblocks. Plus, with consumer demand softening, many companies that largely over-indexed on orders last year are now sitting on a surplus of supply.
Read More
Combatting the Chip Shortage with Cloud Adoption
As the economy grapples with the new normal of post-pandemic buyer behavior and businesses move forward, many industries continue to experience a demand surge that has overwhelmed the supply chain. Shortages of critical components such as semiconductor chips are at an all-time high for manufacturing, transportation, and logistics.
Read More
GOOD QUESTION: Is supply chain globalization in retreat? Why or why not?
Industry insiders reveal if there has been a pullback on supply chain globalization amidst volatility and disruption.
Read More
Pumpkin Spice Pandemonium
Pumpkin spice mania is a fall tradition in the United States. Here’s how seasonality blended with limited supplies jacks up demand.
Read More
E-Commerce Business Owner Perspective: Joining Forces with Fulfillment by Amazon Businesses
Partnering with firms that leverage Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) helped take our business to the next level.
Read More
Winning in a Contract Market
Freight market volatility keeps us on our toes, and we can expect that to continue. Many carriers are shifting their focus from spot to contract freight, which creates a fantastic opportunity for shippers to optimize their supply chain by adapting their carrier strategy. Here are some proven practices for doing so.
Read More
Four Tips to Strengthen Cybersecurity
Supply chain problems continue to dominate headlines across the globe. In response, companies seek ways to increase visibility to help build more resilient supply chains. However, increasing the pace of digital transformation opens up an array of vulnerabilities that cybercriminals actively take advantage of. Shoring up cyber defenses is critical for logistics providers and shippers in particular, where a breach can have significant consequences.
Read More
Supply Chain Strain: How to Navigate Disruption
Now that we’ve been in a pandemic for more than two years, it’s funny to look back at our optimism at the beginning. We expected brief supply chain interruptions and thought that things would be back to normal in a few short months. Then we realized it could drag on for a year or more. But almost three years?
Read MoreRobots: Walmart Advances, Amazon Retreats
When faced with anticipated fall-off in consumer purchases, Walmart leans into new robotic solutions. The retailer also re-tasks existing store infrastructure by attaching market fulfillment centers (MFCs)—compact warehouses inside, or tacked onto, retail stores to help fulfill pickup or delivery orders. It gets inventory closer to the customer and amps delivery velocity to serve consumers […]
Read More
Keeping the Supply Chain Running in Ukraine
Since 2020, the business landscape has been full of crises for 3PLs operating in Europe. First a worldwide pandemic, now a war between Russia and Ukraine. Keeping a supply chain operating efficiently is challenging in the best of times, but how can companies best respond during game changing disruptions? Yuriy Ostapyak, a Ukrainian-born U.S. citizen and COO for Logistics Plus joined the Inbound Logistics podcast to discuss his company’s response to these challenges.
Read More
Becoming a Successful Female Mentor in Male-Centric Industries
Countless published articles talk about the importance and value of mentorship, and we heard many of these voices during Women’s History Month in March. Many of these articles strike home at the essence and reasons why mentorship is especially critical for professional women in the workforce.
Read More
The Trucking Industry By-the-Numbers: The Long Haul
As the engine of the U.S. economy, the trucking industry carries around 11 billion tons of freight per year, keeping goods moving and the supply chain humming.
Read More
The Future of the Supply Chain is Cloudy
We hear a lot about the cloud these days. The cloud (public or private) refers to software and services that run on the Internet instead of locally on your computer. There is a good chance that the majority of business data will eventually reside in the cloud.
Read More
You Can Add Value to Your Brand Through Last-Mile Delivery
Retailers in a post-COVID world know better than anyone that growing their business by diversifying what they offer is a surefire way to solidify customer loyalty. In today’s highly competitive retail environment, delivery as a brand extension is a critical differentiator.
Read MoreIL Good Question: If you could invent one tool to help you do your job better, what would it be?
Readers reveal the yet-to-be-invented tools that would be supply chain game-changers as well as the most recent innovations starting to make their jobs easier.
Read More
Are Bad Deliveries Ruining Your Last Mile? Here’s How to Flip the Script
While the chaos of supply chains has been tamed from its pandemic peak, new disruptions are being forecast and the holiday shopping season will only compound those issues.
Read MoreShipping Containers: What Do the Cans Tell Us?
What can we learn from the movements of shipping containers, or cans? Plenty. Here’s how they provide clues about future global trading patterns.
Read More
Why IoT is Not the Answer
Global supply chain disruption is not caused by a lack of data—more than 10 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices deployed worldwide add more data every second to already overflowing data stores, yet disruption persists. More IoT is not the answer. The real challenge is creating effective connections between numerous stakeholders performing a range of functions, across multiple enterprise platforms and in different jurisdictions.
Read More