Logistics Management – Are we Innovating or Doing the Same Thing?

What differentiates companies from surviving to flourishing? Looking at some of the biggest companies in the world right now small medium and large companies can take some valuable lessons from these billion dollar enterprises. The most important lesson being that of innovation.

Every company deals with logistics. Whether you are in the food and beverage industry or the cake baking industry, you deal with logistics management on a daily basis and without a well integrated supply chain your business revenue is not optimised and your service delivery is flawed.

The one thing that keeps CEO’s up at night is innovation. Without it, a company will not prosper but will stand still.

Think about your own company; whether you are a transport, courier or 3Pl services provider you need to ensure that you are meeting the constantly evolving needs of society and that you are providing solutions to existing challenges.

Growth is only possible when you meet your clients needs at such a level that they start growing, which means you need to innovate to cater to their changing demands. But what is innovation and how can it be applied to logistics management?

 Beat the Hurdles with Logistics Management

South Africa is a challenging environment for small and medium enterprises owing tot he rigorous regulations that these companies need to apply to. Government, however, is focusing on these to ensure that SME’s survive and that more successful entrepreneurs are established, thereby, creating more job opportunities and ensuring economic growth.

Innovation can be applied in many ways; you don’t have to create a new technological solution to be innovative but instead need to look at your company, look at your clients, consider all of the internal and external environmental factors that influence your clients supply chains and profitability and try and create solutions.

Any solution that you create that can assist consumers in beating the hurdles they face on a daily basis is innovation. For example; as it is too difficult and inefficient for companies and consumers to go from store to store looking for the best price of a product they can now use an app which automatically compares everything for you – that is innovation. 

As sorting through hundreds of files to find a particular invoice or important document is inefficient and also high risk companies can now store all of their documentation online and can pull any document up at the click of a button- that is innovation.

Storing all of your clients products in separate warehouses is costly to them and yourself an makes transport inefficient, therefore companies now store products together but streamline the supply chain by using RFID labels and ensuring good tracking and communication, delivering different clients products en route while maintaining confidentiality – that is innovation.

Some bridal store owners no longer place size labels on the inside of dresses so brides do not get upset when they need a bigger size dress but rather see the end result of how they look in the dress and therefore they receive excellent service delivery. Store owners keep track of dress sizes by placing dress sizes on labels or categorizing them according to colored ribbons and sticking these on dresses, thereby making it easy to store and retrieve dresses – that is innovation and all of this contributes to achieving streamlined logistics management.

So what will you innovate? How will you grow?