Collaboration and best practice comment and opinion

I originally published this blog last year, but it's as relevant now as it was then.  Take a look... The start of each new year provides us with a fantastic opportunity to assess where we are and what we want to achieve in the year to come. It’s a time for locking down objectives and plotting a course to deliver them. While much of the focus is on how to do bigger and better things, a go...

This is the second part of a two-part blog looking into innovation in fresh produce supply chains.  The first part focused on the downstream supply chain, exploring how vertical farming is being used within retail stores to compress supply chains and how innovative preservation techniques can extend shelf-life to reduce the risk of product deterioration and waste.  In this part, we move upstr...

Fresh produce supply chains are notoriously difficult to manage, facing unique challenges that are not always present in the supply chains of other goods. The challenges begin in the field, with production yields and quality dependent upon factors beyond human control, such as weather.  Difficulties continue as the product moves downstream, with fresh produce being prone to deterioration and...

In response to intense competition, where consumers are demanding more for less, several retailers have decided to streamline operations and reduce operating costs. One approach to support these objectives is to vertically integrate aspects of the supply chain. What’s vertical integration? Vertical integration is a strategic decision that sees a business take ownership of part, or the ent...

This is the second blog in a series in which we review how the supply chain trends we identified at the start of the year have played out. This week, I’ll be looking at Capitalising on connections . Technology is now a top priority, and rightly so. Today’s competitive grocery market leaves no room for inefficiencies, and that’s where technology comes into play. Previously, we’ve identifi...

At the start of the year, we called out four trends we expect to influence supply chains in 2019. The time has come to begin reviewing how the trends played out and we’ll do this in a series of blogs over the next few weeks. This week, I’ll be looking at Eager experimenters – this is all about businesses of all sizes establishing and embedding a self-disruptive supply chain culture, underpinn...

Automated micro-fulfillment has emerged as one of the key trends in the US grocery ecommerce channel. We recently visited a site with Takeoff Technologies, the leading company in this space with multiple sites operational, to see its model in action. Range of fulfillment models The challenge of developing a profitable model for grocery ecommerce as it scales is underpinning much of the in...

E-commerce is growing in almost all markets, presenting opportunities for retailers and technology firms to innovate and provide faster, safer, cost-effective and environment-friendly delivery alternatives in both the last and middle mile space. However, with unique opportunities come not only operational challenges but also numerous and evolving regulations. To date, the tendency from regul...

We recently published the first in a three-part series benchmarking the building blocks of industry collaboration. To support the work, we gathered the views of over 200 global respondents from mainly commercial and supply chain roles. In this blog, I’ll explore a selection of the key findings. We asked respondents to benchmark their business’s capability in 13 areas. We grouped these into s...

The latest instalment of IGD’s annual supply chain event took place this week. This was my fourth Supply Chain Summit and it was another great day! Here’s a recap in case you missed it. Customer-centric – the business imperative IGD’s CEO, Susan Barratt, opened on the main stage, setting the scene by delivering a few clear messages. The one that resonated with me most is “You must shape ...