B2B for the retail supply chain
Each January, I look forward to my pilgrimage to the Big Apple to attend the annual conference hosted by the National Retail Federation (NRF). It is a rare opportunity to hear from many of the industry’s best and brightest across a wide array of retail formats. The theme of this year BIG SHOW was “Retail’s [...]
Read More»In an effort to provide consumers opportunities to engage with retailers anytime and anywhere, companies are turning to creative methods for managing purchase orders to maximize their product offerings and availability, while continuing to manage the risk associated with carrying too much inventory. Retailers offer products through their web sites and mobile applications that cannot [...]
Read More»Over the past twenty-five years, the retail and consumer products industries have a proven track record of working well together to develop community-based standards to help improve business-to-business communications. From their broad adoption of EDI, data synchronization, carton labeling, and other best practices, I would argue that they serve as a terrific example of how [...]
Read More»The Advance Ship Notice (ASN) continues to get a bad rap within the B2B community. I agree that is a difficult document to implement, but largely because it is responsible for carrying some of the most critical event-based supply chain data. Buying organizations want and need to know all the specifics about product movement so they can [...]
Read More»Last week, the Global Upstream Supply Initiative (GUSI) European implementation team had a meeting in Paris. And while I spent several hours trying to get around Paris due to a train operators’ strike and a complete shortage of taxis, it is clear that GUSI is pushing full steam ahead to pursue deeper adoption, both within the [...]
Read More»In previous years, the influence in retail rested with the big brands. Large consumer goods, apparel, and footwear manufacturers were driving the market with robust advertising and dominant messaging (see: Nike). Then the baton changed hands and we saw tier 1 retailers taking over with broad and deep private label programs, strong marketing messages, and even stronger [...]
Read More»Most parents are probably familiar with some version of the saying that I adapted for this post. Though never levied against me by my own offspring (under threat of severe punishment, I’m sure), I’ve heard it often enough as part of the social banter between kids on the school campus and around town. Children ages 9-12 have [...]
Read More»During my formative years, my mother worked in a grocery store. Given that she was the store bookkeeper, she used her great number-crunching skills to great advantage when it came to the end of her shift and time for her to complete her household shopping. In addition, she had inside contacts within every store department, so [...]
Read More»With Earth Day rapidly approaching, it seems reasonable to expect that I’d like to take a look at how the earth is moving under the feet of the retail industry. It’s no surprise that across all sectors of retailing and consumer products manufacturing, companies have embarked on sustainability initiatives. Most believe that saving money (it’s [...]
Read More»A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the National Retail Federation (NRF) Big Show. It is always unforgettable to make the pilgrimage to New York City in January for this annual event. This year, not only was the show content relevant, exciting and thorough, but the weather was sunny and bright. It [...]
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