Friday, September 28, 2018
Capitalism without Capital and Why Amazon Was Able to Get To Scale
People constantly ask the question: How can Amazon keep growing if they do not make money? There are two answers: First, Amazon has proved that if they want to scale back investment they can make a lot of money almost at will. Just in Q2 of this year they made over $2bl in profit in one quarter. Not bad for a company that "does not make any money". Second, and this is the most important point, they have built this profit machine on the value of intangibles.
Most companies value themselves based on what can physically be put on the balance sheet. Something is an "asset" if it is physical in nature and can be valued in the marketplace, mostly by figuring out its resale value. Further, accounting rules actually favor this as when you put this "asset" on the books you do not have to expense it all at once but rather depreciate it over time. This makes a physical good more valuable than an intangible good.
However in the intangible economy where it is intangibles which truly drive value this is a real problem. Think of it this way: What makes Amazon's supply chain so great? It certainly is not the buildings, racks, trucks or even the Kiva robots. All of those are easily replicable. Rather, it is the intangible assets which make it great and where they have invested a lot. It is the algorithms, the engineering solutions, the supply chain processes (inventory, order management and advanced delivery routing) which add all of the distinctive value of Amazon. So now we can answer the question: Why doesn't everyone just replicate Amazon?
Because their rigid and outdating accounting systems won't let them.
While others are looking to physical assets which can be depreciated and can easily be valued for ROI purposes Amazon looks to the intangibles. By doing this Amazon has built a cash machine which now allows them to put up physical assets with ease.
The basic tenet of the book is companies which value their intangible assets have infinite scale. Once they get to this point it is tough for anyone to catch up.
Heading to Edge 2018 - CSCMP
- Thought Leadership: The people who are setting the trends are here and they are happy to engage with you. Just by attending sessions, listening deeply and interacting with the industry leaders I get to think about issues, how others have solved them, where the supply chain industry is going and, most importantly, what our customers (of our products) need from the supply chain.
- Connection: The ability to connect with colleagues whom I have worked with or known for the better part of 30 years. The supply chain industry is a community and you must engage in it. One of my key recommendations to those who are starting out in the industry is the need to engage with colleagues. Think of it as your own personal "crowd sourcing". This is where you get this done in the span of 4 days.
- Sharpen the Saw: I really try to "get away", disconnect and that allows me to deeply engage in the conference. I work hard not to jump on my cell phone, do email etc. My feeling is if your organization cannot run for 4 days without your constant interaction then that is a signal there is a real problem with the organization. So, I encourage everyone to engage.
Sunday, June 3, 2018
Convinced Even More That Wal-Mart Should Be The Winner v. Amazon
"In the end I believe Walmart and the other big retailers can and should be able to beat Amazon. Just like Dell could have and should have beaten Asus and just like Sears could have and should have beaten Walmart."I concluded because of the huge logistics and retail head start Walmart had they could beat Amazon at their own game. I also, however, posited the problem Walmart would have - the ability to innovate and brand. Here I said:
"The problem for companies like Wal-Mart and other retailers is they are losing the "branding" war. The name "Amazon" is becoming synonymous with on line shopping. People I talk to really do not "shop" on line they just go to Amazon to buy what they want. It is becoming what Marissa Mayer (New CEO of Yahoo) calls a "daily habit". As a consumer, you decide whether you are going to go to a store or buy on line. If you decide to buy on line you go directly to Amazon. I am sure Wal-Mart has all sorts of statistics that try to pat themselves on their backs but reality is Amazon is building a brand which equates to on line shopping - The Amazon brand is to on line shopping what the term "Xerox" is to copiers. If this hole gets too deep, Wal-Mart may not be able to dig out. "Then, it appeared Walmart "awakened" and I wrote a post titled: "Welcome Back Wal-Mart: We Missed You Over The Last 5 Years". In this article I discussed how I went to a Walmart and also used their on-line e-commerce system. Both experiences were extraordinary and this posting was written about 1 year ago.
Today, I have seen the future and it is, in fact, in Walmart. I am more convinced then ever they will win this as long as they stay hungry, scrappy and focused on the customer. In my local Walmart they recently added the giant "Pick up Tower" which essentially is an automated way for you to buy products, have them brought to the store and have a very seamless and frictionless way of getting them. A picture of this is to the left. Because just about everyone in America goes past a Walmart just about every day, ordering on line and picking up in the store is essentially a no-brainer. Can Amazon do that? Sure in the few Whole Foods stores, maybe, but not at the scale a Walmart can do it in.
So, think of this scenario. You "shop" on line at night after work and in front of your T.V. You set to pick it up tomorrow at the local Walmart. On your way home from work you swing past, you pick it up and voila.. it is at home. So, why is this so intriguing to me? Well, it is because there are a few external events occurring in the retail / e-commerce space which are converging and making the pure e-commerce play more difficult. They are:
1. Rising Cost of Transportation: Who does not know about this topic? The way to mitigate high costs of transportation is to keep trucks "fullest the furthest" and don't break them down until you absolutely have to. This allows for far more efficiencies when delivering to stores than to people's homes.
2. The Rise of "Porch Pirates": This is a very interesting phenomena where people just go around to houses and steal delivered goods. If you live in an apartment complex, it is like the wild wild west. Between people stealing and boxes being left at wrong buildings and doors, it is a true mess. Many companies are trying to solve this with "lockers", ability to go into your home, delivery to trunks etc. but net net, it all adds cost and complexity to the delivery system. The simple solution already exists - deliver it to a store.
3. Infrastructure Costs: Without a store network, the cost of building out a really good e-commerce infrastructure are astronomical. The Home Depot, which already has one of the best supply chains in retail and has 2200 stores is about to spend over $1bl to build out what they believe they need for same day / next day service. Imagine if you are starting from scratch?
4. Inability of Small Package Carriers to Deal With "Surge" Periods: Finally, we hear this every Christmas season - one of the two major players will have "guessed" wrong and either they lose their shirt in terms of cost or they have not nearly the capacity needed to service the boxes.
In the end, this is Walmart's game to lose and it appears they have no intention of losing. I personally use both and am a "Prime Member" however when that comes up for renewal I think I will be rethinking that automatic sign up. From a supply chain perspective, I believe Walmart is better situated than any other retailer in the business for the following reasons:
1. A very mature small box, big box and cold chain distribution network already in place. They have a huge head start.
2. The ability to service an "endless aisle". With this mechanism you could buy anything from them even if they never stock in the store.
3. Prime real estate for retail. Any chance you do not drive past one?
4. Walmart Pay: I have not mentioned this but the ease of paying using Wal-Mart pay is truly incredible. Also, it does not use NFC but rather QR codes which means all phones essentially can use it (Google Pay and Apple Pay require NFC which is in higher end phones).
The battle continues but right now, due to the maturity of the supply chain, I am leaning to Walmart.
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Macroeconomics are Supporting The Tight Freight Market (Macroeconomic Monday)
PPI |
Inventory v. sales |
This has two implications. First, it means that at some point, if sales stay strong companies will feel a need to restock inventory. When that occurs we will see even more pressure on the transportation infrastructure of the United States. This is not just a rate issue but rather has to do with the overall infrastructure of the country. Pressure on bridges, roads, capacity and congestion all will continue to drive a very inefficient transportation network (including rail).
Finally, we see the end results in the CASS Freight Index and it is not pretty.
We continue seeing costs increasing in this very important index and they are at the highest levels we have seen in a long time.
These three pieces of data make it very clear we are in an inflationary environment for freight and it is not just an isolated lane or area of the country. It is a broad based inflation due to fiscal stimulus driving an incredible amount of business.
Like the "spiral downward" we experienced in 2007-2009, we are not seeing a "spiral upward" with the market driving a "wealth effect" and the wealth effect drives consumer spending which ultimately drives everything we are seeing in freight.
Having said all this, there are pressures on the macroeconomic horizon. Specifically, there are 4 things I worry about:
- Fuel Prices: When fuel prices increase (both at the retail level which we buy at and the wholesale level the carriers buy at) it is just an implicit tax levied on people and businesses. People have to drive for their work and their lives so it is really not a discretionary spend. More money spent on fuel is less money spent on other things.
- Interest Rates Rise Too Fast: We did get some good news last week with the Fed saying they may let inflation run above 2% but if the interest rate hawks take over, this could brake the economy hard.
- Student Loans: There is an implicit brake on the economy with the large overhang of student loan debt. If you think this is small, think again. Here is some information from the website StudentLoanHero.com:
- Total student loan debt: $1.48 Trillion
- 44.2M Americans have some student debt
- Delinquency rate is 11.2% (people who are more than 90 days behind)
- Average Monthly Loan Payment: $351
- Median Monthly loan payment: $203
- Existential Threat: It seems we are just one "Tweet" away from global war or at least a trade war.
Will Disruption in The Inefficient Transportation Market Come From Within
I have advocated for outsiders to come in and disrupt the industry which led to my excitement when Elon Musk put his crosshairs squarely on the industry. Unfortunately, the "outsiders" have almost the reverse problem of the insiders - the outsiders just don't understand the industry. They think a driver is going to be on his iPhone all day. So, if the insiders are stodgy and not innovative and the outsiders are not knowledgeable enough to matter, where will the industry get the innovation it needs to defeat the current crisis and truly add value to consumer's lives?
Well, it appears the disruption is coming from within which is probably the best we could hope for. Two companies, Lanehub and the BiTA alliance are really driving significant innovation and both are led by long term industry experts. Even the major carriers are providing some innovative solutions such as JB Hunt's 360 solution for both carriers and shippers.
Our industry is on the verge of a major crisis and while clearly there have been some externalities which have exacerbated the problem, most of the issue is within the industry. A lack of looking forward, a lack of innovation in productivity and finally, even leaders of the industry, treating it like a commodity, have all contributed to this crisis. Look to the innovators, some of whom I have mentioned above, for leadership.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Why Are People Using The Driver "Crunch" as An Excuse for Poor Service?
First, lets deal with commitments. This word really lacks meaning in this industry but I will try to define it. The definition is simply "Do what you say you are going to do" and regardless of tight capacity or not, this is something everyone should be able to do. Why is freight being left on docks after companies have made commitments (through tender acceptances) to pick up the freight? If there are no drivers to pick up the freight be up front and honest with the shipper. Tell them that. I fear too many companies are just "sweeping up" tenders then, over time, figuring out what they will do and what they won't do (sometimes by just not delivering at all). I cannot figure out if this is purposeful or if it is just horrible execution.
This also brings me to the idea that we are blaming ELDs for this crisis which seems ridiculous to me. Essentially, when someone says that, they are saying they used to operate illegally but now that there is an electronic device they can no longer be illegal. Oops.. that type of argument gets you in trouble.
So, this brings me to my second and final point: Don't listen to what the sales people tell you, listen to what the CEO's of the companies tell the investors. The key question you should be asking carriers when they say they need higher rates to offset the capacity crunch is what are they going to do with that money? If they are plowing back into driver investments then I am all in. If they are increasing dividends and or buying back stock then you have to wonder who is kidding who.
My fear is this issue is going to be a circular problem that will never be solved. Let's follow this logic:
1) How is leadership compensated? Increasing stock price.
2) How do you increase stock price in a tight market with raising rates? Buy back stock and raise dividends.
3) Will the stock price go up as much if you invest the money in driver pay versus doing #2 above? No.
This says we likely will not see driver investment or productivity investment. Rather, we likely will see shareholder investment which will make the problem much worse.
Please prove me wrong by doing the right thing.
Sunday, January 7, 2018
When Does a Comment to Investors Become an Illegal "Signal" to Competitors?
The question raised by the investigation was essentially whether these were statements to investors so they could make a good investment decision or where they "signals" to the competitors? For example, does the statement "disciplined capacity control" state a good business practice to the investors or does it state to the competition "If you don't add capacity I won't add capacity".
As part of the post, I posited this exact question could be applied to the trucking and freight transportation industry. Every conference I have been to and every investor deck I have seen usually has the freight transportation executive using these exact words.
The example used in the lawsuit is, according to the article:
"...airline officials repeatedly assured one another on earnings calls and at conferences that exercising "capacity discipline was good for the industry"Sound familiar?
It is a fascinating question and it really puts the companies in a pickle. If they do not disclose "material" items to the investors they can get sued for not disclosing but if they disclose too much they can (and are) get sued for collusion.
Well, there is an update to the story and I think it is a big deal. In today's NY Times it is reported: Southwest Airlines Settles Suit but Denies Colluding to Keep Ticket Prices High. Southwest has agreed to pay $15M in cash and "provide extensive cooperation" with the on-going investigation against American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines. "Extensive Cooperation is defined as:
"a full account of facts relevant to the plaintiff's case as well as a series of informational meetings and interviews with industry experts and Southwest employees facilitated by the company."How could this effect trucking:
- We all have been to the many conferences where this type of language has been used by top executives. Could the airline case be used as a precedent for a case against transportation?
- Does SWA have something and essentially became the first one to talk - get a lighter penalty for turning? $15M is a lot more than just "nuisance" money. Something is going on here.
- Will trucking companies start being a lot more careful at conferences and public statements as a result of this settlement?
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Thoughts on Retailers Buying XPO Logistics and What The Right Strategy Should Be
First, this is a very normal activity as companies go upstream and downstream in the value chain to try to capture as much as they can in that chain. Remember your business classes: The value chain starts essentially at the extraction of raw materials and ends with the consumer (some say it goes through post consumption disposal and return of unconsumed raw materials to Mother Earth. I agree with that however let's leave that alone for now.). In between extraction and consumer you have activities such as transport of raw materials, conversion of raw materials to something of value, transportation to distribution, merchandising (either on line or in store) and final mile delivery (whether completed by the consumer or completed by the seller) to the point of use (the home).
Three things you will notice in that scenario:
- Conversion is very specific to a good. Meaning, it is not fungible and if you wanted to capture that portion of the value chain you would have to buy a lot of companies. You may want to vertically integrate a very high margin company but not all of it.
- Transportation is pervasive across the value chain all the way back to the raw materials movements to the final mile.
- Delivery Final mile (v. customer pick up) is growing rapidly and it touches the consumer. This makes Final Mile transportation part of the merchandising and consumer touch point process - and this is why retailers want to vertically integrate. The impact of final mile on the consumer experience and consumer loyalty is huge.
- Buy technology to facilitate the final mile but not buy the assets. Think Target's acquisition of Grand Junction. Or their more recent acquisition of Shipt for grocery shipping. Even Wal-Mart's acquisition of Jet.com would be part of facilitating this process. (The biggest issue with the Wal-Mart acquisition was one of culture - Wal-Mart eliminated Jet's long standing practicing of having drinks and happy hours in the office. That since has been reinstated).
- Buy transportation assets and make them "in house" assets. This is where the discussion of buying XPO comes in.
- Build the transportation assets yourself - i.e., Amazon's acquisition of planes and doing "power only" where Amazon owns the trailers, are examples of this. Many retailers follow this power only model. The benefit of this is you can swap carriers pretty quickly and you can leverage small carriers since the retailer owns the trailer. The problem with this strategy is the "crunch" is with the power not with the trailer.
- Develop "Vested" relationships which give the specific retailer "most favored nation" status with one or more asset providers. While this idea is championed by Kate Vitasek at University of Tennessee (read about this concept at The Vested Way) it really was "founded" in the logistics industry by the infamous J.B. Hunt agreement with the BNSF. This gave J.B. Hunt a preferred status with BNSF which, to this day, makes it impossible for other carriers to really compete with JBH. For the most part, the rest of the industry fights over what JBH does not want. If JBH wants it, they win.
- Work within financial risk mitigation constructs. An interesting new development is to protect capacity (does not really help with final mile) by participating in the new futures exchange developed by Craig Fuller called TransRisk. This will definitely assist with the stabilization of rates and capacity however it is at least one year away from implementation and, while I absolutely think it will work, it is unproven.
- No one is buying XPO and if they did the Government would stop it. XPO, as it currently is constructed, is too big and would have too big of an impact on industry assets to allow one retailer or on-line provider to buy it.
- They could split XPO up and buy pieces of it. While this would probably make it easier to get through government regulators, I believe this action would be value destroying not value creating. For example, the final mile portion of XPO was created by XPO acquiring a company called 3PD. 3PD are executives who came out of retail and therefore just "putting it back" could be possible. Combine 3PD with the final mile technology of Optima (which is a final mile technology company XPO purchased back in 2013) and you may have a platform for a good final mile service.
However, don't forget, neither XPO, 3PD or Optima own the transportation assets. They merely find, qualify and route. The "work" is still outsourced to smaller delivery companies and therefore this would be more of an example of buy technology (along with getting very good people) versus buying transportation assets.
The big question this would leave is what happens to the rest of XPO? Is it just a carcass laying out there to be pecked at by private equity investors? Does Brad Jacobs still run it? Are the pieces as valuable as the whole? I think not. I think the value of each piece of XPO diminishes significantly as other pieces get sold off. This is why I believe splitting XPO up would be value destroying not value creating (unless, of course, the buyer of a piece is willing to either pay a huge premium for the portion they buy or be willing to immediately divest of certain portions of the "carcass")
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Amazon Final Mile - It is All About The Brand
UPS chose to be in denial by having the CEO say:
"We don't believe that Amazon's strategy is to do it themselves and the reason we believe that is we have this huge infrastructure, we're investing in technology, we have a great mutual relationship with them,"I think most of the analysis, and the response from Fed-Ex and UPS miss three critical points:
- Branding
- Capacity
- Drop Ship
Capacity: UPS and Fed-Ex have disappointed at the crunch seasons more than once and I believe Amazon is just sick of it. At some point you have to take destiny into your own hands and take control of it. Part of this is what stage the companies are at in their development. UPS and Fed-Ex are in the "protection of business" stage and Amazon is still in the "Grow.. grow.. grow " phase. What does this mean? It means UPS and Fed-Ex are big companies who only invest when they know 100% it is a "sure thing".
Amazon, on the other hand, is investing like mad. Therefore, UPS and Fed-Ex cannot keep up with the explosive growth and maintain all their other businesses. This shows itself in a lack of capacity at crunch times and so Amazon, as they always do, have taken their destiny into their own hands.
Drop Ship: In Amazon's statements what is also clear is they want to control the drop ship experience from vendor's warehouses. In this case the consumer orders from Amazon, the order is passed to a vendor, the vendor maintains the inventory and warehouses it but a Amazon truck picks it up and delivers to the customer. Think about this as the touch points the customer is directly involved in are:
- Order experience
- Delivery experience
- Payment experience
Friday, October 6, 2017
Why Do Supply Chain Transformations Fail - The Case for Change Management
What makes a transformation action great and what can cause them to fail? Obviously, you have to get the "supply chain technicals" correct. If you are redesigning the network, redesigning the fulfillment methods or moving to modern leading edge technology you will need to get the technicals right. However, my thesis is this is less than 1/2 of the success criteria. Once you have this right, the biggest challenge is change management. You will need to lead an entire company and team into the new environment and if this is not done well, all the technical genius in the world will not make your supply chain transformation work.
I am going to address this in a series of posts and this first post is going to cover the definition of change management. Daryl Connor in his book "Managing At The Speed of Change" defined it this way:
"Change management is a set of principles, techniques, and prescriptions applied to the human aspects of executing major change initiatives in organizational settings."For me, the key words for this are the "human aspects" of change. While we tend to be deep into the technology, more and more supply chain managers are forgetting the human aspects of change. When you try to transform a supply chain (or dare I use the term "disrupt") every person around you is thinking:
- Why do we have to change? Everything is working fine now and I like what "is". Why the change?
- What is my new role in the new environment? What skills will I need in this new world?
- Do we have the fortitude to "stick with it" or is this just another "flavor of the day"?
- Will this really make us industry leading?
- Is the rest of the enterprise supporting this change?
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Interesting Supply Chain Events from Week of August 21, 2017
- The war between Amazon and Walmart heats up with the use of Google Home: In Kevin O'Marah's great piece in Forbes (Google/Walmart: The Brutal Future of Retail Supply Chains) he discusses the impact of voice assisted purchasing. While some thought Amazon had this locked up, Walmart joins forces with Google and given Google's penetration into the virtual personal assistance market this may give Walmart an edge over Amazon. Other implications of this:
- Data flows directly from consumer to the manufacturer and could be the device that moves power back to the manufacturer and away from the retailer.
- Price discovery by the consumer will be faster and will result in a brutal retail environment.
- As Kevin states, if you are on a calendar based S&OP process, you may be too slow to adjust for what will be a rapidly changing consumer.
This war shows retailing is really a war over efficient supply chains.
- Lean is almost always in the news however when I see my good friend Robert Martichenko launching a new lean blog I jump up and notice. It is called "Lessons in Lean: Lessons in Leadership" and I will not repeat everything he is writing here. Suffice to say, everything Robert reads is worth reading, this blog is no exception and I encourage you to read it directly. Specifically, the post titled: Is Reflection a Lost Art was very impactful for me and I have taken actions in my own personal journey reflecting some of Robert's thoughts. It is a must read.
- More data supporting my previous post about leadership and being on the floor to lead and understand what is truly happening. In "What CEO's can Learn From Their Frontline Workers", Mark Dohnalek does a nice job outlining why being on the floor and listening is an important trait of CEOS and all leaders. It still is amazing to me how many CEOs spend more time in meetings than out in their facilities.
- CASS reported continued upward pressure on rates for a YoY basis and a MoM basis although the pace is slowing. I will write more about this however I will say we are still far below 2012 - 2015 and I personally think we are starting to get to a precarious position. A lot of investments and purchases are being made in anticipation of macro economic activity by the Feds (i.e., tax cuts which they call tax reform). If this does not happen (which I give about a 50/50 chance) we will find people have gone far in front of their skis. CCJ reports tonnage leveling out and conditions deteriorating.
CCJ Report on July Truck Tonnage - The race for fast delivery of big box products is heating up with rumors of Overstock wanting to take advantage of XPO's incredible final mile delivery network. While Overstock declined any agreement has been reached, I am just not sure how you execute fast delivery of things such as appliances and furniture without engaging XPO. Bradley Jacobs, XPO CEO plans on being within 120 miles of 90% of the US population by the end of 2018. Tough to find another competitor who can do that.
- The Inventory to Sales Ratio in the economy was updated last week and while we had been enjoying some good news, you can see it has turned and started to rise again. This could be due to the holiday inventory stock up, which is being reported as being very robust and then again, it may not be. More to come on this.
Inventory to Sales Raio - Updated August 15, 2017
Friday, August 25, 2017
Leadership Still Counts in Supply Chain
- Treat everyone with dignity and respect... always.
- Help people look to leaders to solve problems not just point them out.
- Lead from the front and on the floor. You cannot be a great leader sitting in an office. In fact, ditch the office as it is too tempting to hide out there.
- Be visible always. If you have 3 shifts then you have to work third shift as much as you work first. If you can't or are unwilling to do that then you cannot lead a 3 shift operation. That simple.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate... every day that goes by where you are not communicating, a gap is being created, a void appears and the associates fill the void with rumor and innuendo.
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Cyber Attacks: How We Have Moved From Corporate Espionage to Corporate Warfare
You should read this article and understand the points of vulnerability in your supply chain for cyber attacks:
- Aggregators and Service Providers: You may have a process which you are not even aware of where data goes from you to a third party, it is manipulated, then sent back to you. Simple process. But if that third party is not certified and is rendered useless by an attack it can shut your processes down. Think about it this way:
- You are using a third party company to take demand information and create a production forecast and schedule.
- That schedule or forecast is then fed back to you and input into your MRP.
- The third party is attached by cyber criminals
- Your production shuts down. - Tier II and Tier III Suppliers: There is a reason they are able to cut costs and sell to you cheaper. There is something they no longer are doing. Don't let them compromise on cyber security and you need to follow up and check and check. If their plant goes down, the JIT supply chain goes down with it.
- Think Global: Remember, your suppliers have suppliers in countries you may not be able to point out on a map. Make sure you can map out your supply chain then overlay a heat map of where cyber attacks come from. This will help you identify your vulnerabilities.
If Your Supply Chain is Not Customer Centric - You Are Dead
- Stop Talking About Cutting Costs and Start Talking About Increasing Revenue: The stereotypical supply chain manager prides themselves on cutting costs. They talk about taking inventory out, moving to cheaper modes of transportation, consolidating warehouses or, God forbid, outsourcing to get cheaper labor.
What they don't talk about is "How can I make the supply chain better to get products to the customer faster so we can drive sales". Yet, this is the question they should be asking and this is the question the Amazon supply chain managers think about every day. If you want to know what a "cost centric" supply chain looks like, look no further than Sears. They are cutting costs right out of business. - Get Supply Chain Managers Closer to The Sales Force: If your supply chain managers are not on the road with sales people periodically, meeting with customers and listening to the nuances of what they want, you are not a customer centric supply chain. I have met a lot of supply chain leaders who say they are customer centric and then I ask them to name (by name, not company) 5 customers who are in a position to buy their product (not the logistics people of the customer company but the actual customer) and they almost never can do it.
Also, if you are selling to an intermediary (i.e., MFG selling to retailer) don't forget the ultimate customer is the consumer not the intermediary. The intermediary is only going to buy your product if the consumer is pulling it through the channel. Because of this, you have to understand the real needs of the consumer. - Velocity is a Weapon: Customers and consumers want speed. When supply chain managers cut costs that is generally a euphemism for cutting speed. It generally means, buffering inventory, slower transportation modes, conducting mode shifts by "trapping freight" and building truckloads etc. Make no mistake, these are all revenue and sales killers. Speed wins!
- Look to the Future: Don't build your supply chain for today! Look to the future. What will customers and consumers want in the future and ensure your supply chain can flex to the future. This is one of Amazon's super secret sauces. 10 years ago who would have believed people would pay $100 per year to get access to 2 day or next day delivery? The only company that did was Amazon which left others far behind - in some cases so far behind they can never catch up.
- Listen to the Language Your Company Uses and Change it!: Here is what I mean: When Amazon discusses customer service they say, "2 day delivery". When others discuss it (and I have heard a lot of retailers say this) they say "next day shipping". Notice the nuance here? Amazon's statement is customer centric - when will the customer receive it. The other statement is internally focused - when will I ship it. This is a critical difference and it highlights the issue.
Monday, July 31, 2017
Amazon Doesn't Kill Businesses - Ignoring Customer Needs Does
I am going to formulate a more detailed post on this tonight and I think this is a topic needing coverage. It is all about how Amazon got where they are.
The central point: Don't blame Amazon for killing retail. Amazon was and still is insanely focused on the customer which causes them to innovate around CUSTOMER needs and not internal politics.
While other companies are trying to figure out how to cut out value for the customer to improve costs, Amazon figured out what will "wow" the customer and then figured out how to do this at an acceptable cost.
If others would get maniacal about serving the customer, they could compete. The funny thing is most won't do it.
Saturday, July 29, 2017
The Week in Review - ELDs, Amazon (again), Foxconn, Border Adjustment Tax - Dead, and Drivers
- Foxconn - Beside being a great job growth engine what does this really mean for those in the supply chain? As you probably heard, Foxconn, the mammoth supplier for Apple and other electronics companies has decided to put a large plant in SE Wisconsin. This will clearly generate jobs, will bring sub suppliers to the region and will make the drive from Chicago to Milwaukee a nightmare given the number of trucks that will move from the Chicago intermodal yards North.
But, the real finding here is that the cost of production in the US is starting to come in balance with the equation of foreign manufacturing. The "equation of foreign manufacturing" includes the following components: Cost of MFG + Cost to move to port + cost of ocean / air + Cost to move from Port inland + GLOBAL GEOPOLITICAL RISK + SPEED + INVENTORY CARRYING COST. The last few I have capitalized because these are normally considered "soft costs" (and therefore get ignored by many at their own peril).
More will come and the "heartland" of America is where they will go due to transportation and now labor costs. If you are a cartage company and haul boxes out of the Chicago rail yards, this is a happy day for you! - The Border Adjustment Tax is Dead - This was sold and designed to adjust the cost of goods coming over the borders to be roughly equal to the cost of manufacturing in the US. It was to penalize those companies who move out of the US for the purpose of evading items such as labor laws, environmental laws etc. When it was first proposed the stocks of those supply chain companies benefiting from cross border activity tanked. Well, as they say, if you wait long enough good things will come. The border adjustment tax is dead. If you make your money moving products across borders and from the ports your money is safe.
- ELDs are Dead, No They are Alive, No They Are Dead... This continues to be a back and forth. For the the life of me, I cannot understand why the industry is against this as it will level the playing field between those who cheat and break the law and those who try to run a lawful company. But, alas, it appears a lot of people are against it. Despite 21 Congressman co-sponsoring a bill to delay the mandate for one year, the prevailing wisdom this week is the delay is dead and ELDS will go in as mandated.
- Amazon Files Patent for Underwater Warehouses - I am going to leave this alone and just say nothing amazes me anymore. I will need to have a lot more thought about this and conversation before I fully understand why you would want to put stuff underwater. Is land that expensive? Are the rich going to start moving to offshore locations which will need to be serviced from the sea? Who knows.
- Drivers - Hire Felons? - My guess is when you first saw this you figured I had lost my mind and this is the craziest thing you have heard of. I now ask you to take your emotion hat off and put on your thinking cap. Forget the social arguments, the fact is we have millions of non violent felons in this country who are no longer incarcerated. There is a shortage of almost 200K drivers. The solution seems like a match made in heaven. That courier driver you had who just delivered a package to your door? Today, he could absolutely be a prior felon. Why not allow a non violent felon deliver to a warehouse dock?
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Amazon and Kenmore - A Match Made in Heaven
It is incredible it took this long for the marriage made in heaven to happen. Kenmore is the crown jewel of Sears and Amazon has always wanted to capture appliance sales. But how? The logistics are daunting.
Enter Kenmore and enter Sears Logistics (SLS). I have always said, the best logistics company in the country is "buried" inside Sears. This has been my contention for over 10 years. SLS had perfected final mile, especially final mile for big box items, long before "final mile" was fashionable or an industry.
Ask your parents if you don't believe me. A SLS person delivering to your home has been a staple for years.
Now, combine this with the Amazon order platform and the comfort and reliability of Kenmore and you have a powerhouse.
More to come on this but if Amazon uses SLS they have picked up an incredible scoop. And, soon, they will just buy the Kenmore brand, bring SLS with it and use the few Sears stores left as showrooms.
Sunday, July 9, 2017
Inventories Are Heading in The Right Direction
Recently, a lot has been made about the current measurement decreasing (ever so slightly). As you can see below, they had been going down for most of 2016 and now have stayed steady in 2017:
Inventory to Sales Ratio through June 14, 2017 |
As a supply chain professional I also tend to cringe when I see the contents of this graph. To discuss this, let's ask ourselves why we have inventory in the first place. Two key tenets of supply chain management:
- Inventory at rest is a bad thing: Said a different way, bad things happen to inventory. It can become obsolete, spoil (in the case of food), get lost, stolen or damaged. When inventory rests, you should see opportunity.
- Inventory exists as a buffer for lack of information: In a world where you have perfect information (i.e, perfect forecast, perfect purchase signals, perfect transportation signals) you have little need for inventory. Given this, more inventory relative to your sales indicates your progress in S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning) information accuracy is stalling. You are not improving this information flow, rather, you are making it worse which drives inventory levels.
Friday, June 30, 2017
What A Month May Was For Transportation
- YoY shipments are up 7.1%
- YoY expenditures are up 7.4%
Monday, June 26, 2017
Welcome Back Wal-Mart - We Missed You Over the Last 5 Years.
But then I re-read an article I posted in March of 2013 titled, "The Battle for Retail is Really The Battle of Supply Chains". In this article I opined that the big retailers are all essentially selling the same products, many of which have been or very quickly are commoditized. This means the real value add of a retailer is in their supply chain.
I also concluded in this article that Wal-Mart should be able to kill Amazon as they already have the bricks and mortars along with the capability of great e-commerce. Finally, I concluded that due to the age old issue of The Innovators Dilemma which was created by Clayton Christensen in his seminal book of the same name. Unfortunately, for the last 4 years, and for Wal-Mart, my prediction came true.
The good news is Wal-Mart, like the sleeping giant, has now been awoken. With its purchase of Jet.com it admitted it needed great e-commerce and, in the same transaction, admitted it could not do this on its own. The big behemoth could not innovate so it had to buy. That is OK as it is at least now on the path to competing with Amazon.
But then a funny thing happened. Amazon admitted it could not grow bricks and mortars fast enough in the grocery space to compete so it made a bold purchase. In this purchase, Bezos is essentially admitting he wants to move a little more towards a Wal-Mart model and also showed, in this purchase, the only reason Wal-Mart has not crushed Amazon is due to lack of execution and lack of strategic foresight.
Well, no more. I believe Wal-Mart truly has awoke and they are starting to adjust their supply chain very quickly to mirror a "be where ever the customer is" retailer. This means if you are out and need something quickly, you can pull into your Wal-Mart and get it. If you want to order on line and have it shipped, you can do that. If you want to avoid shipping charges, you can buy on line and pick it up in the store. Basically, any configuration of how the consumer wants to interact to get the products she needs, Wal-Mart will be there. Wal-Mart can ship from DCs or from any of its 4,177 stores of which 3,275 are super centers. Wow! Wouldn't Amazon love to have that footprint.
If Wal-Mart executes they have a chance of beating Amazon. I recently used Wal-Mart on line to buy a UPS for my computer. It was a great experience, shipped fast and was less expensive than Amazon.
I do think the speciality retailer is dead. Consumers want the "endless aisle" that Amazon and Wal-Mart provide. They do not want to bounce around to 100 different websites to find what they want.
Wal-Mart can do everything Amazon can do (or they should be able to do it) yet Amazon cannot come close to all the capabilities of a Wal-Mart. If I were investing, the only stock I would buy in the retail space is Wal-Mart. I would then go to their shareholders meeting and scream two phrases: "Wake Up" and "Execute"!
Welcome back Wal-Mart - I missed you!