Supply Chain Blog
The same satellite infrastructure that lets logistics managers know exactly where their cargo is at any given moment is being turned against them. GPS tracking systems, once the gold standard of supply chain visibility, have become a double-edged sword. As cargo thieves grow more technologically sophisticated, they are learning to read the same signals that…
Trust is one of those words that supply chain professionals use often but rarely define. We talk about trusted partners, trusted carriers, and trusted suppliers, but the conversation almost always stops at reliability. Can they deliver on time? Do they meet quality standards? Have they performed well in the past? These are important questions, but…
The old rule of global trade was simple: manufacturers make, retailers sell, and shipping lines move the boxes. That division of labor has defined containerized trade for half a century. But a growing number of companies, from the world’s largest retailers to niche consumer brands, are rewriting the rulebook. Walmart, Amazon, IKEA, Home Depot, and…
The global container shipping industry has reached a level of concentration that would have seemed unthinkable just a decade ago. The top ten ocean carriers now control 84.7 percent of global container capacity, and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has become the first operator in history to break the 20 percent market share barrier on its…
The last mile has always been the expensive mile. It accounts for over half of total shipping costs, eats up margins, and frustrates customers when it goes wrong. For years the playbook was simple: throw more vans at the problem, offer free shipping, and hope the economics work out. That era is ending. Three very…
Every company has them. The customers who call five times. The ones who send angry emails at midnight. The ones who leave one star reviews that haunt your marketing team for years. Conventional wisdom says to manage them, pacify them, and move on. But what if those customers are actually your most valuable asset? A…
Artificial intelligence is everywhere in supply chain right now. Every conference, every vendor pitch, every industry report talks about AI powered forecasting, AI driven optimization, and AI native planning. The hype is real, and so is the investment. But here is the uncomfortable truth most companies are discovering: AI does not fix a broken foundation….
The Starbucks Cautionary Tale Starbucks spent nine months and millions of dollars on an AI powered inventory counting system. Then it pulled the plug. The computer vision system, designed to automatically track stock levels across thousands of stores, was deemed unreliable by the very employees who were supposed to use it. The coffee giant quietly…
The Bangladesh Warning Bangladesh is learning a hard lesson. Vegetables and seasonal fruit exports from the country have fallen sharply over the past five months as airfreight rates nearly doubled. The cause is no longer a temporary demand spike. It is a structural shift triggered by the US/Israel Iran war, which has rerouted flights, pushed…
Sustainability in supply chains is entering a new phase. For a decade, the conversation centered on commitments, roadmaps, and pilot programs. These were necessary, but they also created a convenient gap: between what companies announced and what they actually implemented, there was room for delay. PepsiCo is closing that gap. Through its Greenhouse Accelerator program,…