Author Archives: Teddy Nee

Walmart Partnering With Uber, Lyft and Deliv to Test Grocery Delivery Service

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Walmart is partnering with Uber and Lyft (and Deliv) to test a grocery delivery service, in a bid to directly compete with similar offerings from Amazon.

The pilot program will begin within the next two weeks in Denver and one other market, Michael Bender, Walmart’s head of e-commerce, said in a blog post this week.

A Walmart spokesman tells The Wall Street Journal that the service will launch in Denver and Phoenix. Company CEO Doug McMillon will discuss the program at Walmart’s annual shareholder meeting on Friday.

A last-mile delivery program would mark a direct challenge to Amazon, which has expanded its AmazonFresh grocery delivery service to several cities across the US.

Walmart launched a similar pilot program in Miami earlier this year, partnering with the delivery startup Deliv to provide groceries and other products from Sam’s Club.

The company has been looking to boost its e-commerce services to compete with Amazon, including an online order pickup program that aims to capitalize on its vast network of US retail locations.

Read more at Walmart Partnering With Uber, Lyft and Deliv to Test Grocery Delivery Service

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Automating Big-Data Analysis and Replacing Human Intuition with Algorithms

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Big-data analysis consists of searching for buried patterns that have some kind of predictive power.

But choosing which “features” of the data to analyze usually requires some human intuition.

In a database containing, say, the beginning and end dates of various sales promotions and weekly profits, the crucial data may not be the dates themselves but the spans between them, or not the total profits but the averages across those spans.

MIT researchers aim to take the human element out of big-data analysis, with a new system that not only searches for patterns but designs the feature set, too.

To test the first prototype of their system, they enrolled it in three data science competitions, in which it competed against human teams to find predictive patterns in unfamiliar data sets.

Of the 906 teams participating in the three competitions, the researchers’ “Data Science Machine” finished ahead of 615.

In two of the three competitions, the predictions made by the Data Science Machine were 94 percent and 96 percent as accurate as the winning submissions.

In the third, the figure was a more modest 87 percent. But where the teams of humans typically labored over their prediction algorithms for months, the Data Science Machine took somewhere between two and 12 hours to produce each of its entries.

“We view the Data Science Machine as a natural complement to human intelligence,” says James Max Kanter, whose MIT master’s thesis in computer science is the basis of the Data Science Machine.

Read more at Automating Big-Data Analysis and Replacing Human Intuition with Algorithms

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The Future Of Performance Management Is Not One-Size-Fits-All

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In 2013, CEB research found that 86% of organizations had recently made significant changes to their performance management system, or were planning to. In 2014, a Deloitte survey found that 58% percent of companies surveyed did not think performance management was an effective use of time, and many media outlets jumped on the opportunity to air their grievances.

Finally, the rising wave of discontent seemed to crash in 2015, as a slew of large organizations like GE, Accenture, Netflix, and Adobe all scrapped their age-old annual performance management processes in favor of more continuous feedback systems. And many others followed suit.

But, was it the right move for everyone?

Last summer, I wrote an article on this topic myself, urging business leaders to really consider the implications of following these organizations. The issue, in my opinion, is not that these organizations did something wrong. Rather, the risk is that many leaders misinterpreted these stories to mean that they should abandon performance management altogether.

One thing is clear: the future of performance management in the American workplace is still very much in question.

For more insight into this important topic, I recently sat down with a handful of thought leaders in the performance management space, including Rob Ollander-Krane, Senior Director of Organizational Performance Effectiveness at Gap, Inc., Nigel Adams, Global Chief Talent Officer at Razorfish Global, and Amy Herrbold, Senior Director of Organizational Development at Kellogg. Together, we discussed the future of performance management to understand, from their perspective, why changes to this process are long overdue.

Read more at The Future Of Performance Management Is Not One-Size-Fits-All

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Managing the Risks of Multinational Supply Chains

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Managing supply chain risks is critical to the success of any business.

Although, the importance of supply chain risk management is perhaps most clear in Asia Pacific with its high growth rate, shifting industry trends, increasingly sophisticated consumers and expanding businesses.

An Overview

With these marketplace dynamics comes greater interconnectivity of multinational risks. According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Asia Pacific includes nine of the world’s top 15 countries importing and exporting intermediate goods.

Companies in the region depend upon goods and services from companies in other countries in order to successfully operate their businesses, and vice versa. As the region becomes more interconnected and trade flows continue to increase, protecting valuable supply chains from both existing and new risks becomes critical to the success of companies based there.

However, managing these risks can be challenging. Today’s supply chains are becoming deeper and spread over more countries. Knowing exactly what, where and how connections can impact a company’s business can be difficult.

It is not uncommon for companies to have supply chains that go down several layers, beginning with one supplier or distributor which is dependent upon a second, which in turn depends upon a third and so on. A problem at any of these levels has the potential to disrupt a company’s business operations.

As a colleague of mine once explained: “You are only as good as your weakest link.” So it is important to have clear line of sight to all of the links in a company’s supply chain. Typically, issues such as quality control and incomplete or late delivery are top of mind when considering problems with the potential to disrupt a supply chain. There is another risk that is often underestimated, but can be equally as damaging – financial failure.

Read more at Managing the Risks of Multinational Supply Chains

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5 Critical Supply Risk Mitigation Principles for Your Sourcing Process

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Supply chain risk management (SCRM) is becoming a top priority in procurement, as organizations lose millions because of cost volatility, supply disruption, non-compliance fines and incidents that cause damage to the organizational brand and reputation.
Bribes to shady government officials, salmonella in the spinach and forced labor in the supply chain can all result in brand-damaging headlines that can cost an organization tens of millions in sales and hundred of millions in brand damage. And while reputation may only be important for name brands, cost volatility and supply disruption affect all manufacturers.

In fact, in the latest 2015 study by the Business Continuity Institute, supply chain disruption doubled in priority relative to other enterprise disruptions (48% of firms are concerned or extremely concerned). Roughly three-quarters of respondents said they had at least one disruption, and the same amount lack full visibility of their supply chains.

In the same study, 14% had losses from supply chain disruptions (e.g., natural hazards, labor strikes, fires, etc.) that cost over €1 million, and these disruptions can easily go up to nine figures. For example, Toyota estimates the costs for the recent Kumamoto earthquakes to be nearly $300 million. Imagine being out of stock on a product line that does $12 million in annual sales for two months. That’s $2 million in immediate lost sales and longer-term brand damage.

Risk management, and what is necessary for ongoing risk management, never gets operationalized, and as new suppliers get added, supply shifts and supply chains change, new risk enters the picture — risks that go undetected unless risk management is embedded in all key procurement activities, including sourcing. It is important to remember that:

1. When You are Sourcing, You are Really Changing Your Supply Chain Network

2. Supplier Risk is Only One Aspect of Supply Chain Risk

3. Your Sourcing Criteria Must Be ‘Protected’ and Risk Must Be Factored In

4. You Need to Cost the Risk” and Also Get It in the Contract

5. You Must Design a Monitoring System That is Part of Onboarding

Read more at 5 Critical Supply Risk Mitigation Principles for Your Sourcing Process

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Automating Big-Data Analysis and Replacing Human Intuition with Algorithms

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A new and unique computer system from MIT has outperformed human intuition using its algorithms, and it’s amazing, and perhaps a little frightening: the Data Science Machine beat out over 600 human teams in finding predictive analysis.

Big-data analysis consists of searching for buried patterns that have some kind of predictive power.

But choosing which “features” of the data to analyze usually requires some human intuition.

In a database containing, say, the beginning and end dates of various sales promotions and weekly profits, the crucial data may not be the dates themselves but the spans between them, or not the total profits but the averages across those spans.

MIT researchers aim to take the human element out of big-data analysis, with a new system that not only searches for patterns but designs the feature set, too.

To test the first prototype of their system, they enrolled it in three data science competitions, in which it competed against human teams to find predictive patterns in unfamiliar data sets.

Of the 906 teams participating in the three competitions, the researchers’ “Data Science Machine” finished ahead of 615.

In two of the three competitions, the predictions made by the Data Science Machine were 94 percent and 96 percent as accurate as the winning submissions.

In the third, the figure was a more modest 87 percent. But where the teams of humans typically labored over their prediction algorithms for months, the Data Science Machine took somewhere between two and 12 hours to produce each of its entries.

Read more at Automating Big-Data Analysis and Replacing Human Intuition with Algorithms

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NFL Draft Lessons for Supply Chain Managers

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Just like with successful football game play, having a well-developed modal selection strategy helps organizations defend against capacity concerns and score points for their bottom line by lowering transportation costs.

Every year, the NFL draft provides coaches an opportunity to re-evaluate their teams and supplement their current roster with new players to fill skill or position gaps and prepare their franchise for the future.

In a similar way, supply chain managers have the opportunity, on an ongoing basis, to review their transportation portfolio to ensure they have the right modes and processes in play to not only address the demands and the environment of today, but to face the challenges of tomorrow.

Read on to learn three important lessons supply chain leaders can learn from this year’s NFL Draft and how it applies to calling winning plays for their organization’s transportation network.

The Challenge for Supply Chain Managers

Much like NFL coaches, supply chain managers find themselves having to balance short and long term demands. Managing the demand between these two competing forces is fueled by:

  1. Ongoing disruptions: Whether on the football field or in the supply chain, disruptions can and will occur. It can be easy when everything goes according to plan, but when volatility and the unexpected cause disruption (and they always do) supply chain managers have to have a backup plan.
  2. Short-term cost-savings still primary focus: Organizations are still pressing supply chain managers to deliver more value and additional cost savings. According to a survey completed by Georgia College and the University of Tennessee, 36.7% of shippers listed reducing costs as their first priority in 2015, up from 32.2% in 2016.

Read more at NFL Draft Lessons for Supply Chain Managers

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The Key to Analytics: Ask the Right Questions

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People think analytics is about getting the right answers. In truth, it’s about asking the right questions.

Analysts can find the answer to just about any question. So, the difference between a good analyst and a mediocre one is the questions they choose to ask. The best questions test long-held assumptions about what makes the business tick. The answers to these questions drive concrete changes to processes, resulting in lower costs, higher revenue, or better customer service.

Often, the obvious metrics don’t correlate with sought-after results, so it’s a waste of time focusing on them, says Ken Rudin, general manager of analytics at Zynga and a keynote speaker at TDWI’s upcoming BI Executive Summit in San Diego on August 16-18.

Challenge Assumptions

For instance, many companies evaluate the effectiveness of their Web sites by calculating the number of page hits. Although a standard Web metric, total page hits often doesn’t correlate with higher profits, revenues, registrations, or other business objectives. So, it’s important to dig deeper, to challenge assumptions rather than take them at face value. For example, a better Web metric might be the number of hits that come from referral sites (versus search engines) or time spent on the Web site or time spent on specific pages.

TDWI Example. Here’s another example closer to home. TDWI always mails conference brochures 12 weeks before an event. Why? No one really knows; that’s how it’s always been done. Ideally, we should conduct periodic experiments. Before one event, we should send a small set of brochures 11 weeks beforehand and another small set 13 weeks prior. And while we’re at it, we should test the impact of direct mail versus electronic delivery on response rates.

Read more at The Key to Analytics: Ask the Right Questions

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Capitalizing on Cross-Docking

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Today’s marketplace is moving faster than ever, and companies are challenged to distribute their products more quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively; cross-docking can be a useful tool to help keep pace with customer demand.

While cross-docking is not a new phenomenon, this process of moving material from the receiving dock straight to the shipping dock is gaining traction as more companies recognize its value in today’s competitive business environment.

Why Cross-Dock?
Companies choose to cross-dock for a variety of reasons.

Common benefits include:

Increased speed to market – With high turn rates and reduced handling, cross-docking helps to increase efficiency and get products to market faster. While typically associated with durable goods, cross-docking can be effective for temperature-controlled, perishable and high-value/high-security products as well, thanks to its high velocity.

Reduced costs – Cross-docking requires a smaller footprint than traditional warehousing and often utilizes less labor as well. The practice also eliminates the cost of inventory and product rotation. Considerable freight savings can be achieved by consolidating LTL shipments into full loads.

Improved service levels – Because product is shipped in bulk and picked at the cross-dock, the practice offers great flexibility for changes to orders further down the supply chain. This helps to ensure a more accurate – and more responsive – process with shorter order cycles.

Prime Candidates for Cross-Docking
Just about any type of product can be cross-docked, but cross-docking is particularly effective for companies that are moving heavy volume on any given day and need to do it in a precise way where service is critical.

Read more at Capitalizing on Cross-Docking

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Six Lessons In Supply Chain Strategy From Genghis Khan

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Supply chain strategy can be a squishy topic. Basically, we try to keep costs down and service up, but what does this really say about how to win in a competitive business? Working harder at the same things is not a sustainable strategic advantage.

True strategy means finding ways to use and combine tactics and resources to achieve a goal in conditions of uncertainty. For supply chain leaders, it demands thinking laterally about everything that happens from the customer back and then placing bets to gain an operational edge.

In addition to modern thinkers like Peter Drucker and Michael Porter, some of the best lessons on this topic come directly from the playbook of Genghis Khan, the 13th century Mongol who conquered nearly all of Eurasia.

Here are six that apply today.

1. Use the skills of others.

The Mongols made no products, farmed no crops, and built no buildings, but still saw the value of engineers, miners, doctors and scholars.

2. Communication is essential to power.

Having armies spread over thousands of miles led Genghis Khan to establish a sort of Pony Express that was designed and maintained centrally.

3. Embrace technology.

In the year 1206, when Genghis Khan was born, his tribe had no metal and lived in felt tents. Fifty years later, they had mastered siege technologies like catapults and trebuchets as well as early firearms and cannon.

4. Never stop learning.

Genghis Khan’s genius was not the result of some epiphany but came rather, in the words of biographer Jack Weatherford, “from a persistent cycle of pragmatic learning, experimental adaptation, and constant revision”.

5. Cherish diversity.

A typically among history’s great empires, the Mongols allowed complete religious freedom and employed almost all of their conquered peoples’ best minds in the imperial administration.

6. Swallow your pride.

Genghis Khan cared nothing for appearances and would often feign retreat to draw enemies onto more favourable ground.

Read more at Six Lessons In Supply Chain Strategy From Genghis Khan

Did any of those lessons attract your attention? What do you think? Share your opinions with us in the comment box, and subscribe to get updates in your inbox.

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