basictraining
DNA. The new way of working together can’t afford to be a
transient program-of-the-year. Every clerk, every order picker,
every salesperson, every IT specialist has to get it.
True story: A company we know of lost one of its best customers because an accounts payable functionary with a bad
attitude aggressively dunned the customer for an invoice that
had already been paid.
EXAMPLES FROM THE REAL WORLD
You’re probably tired of hearing the same old names, but let’s
give credit where it’s due. Who in the brick-and-mortar retail
arena is easier to deal with than Nordstrom’s? For sure, they
don’t have the lowest prices. But they are borderline cult-like
when it comes to customer service, and their customers are
not only happy, but loyal.
How about L.L.Bean in catalog retail? Or Infiniti in automobiles? Or Ritz-Carlton in hospitality?
We’ll not name names in the supply chain universe, lest we
offend a worthy candidate by omission. But contemplate a
logistics service provider (LSP) that thinks more about how
to strengthen your position with customers than it does how
much to charge for each transaction. Consider the IT specialist who works 24/7, not to finish a “deliverable,” but to
flush out the bugs in an implementation.
Reflect on your relationship with a service provider who
doesn’t already “know” the right solution for you, but instead
figures out a way to customize a stock solution to fit the
needs of both you and your customers. Back to the LSP
world, how do you react to a company that wants to invest
time and resources in building a long-term relationship with
you, rather than try to recoup last year’s losses with a series
of take-it-or-leave-it rate increases?
THE LONG-TERM VIEW
In the end, of course, what’s important in the hard stuff/soft
stuff balancing act is how to do the hard stuff in a way that
has legs, in a way that will last over the long pull. The answer
lies in beginning with the soft stuff.
Almost any fool can drive a hard bargain once. But he or
she is a one-trick pony. Without the foundational infrastructure the soft stuff builds, the bargain is tough to replicate,
and impossible to maintain. It’s even a Pyrrhic victory in
some cases.
We are reminded of the cheese maker that decided to wrestle its carriers to the earth every time out to get the lowest
possible rates. Brilliant, until truckload capacity was in short
supply in the harvest season, available only to those who had
treated the carriers fairly the rest of the year. To quote Monty
Python, “Blessed are the cheese makers.” Not in this case,
though. ;
Art van Bodegraven, practice leader at S4 Consulting, may be reached at (614) 336-
0346 or avan@columbus.rr.com. You can read his blog at http://blogs.dcvelocity.com/
the_art_of_art/. Kenneth B. Ackerman, president of The Ackerman Company, can be
reached at (614) 488-3165 or ken@warehousing-forum.com.
