New Independent Contractor Rules: What You Need to Know
Any Clue What ‘Totality of the Circumstances’ Really Means? What happens when your organization must provide minimum wage, unemployment insurance and Social Security benefits to all your “independent contractors”? You might find out soon. On March 11, the U.S....
3PL Supply Chain Innovation: Control Towers, Flexible Labor
A Link in a Chain Is Not Enough for Competitive Advantage in Today’s Market Sometimes, supply chain innovation is as simple as adding a third fulfillment center. Bam – with the right geographic locations, these three sites allow you to deliver 92% of your orders in...
The Challenge of Diversifying Supply Chains Away from China
The latest figures show U.S. imports from China declined in 2023. So, all those plans to decouple and diversify supply chains from China must be working, right? Not so fast. Imports from other countries often have their genesis in China. And bilateral trade between...
Ecosystems: From Swamps & Supply Chains to Business Strategy
A 30-year Evolution to a Business Model for Perpetual Disruption Remember the old line: “When I was in high school, I did not know how to spell engineer, and now I are one”? Well, in the mid-1990s, I read business strategist James Moore’s book The Death of...
Adam Smith Wants You to Redesign Your Supply Chains
Why We Went from 1 Factory for the World to the World Is Your Factory In just five years, the world has turned upside down. Leadership has evolved from believing free trade was best to a world of tariffs, export restrictions and trade wars. China has been (and largely...
From 1 Factory for the World to the World Is Your Factory
Sure, Trade with China Is Growing. But Supply Chain Resilience Means Looking Anywhere Else In 2020, China was the factory of the world. Just-in-time was the way to optimize operations. Supply chain resilience wasn’t factored in. In 2020-2021, organizations...
2023 Insights: The Top 10 Blogs on Supply Chain Leadership
Expect More Disruption and Workforce Woes in 2024 First off, Happy New Year from Tompkins Ventures! As many of us commute back into the office this week (or, better yet, walk to our work-from-home office), I figured we would kick off 2024 with a look back at some...
Profitability or Loyalty? What’s the Most Important Success Factor?
5 Tips to Help You Deepen Your Connection to Customers in 2024 As 2023 nears its end and we evaluate our accomplishments, we face another important task. Answering “How are we going to perform in 2024?” This question has relevance in every role we play. For me,...
A 3-Pack of Supply Chain Disruptions for the Holidays
Shipping Attacks, Greedflation and ABC Make Resiliency Even More Difficult in 2024 Good things come in threes. So do bad things – like supply chain disruptions. Yemeni rebels have said happy holidays to global supply chains by firing drones and missiles at Red Sea...
Global Supply Chains at Risk – Again
In a World Riven by Disruption, Optionality Will Help You Deliver “Global pre-Christmas trade at risk” screams The Financial Times headline. Where have we heard this before? Pretty much every year since 2020. VUCA – volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity –...