Digitising the supply chain: the awareness imperative

One of the best bloggers on the supply chains today is SCM World’s Kevin O’Marah, and this post on Zara shows why – it’s a penetrating analysis of how the gulf between the way Zara handles and interprets its supply chain data, using what Mr O’Marah calls the three-step “sense, decide, respond” approach, and its lagging retail competitors are effectively running their supply chains “blind”. “Zara is an icon, relying on a contrarian strategy of vertical integration in retail apparel to introduce dramatically more new items each year. The virtuous circle this approach sustains includes more frequent shopper visits to stores, fewer sales on markdown and faster cash conversion cycles.”