At my team meeting this week, the inevitable topic of how prepared everyone was for Christmas came up. The state of readiness reflected the different characters:
The super organised who collected ideas for friends and family throughout the year, shopped for the best deal in-store and online, admitted they had them all wrapped and ready to go by the end of November!
There was the shocked into action who realised the last overseas posting dates were sneaking up. The ensuing panic had galvanized a plan of action and allowed them to take control
Then there was the just in time, who had thought about it but eventually relied on one big online push the week before, and if possible tried to get it all sent directly to their families already gift wrapped
And of course, there was the outsourcer. The spouse was in charge!
As the team shared shopping tips, ways to get organised and how to take a different approach next year, we agreed that the same could be said for customers.
The nature of their businesses, the technology available to them and the skills they have in house, all reflect the different ways logistics operations deal with the peak trading. There will always be warehouses that can meet the demand because they have been able to invest in new hardware and software, training and resources, those that would like to invest but get caught out by the scale of what is about to be asked of them and defer improvements until after the event, and those that just get though it by doing whatever it takes to meet SLAs.
We thought about how we could help the customers that fall into the ‘delay improvements’ and ‘just in time’ camps. While we all agreed that it’s important to set aside time to learn from how you performed and compare it to how you would like to perform, it can be difficult if the size of the task feels overwhelming.
So we came up with a short list of ideas that might help companies break down the task:
Draw up a top ten ‘troubles’ list. What will keep you awake at night if you don’t fix repeated errors? By focusing on ten you’ll be able to see the wood for the trees, and you may find by solving one you’ll solve five others.
Now think about how you will fix those ten. What skills do you have available and where’s the gap? What physical capacity do you have and if you did things differently how could it increase?
What role does technology play in your organisation? What role could it play? If money were no object how would you design your infrastructure?
Build a plan. Use your research to work backwards and identify the skills, resources and technology that would help you troubleshoot the things that always trip you up and at the same time implement new ways of working that would bring long-term productivity gains.
Be realistic. Prioritise according to the elements that will make a real difference during the next peak trading cycle and perform the necessary cost analysis. Which will be quick wins? It’s important that everyone sees the benefit of change early on, and it will help pull a team in one direction as you take on more challenging tasks.
I realise that this still may feel like quite a task but my advice is to find someone who has been through it before you. Don’t be afraid to learn from someone on the leading edge either. They will have gone through the growing pains that come with change. Glean all you can from specialist suppliers too – they know what works best when undergoing change and for setting a foundation from which to build. Testing your plan can be invaluable. It gives credence to the strategy when you take it to the board and it will give you the boost that you are doing the right thing from the start.
So why not set yourself the challenge to take just one day in January to appraise your operation’s performance and start the year as you mean to go on? It might be the most valuable day you have.
Here’s to a productive new year!
