Fantastic, Amazing, Fabulous

…just some of the comments from the winners in the European Supply Chain Excellence Awards.  More than 60 of Europe’s leading retailers and manufacturers fought their way to the finals, and the winners were revealed at a glittering event at London’s Park Lane Hilton. Nick Allen, Johanna Parsons and Rosy Hill report.

One of the great names of British manufacturing has taken the top Award at the 2013 European Supply Chain Excellence Awards – Jaguar Land Rover with Unipart Logistics.

Dino Rocos, operations director of the John Lewis Partnership won the Individual Contribution Award.

And a new Award for Third Party Logistics Provider of the Year went to DHL Supply Chain.

The winners were announced in front of more than 500 supply chain professionals at London’s Park Lane Hilton hosted by comedian Rob Beckett on 6th November.

The Awards are organised by Supply Chain Standard in association with PwC, and are unique in the depth of analysis involved in the judging process, which in turn makes them uniquely worth winning.

Announcing the winner, Johnathon Marshall, partner at PwC, said: “In the end there was one organisation who stood out across the five core disciplines. This organisation showed how their supply chain was used to create a genuine competitive advantage.

“It therefore gives me great pleasure to announce that the winner of the 2013 European Supply Chain Excellence Award is Jaguar Land Rover with Unipart.”

A total of 64 organisations made it to the final stage of the Awards this year.

The Awards entries highlighted many of the trends in supply chain and logistics that have been apparent across industry.

The development of online shopping has forced traditional retailers to come up with strategies to compete with the online specialists. Not only that, there are companies that started out as online-only retailers that are now opening stores.

Increasingly companies operate in an omni-channel world – one where the supply chain must be as responsive to a buyer on a mobile phone as it is to a shopper in the store.

In manufacturing, the need to be able to respond quickly to changes in the market has influenced growth in near-shoring. And the trend towards strong collaborative supply chain partnerships has also been highlighted by the Awards entries.

It is clear that supply chain is now seen in a different light from a couple of years ago. Then, recession meant that the over-riding priority for many organisations was to cut supply chain costs. While costs will always be important, the Awards entries this year demonstrated that there is now more scope for innovative thinking – enabling companies to be more agile, responsive and resilient – and ultimately delivering a better customer experience.

Johnathon Marshall, said: “Tonight’s Awards provide a magnificent platform to share leading supply chain practices and recognise those organisations, the people, the brains, the advocates who ensure that the supply chain delivers for our respective organisations.”

And he pointed out: “Get your supply chain right and it will move your business strategy forward and set you apart from the competition.”

Alongside PwC, sponsors include: Achilles, BiS Henderson Consulting, Demand Solutions, Flextronics, Unipart Logistics, Yusen Logistics, and Hughenden Consulting.

The Awards have been supported by a team of hugely experienced external judges, including for the final panel: Richard Hunt, chairman of The London Ambulance Service and former president of The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport; Theo de Pencier, chief executive of the Freight Transport Association; Birgitte Olsen, head of logistics at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

What does it take to win?

Entrants are asked to provide the judges with a lot of information. In some cases where the judges feel they don’t have enough information – they go back and ask for more.

Those entrants that make it through to the final are invited to make a presentation to the judges and answer questions.

In this process the judges look for five common characteristics of high performing supply chains – the five core disciplines. These are:
1. Does your supply chain help to deliver competitive advantage to your company – or is it a cost of doing business?
2. Are your processes and systems streamlined and integrated across the end-to-end supply chain – or are they complex and fragmented?
3. Is the supply chain organisation structured and staffed for success – or is it an admin function staffed with the dead weights?
4. Have you built a collaborative operating model with a clear understanding of your core competencies – or are you a jack of all trades and a master of none?
5. Have you a clear understanding of how to measure success and is the organisation incentivised to deliver it – or do you measure everything and do nothing with it?

If the entry was for a special category – for example Sourcing and Procurement, or Customer Service there is less emphasis given to the core disciplines and more emphasis to the relative performance and achievement of each of the finalists. In addition, the judges give special attention to the demonstration of innovation and the commitment, passion and enthusiasm of entrants.

And the winners are…

Sponsors:

PwC is delighted to partner with Akabo Media once again this year, to bring the European Supply Chain Excellence Awards to the supply chain marketplace. PwC has been a long-standing partner in these Awards. We greatly enjoyed our interaction with entrants, from initial judging in the spring, through the intensive period of live judging of presentations in September, to the final judging stage in October. As supply chains continue to become more global and companies in all industries increasingly seek to gain competitive advantage from them, we in PwC greatly value engaging with those companies at the forefront of developments, as well as bringing our own expertise to bear.
W: www.PwC.co.uk

Yusen Logistics is a leading provider of contract logistics and air/ocean freight forwarding. Offering a truly global, total logistics service, the company provides warehousing, distribution, freight forwarding and supply chain management services. As of incorporation on 1st April 2011, the company’s European region employs some 4,300 employees and operates 75 facilities with over 700,000 m2 of warehousing space throughout Europe, from Spain to Russia. The global headquarters of Yusen Logistics is Tokyo, with other regional headquarters for East Asia, South Asia/Oceania and the Americas.
W: www.eur.yusen-logistics.com

Achilles is a leading global provider of integrated supplier management and supply chain solutions. We help companies to significantly reduce risks, costs and time spent on procurement activities, through our flexible range of supplier qualification and management solutions. Our evaluation and qualification model is central to our offer and we undertake thousands of on-site audits and desktop assessments to ensure suppliers’ compliance is maintained. Our model raises industry standards globally, by forming communities of buyers and suppliers across a wide range of industries. W: www.achilles.com

Demand Solutions is in business to do one thing: help you produce goods more efficiently. We don’t stop at the traditional supply chain. We enable companies like yours to build online ecosystems – social environments – where you can share expertise and information with your stakeholders to keep inventory moving forward. This social supply chain helps you to drive down costs, improve productivity and increase cash flow. As a result, you can react more quickly to changes in your market and take on new competitors from a position of strength. W: www.demandsolutions.com

Hughenden is an international, specialist consultancy, focused on change management in the processes of Supply Chain Planning. We are experts in a very specific field of Supply Chain, specialising in Sales & Operations Planning, Sales Forecasting, Inventory Optimisation, Production Planning & Scheduling, Materials Planning – all the areas that are critical contributors to the financial performance of a business. We have long-term partnerships with our clients, who span the world, helping them through a combination of consultancy and education to institute continuous and sustained change and to develop the competence of their planning community.
W: www.hughendenconsulting.com

What sets Unipart Logistics apart is our strong corporate philosophy, ‘The Unipart Way’. It’s attracted a diverse, global client-base that extends from retail to technology and automotive.  We manage end-to-end supply chain solutions for our customers as well as providing individual services such as warehousing, fulfilment and reverse logistics. And through our consulting arm, we help our clients to optimise their supply chains.
W: www.unipartlogistics.com

Flextronics Global Services and Software (FGSS) is one of the world’s most respected providers of post-manufacturing supply chain services. Our comprehensive suite of aftermarket services is fully optimised to meet the specific requirements of customers operating within the computing, consumer digital, infrastructure, industrial, mobile and medical markets. By embracing our customer’s existing business models, we identify opportunities to increase efficiency and improve profits while improving brand loyalty.
W: www.flextronics.com

BiS Henderson offers a wide range of Supply Chain and Logistics’ consultancy services. A highly experienced team, with a strong track record of results. Focusing on design, implementation and management of the best in class supply chain solutions. BiS gives great attention to detail aiming to really understand what value is all about. Making recommendations for your business that we would deliver if it was our own, with detailed roadmaps in achieving our proposal. As part of the broader BiS Henderson Group we can provide additional support through our leading brands in Recruitment and Interim Supply Management. W: www.bis-hendersonconsulting.com