Fun, Easy, Safe and In Control: Supply Chain Management for the new normal.

Do your remember the old normal of pre-covid19? 

When I worked with retailers on supply chain projects I always advocated that the “order winners” for most customers consisted of three things. Make it Fun, Easy and put the customer in control.

Now I would add one further “order winner”, the customer needs to feel “safe”.  So as logistics and supply chain professionals we need to consider how we can support the Fun, Easy, Safe, while keeping the customer in control and at the centre.  

Shopping is no longer Fun?

The challenge we have for physical retailing currently is it is not much “Fun”. Masking up, queuing in socially distanced queues, maintaining social distancing while shopping, hand gel application, at times it feels like a complex juggling act. It is not feeling “Easy”, even in the "old normal" in some local towns it was not easy with draconian parking regulations, now it feels even less easy!  Any feeling of being “in control” is removed as one is directed through one way systems, commanded to sanitise and having to stand on floor markers. Finally in many situation I no longer feel “safe” an invisible virus could be anywhere with anyone. I recognise this may be an extreme caricature of the situation but it reflects the experience for many.

Contrast the above with sitting at home dual screening, watching Netflix, ordering my groceries on my smart phone app, while drinking coffee and enjoying a chocolate biscuit! Its Fun, Easy, I am in control and feeling very safe.  Therefore the shift to online we can argue is here to stay.

Driving the shift to online

Online shopping has now reached completely new demographics. Since the pandemic started, my 80 year old Father has discovered the joys of online shopping, as has my wife, who wonders why she had not discovered this logistical miracle before. Simple things like printing postage stamps online for parcels save time and mean there is no need to travel to a post office. These things are nothing new but the pandemic has forced us all to develop new habits and we will never go back! In many cases it is more Fun and Easy and Safe, and we are in control not governed by office hours and opening times. What customers value has changed. A supply chain’s key goal is to create value, economic value, social value and/or environmental value and therefore the supply chain needs to change.

The "old world" supply chain no longer works in our "new world"?

This value shift impacts the supply chain, supply chains exist to deliver value, innovation has been essential, the shift between channels has resulted in the requirement for organisation to adapt the supply chain strategy, implementing new processes, infrastructure, information systems, people skills and organisation structures.  Critically the “cost to serve” has changed for traditional retailers, sales may be up, but profits are generally down (or negative). This is because we are using our “old world” processes, infrastructure, information systems and people to compete in a “new world”

How can supply chain professionals support innovation in the "value adding" journey?

As supply chain professionals we need to consider the complete value adding journey that we take a customer on from pre-transaction to transaction to post transaction. This includes the things customer require before the order is placed, the things supporting the transaction and also the things post transaction, not just the delivery but after sales service, field service logistics, availability of spares, returns etc. If I understand what the customer values I can design a supply chain to support the delivery of that value. Ask how can we support the value adding journey? Making the whole journey fun, safe, easy while placing the customer at the centre and in control within our increasingly digitised world.