Supply Chain Hungry for Legal Tool Innovation

Technology changes quickly. Other fields, such as legal and finance, are comparatively slow to evolve. (A friend’s daughter recently told me she chose the finance discipline for that reason: to avoid having to constantly learn new technologies.) Changes do come though, especially as organizations move to keep up with financial reporting requirements. At the same time, technologist know that if you miss one technology way, it’s possible to catch the next one successfully.  In 1999,…

Ownership is Everything: The Data Integrous System of Record

Our actions and decisions are only as good as the data we use to rule them. That being true, when designing complicated systems, ensure the integrity of the data set involved becomes enormously important. Obviously, the data that resides in a system should be accurate. However, it also needs to have integrity, which means consistent and not unnecessarily redundant. A good data set is invaluable. Done well, it puts all of the data elements in…

The Power of Music in Supply Chain

Conventional wisdom dictates that a picture is worth a thousand words and stories are worth a thousand pictures. I believe that…and I use stories in my presentation regularly. Of course, picking the right story is critical to making the biggest impact. Sometimes, though, I have an audience that speaks a completely different language. How do you communicate to inspire then? I think the answer is music. My daughter has been singing since she was five,…

Foster a Culture of Innovation in the Supply Chain

(Source: Pixabay) “Culture will eat strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, anytime.” This was the first sentence that the professor of marketing and strategy uttered during our first MBA class at Georgia Tech. He underlined his point with the story of how Kellogg’s tried to conquer the Indian market with its breakfast cereal. The company was trying to sell corn flakes with cold milk as breakfast in the Indian market, a culture that eats a warm…

iPad Pro Not Ready for Supply Chain Prime Time

Source: Apple When Apple introduced the iPad Pro, I was intrigued by the technology, and I could clearly see opportunity for the device in the supply chain. Unfortunately, a handful of limitations remain that will hold adoption back and keep organizations with tried and true PCs instead. Lack of browser compatibility Enterprises cannot get rid of the PC easily even if they want to. The reality is that many enterprise applications, especially browser-based apps, are coded…

Connectivity & IoT Create Greater Supply Chain Data Collection Options

Image courtesy: Amazon The Internet will disappear. There will be so many IP addresses, so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with, that you won’t even sense it. It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room….

Newest Supply Chain Paradigm Shift Hits Retail

In 1997, I had a half-day training with the leader of the multinational company I had just joined in Bangalore. He started with a story from Steven Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People about paradigm shift: One morning on a subway in New York, people were sitting quietly – some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly, a man and his…

Bots May be the Next Big Supply Chain Invasion

I ran into a bot for the very first time back in the year 2000. These computer programs ideally automate tasks normally handled by humans. For me, the bot streamlined a shopping task. At the time, it blew my mind. I was heading out on a business trip to the Netherlands, and I wanted to capture the trip in pictures with a new camera. My job was to support the roll-out of a warehouse management…

Fast Charging Comes to Maturity to Support Supply Chain Tasks

Photo courtesy: Samsung Google announced its Pixel phone bragging that it could last up to seven hours after a 15-minute charge. How cool is that? You don’t need to go through a miserable day if (or maybe more truthfully when) you forget to charge your phone the night before. I know from experience. When I had an iPhone 5, it would be a hard day if I missed charging before I went to sleep. Then, I got…

Software-centric World Takes Over Supply Chain

In the summer between high school and college, I got to tour with my Dad in the mountains of Western Ghats in South India. His job was to ensure the communication infrastructure that was supporting a network of hydroelectric power projects in that area ran without a hitch. One plant, called the Kadamparai Hydroelectric Pumped Storage Power Plant, was a unique project. The plant could be run in two modes: as a generator or in pump…