Social media is all about building relationships. The application of social media in businesses is easy to understand and to witness in areas of marketing and customers engagement. But how can businesses use social media to improve their supply chain? By amalgamating consumers’ relationships with supply chain management, McCormick Spice Company offers a way to use social media to improve the transparency of its processes and to differentiate itself from the competition. McCormick Canada (Club House) was created in 1883 as Dyson & Co in London, Ontario. The company was acquired in 1959 by McCormick & Co from Baltimore, Maryland USA. Since its humble beginnings, McCormick Canada has grown to be one of the most well-known food company in the country. “Open any pantry or cupboard in any kitchen in Canada, and you’ll likely find a variety of our products, whether it be the spices for Grandma’s cookie recipe or the seasonings that add flair to your barbecue routine”. (source: McCormick Canada). The company is committed to pure flavour, which, in addition to the need to show consumers that McCormick herbs and spices offer a greater purity, has led to the Club House Pure Flavour Manifesto (source: McCormick Canada). The Manifesto is a multi-platform campaign, launched in 2016 that was created in part in reaction to the oregano ‘food fraud’.

You would think that creating a proper Supply Chain that benefits Creative Casuals customers, would have been an easy task to do, but it took many long years to create what is a very well run efficient company. Creative Casuals is a promotional marketing company who has grown from a single person cottage industry to a mid size company with many employees, an embroidery and screen-printing department and three locations. The main office and production warehouse is in Listowel On, with sales offices in Kincardine and Stratford. Mari-Lou Lowry Started Creative Casuals after graduating from design school. She knew she wanted to start a viable business that could withstand the test of time. The company needed to be vibrant and grow with the ever-changing environment of technology today. 29 years ago when it all started there were no computers, no fancy communication tools except a telephone and fax, but that never stopped Creative Casuals from exploring everything they needed to become a multi functional promotional company. Mari-Lou knew she would need to diversify with percentages of accounts in corporate sales, team and school sales, and also contract wholesale embroidery and screen-printing. Mari-Lou was aware to not to put all her eggs in one basket in case the market trends changed. As we all know one of the first things to disappear off a tight business budget is promotional marketing products. Creative Casuals realized they needed to look at the supply chain management carefully to succeed.

October 2017, McDonald’s brought back a rare condiment from the 1990s at the beginning of the month, but the promotion ended in protests and sky-high secondary markets. (Kalvapalle, 2017) McDonald’s is an American hamburger and fast food restaurant chain. It was founded in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, USA. In 1948, they reorganized their business as a hamburger stand, using production line principles. Today, McDonald’s is one of the world’s largest restaurant chains, serving approximately 69 million customers daily in over 100 countries across approximately 36,900 outlets as of 2016. McDonald’s primarily sells hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken products, french fries, breakfast items, soft drinks, milkshakes, wraps, and desserts. In response to changing consumer tastes and after facing criticism for the unhealthy nature of their food, the company has expanded its menu to include salads, fish, smoothies, and fruit. A McDonald’s restaurant is operated by either a franchisee, an affiliate, or the corporation itself. According to a BBC report published in 2012, McDonald’s is the world’s second largest private employer (behind Walmart with 1.9 million employees), 1.5 million of whom work for franchises. (Wikipedia, 2017)

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.

When Lululemon was founded in 1998, it was a yoga studio. As the business grew, it became a brand committed to selling the best yoga wear that the company could manufacture. Lululemon understood that their target market valued sustainability, and they designed their supply chain with that in mind. They strive to manufacture products that are free of cruelty, whether that be human or animal, and they try to keep environmental damage to a minimum. Social media has helped the company monitor the current values of their customers. They then update their practices to stay true to the beliefs of their core consumer base. This not only helps their supply chain stay committed to the company’s values, but also provides Lululemon with a chance to market its product.

Global companies are continuously communicating and collaborating with a broad community of people.1  Social media can help bridge the communication gap and help collaborate information more effectively and more efficiently.  Eyewear By Olga is a luxury eyewear retailer carrying top crafted frames from around the world.  It is located in the heart of Mississauga, in Port Credit.  Olga Trentin, Owner of Eyewear by Olga utilizes social media in every aspect of her business, whether it is for her retail store or online boutique. “Social media has definitely helped my business, from visibility to purchasing to inventory management.” says Olga Trentin.

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. 

As a loyal fan, I have been using iPhones for 5 years, never thinking about to look at other brands. I fell in love with Apple products right after I received my first iPhone in 2010 as a gift from my husband. It was also in the same year, I learned about Foxconn (Apple’s most important manufacturing supplier) Suicide on Sina Weibo (China equivalent of Facebook). A spate of worker suicides highlighted the conditions at its supply chain led to the worst public relations scandal in Apple’s history. In 2010, from January to June, 18 Foxconn employees attempted suicide with 14 deaths at the Foxconn City industrial park in Shenzhen, China. Their ages were between17 and 25. The way they chose to end their lives were jumping from their factory dorms. The company was pilloried in the media over allegations of poor working conditions and bad management, including long hours, crowed dorms, involuntary labor, record falsifications, improper disposal of hazardous waste, under-age worker. Another brand name “Apple” was being mentioned in every article and sometimes was put on the headline purposefully to drive attention. Foxconn was described as “Apple’s sweatshop” in massive social media posts. No matter that Apple wasn’t the only company that hired Foxconn to build its products, success made it a target.

Every day millions of products travel across the globe to reach their intended destinations.  As customers, we dutifully check the weekly flyers or flyer apps like flipp, that showcase our local retailers and their sales for the week, without giving a second thought to the process those products went through to make it onto store shelves.  What goes on behind the closed “employee only” doors is a network of businesses and people all collaborating together to ensure YOU the customer gets the next must have item that was advertised in their weekly flyer. This network of businesses and people form what is commonly known as the supply chain. In order to guarantee fairly smooth operations within the supply chain cycle these businesses must operate within a circle of trust.  According to the authors of the research paper Suppliers’ affective trust and trust in competency in buyers, “In order to create and maintain close relationship with participants in the SC, trust and collaboration have been considered the core factors. These two factors are important to improve SC performance as well as customer satisfaction…close collaboration among SC partner’s results in lower logistics costs, improved SC values, and enhanced service performance.”