Creating a supply chain that is both efficient and properly managed can be difficult. Between ensuring visibility across channels, product development, customer service and accurate inventory management, maximizing the performance of a company’s entire supply chain can be complicated. For a company like Ryder, though, supply chain management is what the company excels at. Ryder is a Fortune 500® commercial fleet management, dedicated transportation and supply chain solutions company. With over 50,000 customers, Ryder boasts a 99% on-time delivery rate, 80+ years of experience and a fleet of more than 230,000. Ryder has been recognized for its industry-leading practices in third-party logistics, environmentally friendly fleet and supply chain solutions, and world-class safety and security programs.

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.  

Clearwater was established in 1976 by two very ambitious Nova Scotians; John Risley and Colin MacDonald. Risley and MacDonald started Clearwater as a local Lobster Pound, named for the cove in which they operated, with only a pick up truck and a vision. Over time, their vision grew from its humble beginnings in Hubbards, NS at ‘Clearwater Cove’. Clearwater grew to become Clearwater Seafoods Inc.; one of the world’s leading seafood companies and the largest holder of shellfish licenses in Canada. Since its establishment, Clearwater has been a company committed to sustainability through science-based management. As company CEO, Ian Smith notes: “Since Clearwater’s humble beginnings, we’ve continued to invest in science and stewardship of the resource to sustain and grow the wild seafood products we harvest. Sustainable seafood harvesting has always been at the core of Clearwater’s business, and will continue to drive our success moving forward.” Clearwater now exports product to over 40 countries and has over 15 offices and processing facilities worldwide. A crucial component to this continued business growth is the way in which Clearwater manages their supply chain; from ‘ocean to plate’.

Social media does not connect just family and friends anymore, but it allows organizations to connect to their customers. It is still a fairly new phenomenon to supply chain management, however companies are starting to learn to adapt it into this part of their business. Many organizations have successfully integrated social media into their supply chain management, creating an efficient and stable supply chain which results in greater customer satisfaction. Social networking can improve the supply chain management of an organization by creating visibility, improving communication, increasing control and reducing operational and labor costs. It is allowing companies to communicate faster and more effectively with their customers. 

How it all Began Today, Stonyfield Organic is a New Hampshire based organic dairy brand specializing in the production of yogurt, smoothies, frozen yogurt, milk and cream as well as some lactose free soy based products. The mission of the company is to provide healthy organic options to everyone that are free of pesticides, antibiotics, artificial hormones or GMOs while helping family farms survive and doing it all in a sustainable manner. However, 3o years ago the two founders Samuel Kaymen and Gary Hirshberg didn’t think it would be their dairy products changing the world. Stonyfield began as non-profit organic farming school where the two men shared their love of healthy eating, protecting the environment and family farming. They needed a way to fund their school so they started to make organic yogurt with the 7 dairy cows that they had. They knew that they were staying true to their values by producing the organic yogurt they just didn’t know how much everyone else was going to love it! 30 years later and only 30 miles East of the original farm, the business is stronger than ever providing a plethora of tasty and healthy options with the same goals in mind from the start.

The clothing brand Zara is world renowned for its affordable yet trendy, high quality products. With over 1,770 stores, Founder and CEO Amancio Ortega has grown his small store in Spain into a well-recognized fashion brand in more than 86 different countries! Fast Fashion Trends The secret to all this success? Zara has managed to keep up with the constant change in fashion throughout the world – whether it’s in Japan, Italy, Canada or the USA. Like a chameleon, Zara has been able to quickly adapt to the fast fashion trends. As a result of keeping up with constantly changing consumer trends, Zara ends up producing approximately 450 million items a year for their stores. Just walk into a store and speak to an associate. If you ask them when they expect new product, they always respond with something along the lines of “We’re getting new shipments in every day.” Are you now looking for that dress shirt you were thinking of buying last week? Chances are your size or that style is gone! If you get to the store a week too late, nearly half the products will be completely different.

Being a mom, juggling work, and writing blogs for my Social Media for Business Performance course, keeps me very busy.  My biggest challenge these days is finding time to go to a grocery store… or two… or three, just to pick up things I need for this week’s meals. Thank goodness for price matching! Time, is one of our most precious commodities yet every day we struggle with having less of it and craving more. So much so that we often succumb to paying a hefty price for it. It has revolutionized the way people buy groceries, giving busy professionals, parents, elderly, student’s and even businesses back valuable time they don’t have to spend shopping. The increased demand for this type of service has resulted in a large number of companies entering this online space.  With competition being so fierce three factors will influence which business will rise to the top:  Innovation, Speed of Delivery and Efficiency in their Supply Chain. The application of social media in the supply chain process is no longer an option but rather a requisite in order for a company to accelerate and propel ahead of the pack. “Using modern technologies, such as social media, can improve an organization’s supply chain management. It can create more visibility, improve communication, increase control, and reduce operational and labor costs. When you have a more efficient and stable supply chain, you can enhance your customer satisfaction. The ripple effect of using social media to improve your supply chain management can expand outwardly across virtually your entire organization, which is great for business.”[1]