Article | What I learned in Supply Chain
Please stop sending emails so I can respond to your emails
July 20th, 2021
11 minute read
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Every week, Mercado CEO Rob Garrison pens his latest learnings from the supply chain industry as part of an on-going series. Each article aims to share a little insight into what's going on that week, and to help foster discussion amongst industry professionals across levels, geographies, and companies.
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I spoke to an importer this week who told me that getting products shipped from Asia to the US has become so difficult that everyone is resorting to “desperate measures” to get containers.
Logistics teams that used to only work with one forwarder now find themselves using 8-10+ forwarders to get their products overseas.
Buyers that used to be able to reliably predict when a product would arrive now can’t even predict when it will depart.
Importing is a largely “offline” business, and it doesn’t help that buyers and suppliers are 8,000 miles apart. The result? Emails...and lots of them. The importer I spoke with told me that in a single day regarding a single order, 65 emails were exchanged between departments, their forwarder, and their supplier.
If you take into account the typical 3-month production journey, this can be as many as 3,900 emails (or more) pertaining to a single order.
If a company has multiple orders going on at a time (which there’s a 99.9% chance that they do), you can double, triple, or quadruple that.
Importing is a largely “offline” business, and it doesn’t help that buyers and suppliers are 8,000 miles apart. The result? Emails...and lots of them. The importer I spoke with told me that in a single day regarding a single order, 65 emails were exchanged between departments, their forwarder, and their supplier.
If you take into account the typical 3-month production journey, this can be as many as 3,900 emails (or more) pertaining to a single order.
If a company has multiple orders going on at a time (which there’s a 99.9% chance that they do), you can double, triple, or quadruple that.
"The importer I spoke with told me that in a single day regarding a single order, 65 emails were exchanged between departments, their forwarder, and their supplier...this can be as many as 3,900 emails pertaining to a single order."
She said it gets so bad that at times, her team can’t even respond to the first email before another comes through.
To make matters worse, senior management is now asking for daily updates, and her team is asking her, “Should we stop trying to get our products moving to complete a management report, or complete the management report and get in trouble because the product isn’t moving?” It’s a lose-lost situation.Is this sustainable?
It’s not even peak season yet, and people are already panicked and overworked. I have an immense amount of empathy for my colleagues in the supply chain right now and can only hope relief comes soon.
To make matters worse, senior management is now asking for daily updates, and her team is asking her, “Should we stop trying to get our products moving to complete a management report, or complete the management report and get in trouble because the product isn’t moving?” It’s a lose-lost situation.
Is this sustainable?
No chance.
It’s not even peak season yet, and people are already panicked and overworked. I have an immense amount of empathy for my colleagues in the supply chain right now and can only hope relief comes soon.
About the author(s)
About the Series
Each week, Mercado CEO Rob Garrison pens his latest learnings from the supply chain industry as part of a series run for his LinkedIn followers. Each article aims to share a little insight into what's going on that week and to help foster discussion amongst industry professionals across levels, geographies, and companies.
You can connect with Rob on LinkedIn by following this link.
Each week, Mercado CEO Rob Garrison pens his latest learnings from the supply chain industry as part of a series run for his LinkedIn followers. Each article aims to share a little insight into what's going on that week and to help foster discussion amongst industry professionals across levels, geographies, and companies.
You can connect with Rob on LinkedIn by following this link.
