Competitiveness – From Culture to Business

July 18, 2009August 15, 2012

How Supply Chain Service Drives Customer’s Loyalty – My customer Experience with Zappos

Being a supply chain professional, the “sad” thing is that I always translate my real life experience into supply chain practices and theories. This time, I would like to tell a story of my Zappos ordering experience and how I see their supply chain service.

I was shopping for a pair of shoes for my wedding. I didn’t buy the shoes from a local store because I wanted to find something cheaper. The first thought coming to my mind for online shoes shopping is Zappos, which can explain the good reputation of Zappos being the leader of online shoes shopping.

The goal of supply chain management is to provide the right product at the right place with right price. Online shopping eliminates the barrier of place, but it requires an efficient delivery. On their easy to navigate website, I found the style of shoes I was looking for at a discounted price (supply chain theory: availability of right product at right price). It showed three pairs in stock for my size, so I placed my order online. In 10 minutes after completing the entire transaction, I felt I should have waited to search more options, so I wanted to cancel the order. Then I realized Zappos didn’t provide me the option to cancel online. I had to call their 24 hours customer service hotline. With my professional habit, I also measured how long I was waiting while calling customer service, roughly 30 seconds. Since 24-hour service is provided, the waiting time of less than one minute is more than acceptable, although I wished they provided me the option of online cancellation to eliminate my call to their CS.

Shortly after I cancelled the order, I decided to order the shoes again. What an unpredictable customer behavior…However, when I tried to place a new order online, I noticed that their stock availability became two. My supply chain instinct told me that their stock availability was not updated simultaneously when my first order was cancelled. I decided to call CS and see if they could reactive my old order, instead of placing a new one.

Samantha in CS answered my call (now she @samiamquinn is my twitter follower @BettyFeng and following because of my tweet about Zappos CS). Over the phone, I could feel her warm personality and joyful smile, totally contradictory to the cold voice of a CS from CHASE credit card I recently experienced. She placed a new order for me and upgraded my order to VIP for next business day delivery. Samantha explained that since my order was placed after cutoff time, I should receive my order on Monday morning. As someone working in logistics, I fully understood what cutoff time meant, so I didn’t expect my order to be batch processed until the next morning and picked up by their carrier UPS at the end of the next day.

To my surprise, I received shoes from Zappos the next morning! I have shopped online many times before but never experienced such quick delivery. As a regular customer with knowledge of supply chain management, Zappos order processing and fulfillment amazed me. The order was placed at 10:30pm in the night, shipped out of the Zappos warehouse in Shepherdsville, KY, and delivered to my home in Orlando, FL at 11:15am the next day. The whole process can be illustrated as the following:

The email time stamp of order shipping confirmation was 2:30am, so it’s from a 24 hours operated warehouse. I looked up all of flights from Louisville to Orlando in the early morning for more insight. It seems only the flight was leaving at 5:46am and arriving at 10:03am could make the final delivery at 11:15am.

Needless to say, with my knowledge in order management, I understand how many activities and challenges are behind this 13-hour process from order to delivery. The speed of order processing and delivery is something extraordinary. For regular order processing, it normally takes one or even two days lead-time to let the system batch process customer orders and check their credit, then have the warehouse pack the product and ship it out by the end of the business day. Below are three key components to enable Zappos make a delivery at such speed:

24 hours customer service. I’m guessing Samantha in CS kindly manually processed my credit and dropped my order to a delivery request. Generally the late night order is after the cut-off time so it’s unlikely to have been processed by a system batch job.
24 hours warehouse operation. This is the most important factor for their incredible speed. Without 24 hours operation in the warehouse, the delivery request will not be picked, packed and shipped by early morning for a late night order.
Close partner relationship with UPS for early morning pick-up, or multiple pick-ups in a day. This is most likely the reason why Zappos’ warehouse is located close to UPS’ main global hub in Louisville, KY.

Like Zappos’ logo indicated: powered by service. Zappos uses customer service as their brand to achieve customer loyalty, especially when customers have a lot of choices. Zappos demonstrated to me an exceptional example of customer service not only through their CS rep, but also through their supply chain. Their supply chain system and management for order fulfillment is overall robust and agile, except the fact that I can’t cancel an order online and their stock availability can’t be updated immediately after order cancelation. I mentioned in my earlier article that supply chain is a revenue driver, because supply chain services of order fulfillment and on-time delivery directly impact customer satisfaction and loyalty. I know the case I just experienced with Zappos was extraordinary, but you can expect that I will be their long term customer after such a great experience and will happily recommend Zappos to others. I also believe that a company willing to do extraordinary things for their customers with a higher standard of supply chain service will be competitive and successful for the long term.

July 13, 2009August 15, 2012

Identify Hidden Costs From Total Acquisition Cost

For any rational consumer who makes a purchasing decision for a product or service, total acquisition cost (TAC) is often part of the decision process. The goal is to obtain the best product or service with the least total costs for the long term. These kind of decisions happen every day in our daily life, from a decision whether we should buy energy saving light bulbs, to a more expensive but gas efficient car, or to a much more pricey new house but with much less requirement of future maintenance. In the business world, the theory is the same.

The definition of Total Acquisition Cost (TAC) can vary. But generally speaking, TAC in supply chain management should be the sum of total costs associated with receiving and using of a product or service, including ordering administration costs, ordering size costs, product costs, inbound shipping costs, assembling or conversion costs, quality costs and maintenance costs. Unfortunately, many companies tend to focus on product costs and quality costs as their procurement success measurement, which are obvious and easy to measure and capture, but overlook other hidden costs in TAC.

In this article, I will use two examples to explain where we can identify some hidden costs from total acquisition cost.

Logistics costs as hidden cost

This is a very straight forward case of embedded cost analysis for the company using vendor managed inventory (VMI). The analysis is simple but requires significant trust, transparency, and collaboration between the company and their suppliers. The suppliers are asked to breakdown cost components for VMI raw materials as below:

Product costs
Shipping costs
Revolver hub costs (warehouse costs)

The embedded costs are hence broken down into different phases of the supply chain. In this case, the product cost is not the focus, but the logistics costs, which is hidden as part of the final pricing. After understanding the embedded logistics costs of raw materials, the Logistics team goes to its logistics providers for a quote, including shipping and warehousing, on the condition of meeting the same logistics service level used by suppliers. Once a lower logistics cost is identified, Procurement uses it as leverage to negotiate with suppliers. Suppliers need to either match the logistics costs or use the recommended 3PL by the company. This is a great example showing collaboration with suppliers for cost reduction. I believe many companies are conducting similar exercises to identify hidden logistics costs in their purchased materials.

Administration cost, order size costs as hidden costs

The costs of ordering administration, order size or assembling are difficult to capture and often not part of acquisition consideration. But those costs can become surprises some day and hurt the company bottom-line. It can potentially damage the relationship between suppliers and customers.

I’m using a case of pallet rentals in a logistics operation to illustrate those costs. A pallet is not a key material for many companies but it’s utilized in everyday operations to carry and ship important products. Pallet pooling is not a new concept. It allows companies to focus on their key supply chain activities and enjoy a lower logistics cost through renting pallets, instead of buying. The value proposition for this system is to decrease logistics costs, while supporting environmental sustainability.

It’s a great business model if there were no other hidden costs.

For any company using pallet pooling, the additional administration costs can come out of the blue. It’s not a simple activity of placing PO. It includes all other activities of “reporting, reconciling, correcting, and possibly conducting your own audit.” (Andrew Mosqueda, A Cost Analysis of Rental vs. White Wood Pallets). There is a lot of room for reporting errors or variables in a pooling system because pallets float from upstream 2^nd or 3^rd tiers of suppliers to downstream wholesales or retails. It can cause substantial effort for companies to maintain the program. If companies lose track of pallets because of shipping them to clients outside the rental network, the costs of “loss of equipment” will end up more than buying new pallets.

Ordering size requirement is another invisible cost in TAC. If there is a fuel surcharge for a full truck order or LTL surcharge, the inbound shipping cost per unit becomes higher for small batch orders. If companies choose to increase order sizes in order to lower surcharge costs per unit, inventory carrying costs will increase, such as storage, insurance, tax, and extra rental fee for this rental case.

It might be extreme to use a rental case to explain ordering related costs. The point is that intangible costs, such as ease of doing business, suppliers’ flexibility and services, are definitely part of total acquisition cost. In the long run, all of those hidden costs either pass along to consumers to decrease your competitiveness in the market, or hit bottom-line to reduce your profitability. Hence, for companies that would like to trim down total acquisition cost for their procurement, start with identifying hidden costs first before jumping into negotiate new pricing with suppliers.

July 8, 2009August 15, 2012

Key drivers of profitability and competitiveness in supply chain

Since the recession began, supply chain management has been back on the agenda of companies’ boardroom. There is no doubt that it’s the perfect time for company leaders to exam their supply chain model, supply chain network and identify the hidden costs in the chain. By reshaping the supply chain strategy of companies, the supply chain can become the “cash” chain.
The below chart represents key drivers of profitability and competitiveness in the supply chain. There are three aspects that supply chain can do to drive “cash”: reduce expense, increase revenue, and improve assets liquidity. Companies should look into all aspects, encourage innovation and risk taking. Companies can not only streamline the processes to achieve a lean and efficient organization, but also make their supply chain organization into a revenue stream.

Profibility
Supply chain as cost drivers

This is the first thing that every company will jump into. “Cutting costs” becomes the slogan of the company. Many companies assign certain dollar amount to each individual as performance objectives. There is nothing wrong with that, except company leaders need to be aware of the existence of functional silos, and commit to transparency communication within the organization. As we all know, there are many tradeoff decisions to be made within supply chain, such as the traditional tradeoff between warehouse and transportation. Remember, pressure can increase the political level inside the organization and sometimes force people to make a decision based on making their numbers. High level leaders are responsible for the big picture of the whole supply chain and support the least total cost decisions for the organization. Unreasonable measurements or targets can discourage employee morale, damage organizational heath and sometimes lose supply chain talents for future growth.

Below is analysis for key drivers for supply chain as expenses and opportunities for cost reduction:
a. Transportation
There are many areas to be looked at in transportation to achieve cost savings. It has been discussed in detail in my article “Five Ways to Achieve Cost Savings in Transportation”.

b. Inventory carrying costs
It’s an area that many companies overlook and don’t even calculate and understand their inventory carrying costs. As standard rule of thumb, inventory carrying cost is 25% of inventory value on hand. When high inventory level is unavoidable during a recession, it’s a great opportunity for the company to look into their inventory carrying costs to identify opportunities. Below charts present all components for inventory carrying costs. I will discuss more into details in a separate article.

Inventory carrying cost

c. Variable production and warehousing cost
Variable costs are cost of labor, material or overhead that changes according to the change in the volume of production units. I believe many companies conduct ABC (Activity Based Costing) analysis to find out standard variable cost. Variable cost reduction can be done through process improvements to reduce wastes in production and warehouses, such as waiting time, movements, etc.

d. Raw materials
Raw material is considered as part of inventory. It includes direct and indirect raw materials. Collaboration and partnering with suppliers can lead to total inventory reduction in the chain to achieve a win-win situation, such as VMI or ERP. Scrutinizing suppliers in a difficult time will jeopardize companies in the long term.

Supply chain as revenue driver

Many companies recognize their supply chain as cost driver, but fail to see the prospect of supply chain as a critical role to drive revenue.
a. Supply chain service
Supply chain service level directly impacts customer satisfaction. Order fulfillment and on-time delivery are two major service metrics to measure company supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. Higher service levels bring higher customer satisfaction which prevents loss of revenue and leads to future sales. It’s worth noting that there is an exponential relationship between service level and cost. However, there is normally a predefined service level agreement between companies and their customers or trade partners.

b. Supply chain solutions
When business development is trying to break into a new sales channel, supply chain supporting capacity can often be brought up as a question. Example: A company wants to enter into a new market which can only order small LTL orders, but at much higher frequency. If the company has become accustomed to TL orders all the time, those LTL orders will become a market entry barrier due to increased logistics cost. Under this kind of circumstance, supply chain, as its supporting role to revenue increase, needs to be flexible and innovative to provide a solution as an enabler for market expansion without hurting the company’s bottom line. In this case, working with 3PL for LTL consolidation can often be the solution for the challenge.

c. Recycling or reverse logistics.
It’s one area that is easily neglected by many companies. Recycling, picking up disposed goods from the customers and reselling, can not only improve customer satisfaction and lead to new purchase, but also bring the company a new channel of revenue by reselling disposable goods to a safe recycling channel. It also helps companies to fulfill their social commitment for environment sustainability.

Supply chain as assets management

Asset management can be the most challenging task for supply chain because it would take a much longer time to make changes in company assets, such as leasing contracts for warehouses. Better asset management in supply chain will require will require organization transparency and a communication from upstream to downstream to minimize functional silo.

a. Fixed cost of DCs and docks
For a company with excess inventory, it’s costly to acquire more space for storage. For companies with extra space due to less demand, it won’t be easy to close DC in the short term and there is also a risk for a higher acquiring cost when the market is back. So companies can seek partner opportunities with each other to overcome the difficult time together. A project I worked on in the past is to provide a customer storage solution. With certain incentives, the customers purchase several months of inventory shipped directly from the manufacturer. They utilize their empty spaces to make storage revenue and the products are used for their future demand. While the company with excess can avoid the cost of new warehouse space and one leg of transportation from storage to the customers. Certainly this kind of process needs to be carefully managed to avoid skewing demand and other possible negative impact.

b. Fixed cost of plant
This is the most difficult part of all costs reduction opportunities because it may lead to the close of a factory or downsizing the workforce. It’s the last thing I like to see and propose because I’m also one of the millions who lost their job during the recession. The company should try their best to use other methods such as work sharing or payroll reduction to work with employees to overcome the difficult time together. However, as a business person, I can also understand “competitive advantage”. If closing a plant is the best thing for long term growth and efficiency, we just need to face the reality and move on.

c. Cost of private fleet
It’s very similar to the fixed cost of DCs and docks. When it’s not possible to reduce the size of the private fleet in the short term, partner with suppliers or customers to share the capacity to reduce costs.

d. Inventory management
Inventory is the biggest issue to any company during a recession when consumption drops dramatically. It’s a big topic and there are many things that can be done in inventory management. It not only requires day-to-day tactical inventory management to minimize inventory DOS and maintain a targeted customer service level, but also requires some strategic decisions from higher levels to achieve inventory goals.
I. Use demand driven forecast, instead of sales & marketing driven. Many companies include their marketing goal in their demand forecast which produces an inflated the demand forecast. Inventory overflow is unavoidable when the market is down. Face the reality, and forecast based on customer demand.
II. Centralize inventory management, instead of decentralize. A decentralized ordering or inventory management can normally cause higher inventory in the entire supply chain. Centralized inventory management will lead to better forecasting at an aggregate level and hence result in a lower inventory.
III. Inventory optimization and classification. ABC classification can improve inventory turn while maintaining fulfillment service levels. Optimization will lead to SKU reduction so companies can focus on their critical products for better service and lower cost.

Established metrics leads to total supply chain excellence

Besides all of these actions and factors to enable supply chain to become the “cash” chain, leaders should not forget to establish well-designed metrics for the entire organization to achieve total supply chain profitability and competiveness. Company leaders need to be aware that high costs in some areas are normally the symptoms of root causes, and many times, those problems are caused by the wrong metrics in the organization. Requesting cost savings without removing the root causes and establishing accurate performance metrics, the cost savings initiatives can be a failure. For example, production cost per unit is a great measurement of manufacturing efficiency, but it can result in high inventory when manufacturing ignores other cost components in supply chain and over produces in order to reduce cost per unit to meet their metric. This kind of story actually happens every day, and it’s a daily battle for many supply chain professionals. The right metrics convey the right positive incentives and drive the right decisions. When overhauls in supply chain need to be done at a strategic level to achieve day-to-day tactical operational efficiency, company leaders have the obligation and responsibility to face reality and to make the right strategic decisions for the organization.