It’s a new month and with the turning of the calendar page we have four great links to share with you. Read on to find out who is nipping at Amazon’s heels, who just creating a supply chain, concepts of sustainable supply chains, and all about a bizarre crisis happening in the U.K.
I. Walmart has a plan for how they can go after Amazon and it’s all about shipping. Walmart is removing their membership fee within their two-day shipping program and lowering the minimum order price from $50 to $35. According to Recode Walmart is making a smart move, “responding with a value proposition that it hopes will convince those who haven’t converted into Prime members that they can get the same two-day shipping speed for free. Tens of millions of households are up for grabs.”
II. We were curious to read about the new project Jim Tompkins has been working on. Tompkins is the chairman and CEO of a new entity called the MonarchFx Alliance. This alliance will actually serve as an e-commerce fulfillment network to provide “post-click logistics” to retailers. According to the newly launched website, “The MonarchFx Alliance is the coming together of world-class supply chain and logistics companies with world-class sellers of products to form a reinvented logistics ecosystem that is new, smart, and innovative.” It’s interesting to see someone creating a supply chain after writing about them for so many years.
III. How often do companies ponder if their supply chains are sustainable? BSR is a global nonprofit organization and they have created a BSR Supply Chain Leadership Ladder. This ladder can be used as a tool for companies to measure their supply chain sustainability program. There is a lot of good stuff in this article and we appreciated the calling out of positive trends within the industry.
“This trend is also playing out in the way companies are engaging their suppliers and reporting. The concerted effort by some companies to publicly disclose their supply chains, such as Marks & Spencer’s Interactive Supplier Map, in some ways draws a line under the compliance movement to allow a new way forward — through transparency. If everyone can see a company’s supply chain, there is arguably less incentive to continue the auditing processes of the past.”
IV. An interesting crisis is happening in the UK – a crisis of lack of land. Companies who are in need of setting up warehouses are unable to find any space. David Sleath, who is the UK’s largest industrial property developer, claims, “London’s industrial land is disappearing at something of an alarming rate.” The old industrial land within the UK is being purchased by residential developers, outbidding commercial developers, and used for housebuilding. It will be interesting to see how this gets sorted out.
Image Credit: BSR
As of September 8, 2020, Crimson & Co (formerly The Progress Group/TPG) has rebranded as Argon & Co following the successful merger with Argon Consulting in April 2018.
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