Articles
Supply Chain Management
Understanding the Implications of Related Party Transactions and Transfer Pricing
Many multinational organizations are embracing tax-effective supply chain management to reduce costs and increase margins. Supply chain managers need to understand the ramifications of these tax-based strategies when it involves the transfer of tangible goods to their own foreign subsidiaries or parent companies. Reducing taxes is a desirable outcome, but not when it runs afoul […]
Read MoreReturn to Sender: Managing Reverse Logistics
Most e-commerce businesses focus time and money on providing customers with efficient and flexible delivery options. Many companies, however, neglect to extend this attention to the return of unwanted goods. While many factors influence customer loyalty, a well-run returns process drives repeat orders and improves consumer satisfaction. Eighty-five percent of consumers surveyed by research firm […]
Read MoreEliminating Wasted Motion
At some point in our careers, most of us have felt we’ve wasted time or effort accomplishing a job that should have been easier, more efficient, and possibly safer to do. One way to help workers make better use of their time and effort is to identify and eliminate sources of wasted motion. In a […]
Read MoreShared Technology Resources Hold the Key to Supply Chain Optimization
Q: How can value chain partners cooperate to create and share efficiencies? A: While it is understandable for each supply chain partner to maintain its own information technology, many companies rely on more than one IT system—along with spreadsheets and email—to manage supply chain operations. To further complicate matters, every transaction in the complex global […]
Read MoreHow Supply Chain Executives Can Earn a Place in the C-Suite
First there was Chief Executive Officer, then Chief Operating, Chief Financial, and Chief Marketing Officers joined the "C-suite." Isn’t it time Chief Supply Chain Officers took their place at the top? Despite supply chain’s functional cachet in business circles, many top supply chain executives don’t even report to the CEO. Why is that? Service and […]
Read MoreSupply Chain Therapy Strikes a Balance
There’s nothing like a spur-of-the-moment urge, then splurge, to improve temperament. Retailers today are all too willing to facilitate “retail therapy” and oblige customers by making it easier than ever to satisfy their random impulses. Advertising—subliminal or overt—is quick to connect happiness with material possession, regardless of what kind. Then the supply chain takes over. […]
Read MoreManaging Global Complexity: The Right Tools for the Job
Henry Ford is popularly quoted as saying that his customers could have any color Model T they wanted—as long as it was black. For years, global logistics professionals using optimization could relate to Ford’s quote, because they could apply this highly respected engineering practice to virtually any shipping challenge they faced—as long as they were […]
Read MoreGreat Partnerships: 3PLs and Shippers
Many companies have traded old-style transactional relationships with 3PLs for collaborative partnerships that stand the test of time.
Read More3PL Perspectives 2012: Shippers and 3PLs—Perfect Together
Inbound Logistics’ eighth-annual 3PL market research report demonstrates how 3PLs and shippers are connecting to confront existing challenges and capitalize on new opportunities.
Read MoreInbound Logistics’ Summer Reading Guide 2012
Whether you brush up on fundamental logistics concepts, or explore emerging warehousing, sustainability, and procurement trends, you’ll be brighter than ever after dipping into these supply chain bestsellers.
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