It’s the wold’s most valuable sports brand. And it all began when founder Phil Knight decided to start selling track shoes out of the trunk of his car in 1976. Today, Nike is a global athletic shoe and apparel juggernaut, with a brand value of nearly $15 billion U.S. But a string of public controversies in the 1990s and early 2000s over the working conditions at some of Nike’s factories around the world threatened to derail close to 20 years of brand building in one fell swoop. Allegations of child labour, poor wages and dangerous working conditions at various locations in its global supply chain triggered widespread protests and seriously threatened Nike’s very existence. And while the company initially denied any claims of wrongdoing, further damaging its reputation, it eventually responded with humility and transparency. Today, Nike makes its supply chain practices transparent and available online and uses social media in various forms to actively listen to and engage with its stakeholders in order to influence where and how its products are designed and manufactured – all critical elements of effective, and modern, supply chain management.

Papa John’s Pizza has been using social media channels to help educate customers where products and ingredients are coming from, and creating time effective ordering options available on channels. Aside from social channels, the company has also used a collaborative technology solution to help support the efficiency of the supply chain. The company outsourced the supply chain needs to Manhattan Associates, a supply chain software company, to help create more time effective and cost saving inventory management. Eric Hartman, Senior Director of Logistics said, “Manhattan solutions allow us to manage inventory levels accurately, efficiently and more dynamically based on actual need—and that has resulted in our being able to reduce overall inventory levels (Manhattan, 2013)”. Using the collaborative software has also provided better solutions to inventory transportation. The software can optimize routes, improving on-time store deliveries, and the overall performance of their fleet (Trebilcock, B., 2014, October). Customer service relies on the speed of the supply chain to help get their products to customers in an effective way that will save time and money.  “Implementation of Manhattan’s solutions has provided unprecedented visibility along with reduced expenses, improved efficiency and productivity in every part of the supply chain (Manhattan, 2013)”. Papa John’s wants to ensure that its “fast food” moves just as quickly throughout every level of the supply chain.

Innovation is the hallmark of internet startups. When Karl Seibrecht co-founded Flexe, a company that many call the Airbnb of warehouses, he had recognized a problem for many companies and came up with an innovative solution. Clients of Flexe can add empty warehouse space that they may have to a registry and clients looking for space can search to find a good match. This is very similar to the Airbnb model of people renting out their spare room or their house on a short-term basis. Karl Seibrecht commented to Fortune.com, “At any given moment there are many, many businesses out there that have too much space, while other businesses don’t have enough.” (Morris, 2015)

Social supply Chain management is becoming more of a success tool. It seeks to incorporate social network, social interactions and social data with customers, stateholders and business owners in resulting in an improved customer service. In most supply chains, the following factors are important; Cost Quality Speed    

Social media is about building relationships, and it can be used in a supply chain to build and grow communications among trading partners. Information and knowledge gathered from the use of social media by supply chain partners can provide insight into various issues. Social media allows supply chain participants to monitor supply chain events and transactions to keep everyone up-to-date with current situations, such as a delay in shipping or a carrier failed to pick-up a shipment. Providing companies with more timely and insightful information about risks and events, enabling them to make corrective action sooner – minimizing the impact of a supply chain disruption. Despite all the major advances in supply chain management and technology in recent years, most restaurants and their suppliers still don’t have a single, integrated, real-time view of supply and demand when working together in an enterprise. The lack of visibility creates a fractured supply chain; one in which the restaurant operator and its suppliers do not operate in sync, resulting in bloated inventory, excessive waste, supply uncertainty, and poor customer service for all parties concerned. So in many ways, the restaurant industry is defined by paradoxes. Consumers want quality food at affordable prices. Product freshness is a must, regardless of seasonal variability. Cost and customer service come bundled – not à la carte. Here’s how procuring works at a typical restaurant. At the end of dinner service, the chef or sous-chef compiles a list of everything they will need for the next day’s service. Once there are tallies, the chef calls and leaves messages with orders for delivery. Some restaurants order from separate companies for produce, meat, fish, dried goods, and cleaning supplies. Others make one call to a large all-purpose company, such as Sysco or Gordon Food Service – (you know those big trucks you see across the country). Although these companies may get the lowest prices and deliver everything at once, they rarely have the best product.

The management of the flow of goods and services is what is referred to as supply chain management. According to Margaret Rouse at TechTarget, Supply Chain Management is defined as “Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Supply chain management involves coordinating and integrating these flows both within and among companies.” Supply chain management occurs in both product companies and service industries.

There is no better feeling than having your skin hydrated, cared for and clean while using products that support a value, cause or lifestyle you align yourself with – organic, natural, environmentally friendly, cruelty-free, ethically responsible, or all of the above.

Few condiments hold a candle to this savory-sweet, palate-pleasing treat enjoyed by adults and children alike. Ketchup, your pairings are endless: eggs, bacon, bologna, hot dogs, fries, burgers, sausages, onion rings, grilled cheese, chicken fingers, fish sticks…alright maybe not endless. That’s getting pretty close to an exhaustive list, as far as any self-respecting person can enumerate. Yes, this powerful condiment possesses an innate ability to make-or-break your summer BBQ. And it recently showed off some of its unique power to rally social media supporters in a very surprising way. Canadian Connoisseurs Speak Up In March 2016, Loblaws decided to pull French’s ketchup from its shelves without warning, inciting a viral backlash demanding Loblaws re-list the item. The sense of importance associated with this particular product most likely stems from its local origins. French’s ketchup is made with tomatoes grown here in Canada; Leamington, Ontario to be geographically precise. Thus it’s a source of national pride, of small-town Canadian jobs and, ultimately, of significance extending well beyond something squeezed from a bottle. This high level of engagement in the supply chain management process led Globe and Mail food columnist Sylvan Charlebois to declare in his Ketchup Wars opinion piece that “the politics of food distribution are alive and well in Canada”. Many speculated that unfair competitive practices among vendors may have had something to do with Loblaws’ decision to de-list the product. Finding evidence to support this theory is challenging. However, the ketchup story illustrates how the complexities of food retailing are increasingly intermingling with unexpected social media uprisings.  

Recognizing social media is so much more then Twitter, Facebook or an online forum, I took my question to Professor Peter Carr of the University of Waterloo to understand what social media really is defined as; he noted: “There isn’t a generally accepted definition and opinions probably include narrow, which would be restricted to popular public tools (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and broader, including any form of online communications (email, Yammer, SharePoint etc.). I use the broader approach, any online communication between two or more people could be included.” Understanding Carr’s definition on social media, we can really look into how might social media fit into companies – and in what realms? Specifically for the topic of this post, how does social media fit into supply chain? From course material in my Social Media for Business Performance at the University of Waterloo, it is discussed that there are a variety applications for social media in the supply chain, but there are a few I really want to focus on that I find make an interesting case study: visibility, stakeholders and purchasing.

Supply chain planning is like a game: As the pieces move, the plan changes – Marc Bombet, Director Business Systems Architecture, Western Digital.  Through the immediate feedback provided by customers on Social Media, companies can quickly respond and react to their customer supply needs as they change. Parle Argo is India’s largest food and Beverage Company.  In 2009 it launched HIPPO Baked Munchies offering a range of chips in various flavors.  It’s campaign “Hunger is the root of all evil. Don’t be hungry” can be viewed in the media below.

Climate change and environmental accountability are both hot topics in the 21st century. More and more people are becoming concerned about the products they buy and what impact on the climate their production has. It has been reported that also more businesses are increasingly taking environmental performance into account when selecting suppliers. In July 2009, Wal-Mart announced its intention to create a global sustainability index system to keep track of products ratings according to the environmental and social impacts of their manufacturing and distribution. The motivation behind the index is to create environmental accountability in Wal-Mart’s supply chain and to encourage other retail companies to do the same. Wal-mart Stores, Inc., doing business as simply Walmart, is an American multinational retailing corporation that operates as a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. As of January 31, 2017, Walmart has 11,695 stores and clubs in 28 countries. Walmart is the world’s largest company by revenue – approximately $480 bln (2016), as well as the largest private employer in the world with 2.3 million employees. Walmart Canada has stores in every province and territory, except for Yukon and Nunavut. Walmart Canada has in total 410 stores (January, 31st, 2017).

Supply chain management (SCM) relies on, at its core, people talking to people.  Working with vendors, coordinating shipments and carriers, buying stock, fulfilling orders, maintaining inventory levels, forecasting what end users may be looking to purchase in the future – every step of the way involves communication between one party and another. “Social networking is not about socializing, but about facilitating people-to-people communication and collaboration, which is at the heart of managing and executing supply chain processes.”  “What is needed [in a dynamic business environment] is a supply chain of rapid response…Many people who work in the materials business [and] talk about supply chains and the speed of supply chains [have historically] thought about systems talking to systems across enterprises and about processes. But in reality, the speed of the chain is not really related to the systems used by the various companies—it’s all about people, and people talking to people”

If MIT Professor Edward Lorenz hadn’t gone for a cup of coffee when he did fifty-six years ago, his 1972 seminal paper, ”Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” [1] may not have been written, Robert Redford may not have played a wise gambler in the 1990’s movie “Havanna”, Ashton Kutcher may not have travelled back in time in his 2004 movie, “The Butterfly Effect” to fix his childhood, and perhaps, least of all, chaos theory [2] may not have been discovered. For those unfamiliar with Professor Lorenz’s story, on that day in 1961, Lorenz was repeating a simulation he’d run earlier — but this time he rounded off one variable, from 0.506127 to 0.506, of the experiment’s 12 variables, representing things like temperature and wind speed to simulate weather predictability. To his surprise, when he got back after coffee, that tiny, tiny alteration (a 0.000127 difference) drastically transformed the whole pattern his program produced, over two months of simulated weather. “It was philosophically very shocking,” [3]  says Steven Strogatz, a professor of applied mathematics at Cornell and author of Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos. “Determinism” [4] was equated with predictability before Lorenz. After Lorenz, we came to see that determinism might give you short-term predictability, but in the long run, things could be unpredictable. That’s what we associate with the word ‘chaos.’ ” How does this lesson, that a minute change in variables can have an enormous impact in outcome, affect business product launches today? Let’s look at a recent failed social media effort to access millenials’ wallets. On the surface, it was a winner: the 2014 non-profit industry celebrated a huge success with its major international ALS fundraising movement, “The Ice Bucket Challenge”. The program went viral, raised over $115 million in donations, and attracted 2.5 million new donors [5]. Naturally, the ALS non-profits ran the same program again in 2015, but to their surprise, raised only $500,000, or 0.00434783% of 2014’s donations. So what was the minute variable that had changed in just over a year to cause the failed fundraising? In Philip Haid’s article, The Ice Bucket Challenge Part 2: What we can learn from why it didn’t work [6], he suggests the ALS non-profits forgot to consider the “why” variable in the program’s 2015 success. “Most people don’t interact with charities on a daily basis the way they do with their favorite brands, so it isn’t easy… Read more »

Each year we print four billion flyers that are read by 81% of our readers, making them the most used source of local shopping information.  For Metroland Media, their competitors and readers, these numbers are astonishing. Supply chain management is now more relevant than ever in terms of any organization succeeding. Products need to be properly designed, developed and distributed, while still being cost effective, easily adaptable to changes in the product or market and remain at a high-quality level for customer satisfaction. Metroland makes it apparent that the products they produce find there way into the customer’s hands with the same quality it left their organization. They know that improving their network of organizations and people involved in these processes enhance a variety of factors within their supply chain. Metroland Media is an excellent example of how an organization should run their supply chain and how it can be managed and improved.

At FlashStock, operational efficiency is key to the growth and success of the company. Our core product is custom images and videos taken by our network of global contributors which is delivered to brands around the world through our machine learning technology. Even with this automation, we need to ensure that the customer is properly managed throughout the customer lifecycle. Having better insight into the process, through the collection and use of data, allows FlashStock to scale resources as needed for all client project sizes, effectively manage the pipeline of business, and ensure the proper management of those resources for optimal productivity. Some say having a well-oiled supply chain is a key competitive advantage. FlashStock views the supply chain as key for tracking and measuring that we are going above and beyond for our clients delivering what we promised.

Grey Rock Clothing Co is a one-stop shop for sweatshop-free and organic clothing located in Guelph, Ontario. Founded in August 2012, they have seen wild success in the local community and have created a lot of buzz for their industry and for responsible, fair-trade shopping in general. Since August of 2015 they have been a B Corp Certified Company. This assures customers that they meet the very rigorous standards set out by the B Corp Community. How does a company become a B Corp Certified business? By adhering to some pretty strict guidelines and by doing a lot of research on their suppliers. Grey Rock Clothing Co has to scrutinize their entire supply chain to ensure they are practicing what they preach when it comes to being good for workers, the community, the environment, and for the long term.

Budget Marine is the Caribbean’s leading marine chandlery with retail locations throughout the Caribbean.  In the Caribbean, most people use social media to let friends and family know where their latest landfall is, and for obtaining information through cruisers’ nets. Using social media as a tool to improve business performance is a new concept.  However, for companies like Budget Marine, it opens up vast new opportunities.  People may not think of the Caribbean when they think of “multinational companies,” but that is exactly what Budget Marine is.

Supply chains are all of the elements, organizations, people, and production systems involved in the creation, distribution, and consumption of a product or service. Supply Chain Management (SCM) recognizes that all of the players and processes in the system are interconnected. When one player fails or doesn’t deliver up to expectations, product success can be diminished or lost. From Napoleon to Hitler, this idea of guarding supply line control carries has always carried mythical, and real military implications in our history. SCM proposes that collaborative practice among commercial stakeholders is an appropriate driver for successful enterprise today.  But does this practice actually work? Is collaboration actually business bullying of the larger buyer over the smaller supplier into resentful submission?  Imbalanced business relationships such as these usually create suspect questionable dialogue between such contracting parties? There are always going to be continuing “best deal” dynamics involved or intellectual property or data source to protect. If you squeeze your supplier, why would the supplier necessarily share pertinent information with you? However, we know that few organizations operate in a vacuum. Supply Chain Management proponents suggest that these problems must be overcome or the risk of disruption is heightened. There is too great a risk that outside influences or 3rd party organizational failures can disrupt a competent company’s best laid internal plans, if an appropriate dialogue is missing from the workflow between people and companies. We are reminded that this supply chain is a journey of a product or service from inception to delivery. It must by necessity, include the interaction of a myriad of players and sub-contractors, growers, developers, marketers, wholesale to retail, depending upon the nature of the product. In an outsourced, overhead efficient world, few successful organizations function in a manner permitting them to produce all of the services or products necessary to deliver their final product. We see numerous examples of supply chain problems around us every day. most notably In Toronto with the Toronto Transit Commission’s continuing difficulties with noted tech giant Bombardier. Observers have placed the cause of the delivery problems on one of Bombardier’s subsidiaries in Mexico, which is having difficulties delivering prototype streetcar elements to specification, therefore causing delays in the Sault Saint Marie plant and delays in delivery of the contracted street cars to the city of Toronto. These are contracts in the billions, so the illustration here is an important one.

LUSH Cosmetic Retail Ltd. is a cosmetics retailer headquartered in Poole, United Kingdom, founded by Herbal trichologist, Mark Constantine and his wife, Liz Weir in 1995. This UK-based handmade cosmetics firm is one company that now has over 800 stores worldwide and uses factories in more than 40 countries. Lush as a cosmetic retailer has always been a company that uses unconventional methods which have led them to success. Since its establishment, Lush has been inventing and designing its products to reduce usage of packaging, water, energy and also to reduce carbon emission and waste. 100% of Lush’s products are vegetarian, 65% of them are preservative free, and 58% of them are free from unnecessary packaging. Lush also created solid shampoo bars, massage bars and Bath Bombs that do not even need packaging. Lush says liquid soaps and shampoos need to be bottled and that one can prevent over 30 plastic bottles from entering the landfills by switching to solid bars from Lush. From making shampoo bars in solid form, rather than bottled, over 450,000 litres (118,800 gallons) of water is saved every year. The products in the retail store are displayed similar to how fruits and vegetables are displayed in a grocery store without extra packaging. It’s no surprise that Lush’s ethical supply chains and financial success aren’t mutually exclusive.

Damco is one of the world’s leading providers of supply chain management and freight forwarding services. For more than 100 years, They have been providing customers with logistics solutions that support the way they want to do business, wherever they are in the world. Their strategic approach and hands-on services are extensive and tailored; whether it’s a competitive rate for an urgent shipment or a strategic solution to create short-term efficiencies and build up long-term competitiveness.  Damco  is part of the Maersk Group. More information on Damco and Damco services can be found on http://www.damco.com.

On-line retailers have been commanding a higher share of Canadian retail spending every year. The trend is largely driven by convenience (e.g., home delivery), wider assortment (due to absence of physical shelf space) and opportunities for consumers to use social media to share their opinions about their experiences with the product. Amazon.com and its Canadian web-site, Amazon.ca,  are  great examples of successfully capitalizing on the above trends to provide the best in class on-line shopping experience. Amazon has become the largest on-line retailer in North America, selling over 480 million products in the USA and 133 million in Canada.

Watsi is a non-profit crowdsourcing platform that enables anyone to fund life-changing medical procedures for patients in developing countries who might not otherwise have access to healthcare. At the time this case study was written, 22,102 Watsi donors had funded healthcare for 11,559 patients in 25 countries. Patients waiting to be fully funded included Vehn, a farmer from Cambodia who needs a hip replacement, Olga, a single mother from Guatemala who needs treatment for diabetes, and Dah Htoo, a 2 year old boy from Burma who needs surgery to repair burn damage. When Watsi founder Chase Adam was a Peace Corps volunteer, he was traveling through a small town in Costa Rica when a woman boarded the bus. Her son required medical treatment she could not afford; she showed his medical records and asked passengers for money to help pay for his treatment. The town was called Watsi and the idea of developing a platform to crowdsource funding for vital health care in developing countries was born. Soon after the platform launched, the idea gained traction on Hacker News, and eventually led to Watsi being the first non-profit startup funded and accelerated by Y Combinator.

Schaeffler Group is a global integrated automotive and industrial supplier. Highest quality, outstanding technology, and strong innovative ability represent the basis for the Schaeffler Group’s lasting success. This global company generated sales of approximately 13.3 Billion Euros in 2016. With 22,000 customers and 85,000 employees worldwide, Schaeffler is one of the world’s largest family-owned companies.  It currently has 170 locations in over 50 countries, its  network is comprised of 75 manufacturing locations, research and development facilities, and sales companies. This German-based company has earned a reputation for being a leader in innovation. The Schaeffler Group has invested significant amounts in research and development, with 6,700 employees working on new products and technologies in 17 research and development centers all over the world. Schaeffler owns the rights to approximately 24,000 patents and files more than 2,300 inventions for patent applications every year. Schaeffler is continuously adopting leading-edge strategies to improve their supply chain management process. With the objective of delivering high quality products on-time and at reasonable costs, Schaeffler is committed to innovating new ways to be more flexible and adaptable to any real-time changes. It utilizes a myriad of social media strategies in many areas along the supply chain to improve productivity, design and customer engagement.  

According to Wikipedia a supply chain is defined as a system of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. So what is the supply chain in the sport of synchronized swimming?  Specifically for the Waterloo Regional Synchronized Swim Club.

In today’s highly competitive market, organizations must strategize to create avenues of innovation, efficiency, and increased productivity to hold on to their competitive advantage. An area with room for growth for many firms is more effective supply chain management. With a vast array of social media tools available, organizations can improve operations in several ways including but not limited to increased visibility, communication, coordination, and reduced costs. “Although a vast majority of people reference only the most popular social networks – Facebook,  Twitter and LinkedIn when thinking of social media, the true social media experience is much larger for companies. They can engage users through smart phone applications, RFID, IoT, Big Data, business social media (for sharing information between partner groups) in order to help information spread much more quickly.” Ranjan Sinha, Logistics and Supply Chain Management Professional