Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “procurement”
Supply chains – Not so many years ago My early experiences with Supply Chain design and management mostly involved products flowing in one direction alone, from the supplier to the customer. The world was so logical with defined order plans beautifully transposed into supplier orders and deliveries. The products used to arrive on pallets, well stacked. There were some processing centres within the warehouses, …
Bank of England in partnership 4C associates have been awarded the GO Award for procurement leadership in recognition of the outstanding achievement in procurement The award cements Bank of England’s place as a market leader and 4C’s position as a leading procurement consultant Bank of England and 4C associates have been honoured as a winner entry in the UK National …
The Co-op continues to go from strength to strength recording market share gains in a market where the German discounters are the only other ones boasting the same. The discounters success is (relatively) easily explained – they are the “Ronseal” of retail, providing a reasonable range of assorted affordable products day in day out – something that clearly resonates with …
Mention the phrase ‘fast fashion’ and most people will think of a cheap high street t-shirt with a predictable country listed on the inside label: China. But increasingly, observant consumers are finding a new collection of countries on the label of their fast fashion clothing – countries that are a lot closer to home, such as Turkey and other Eastern European countries. This phenomenon is called ‘nearshoring’. Why, in a world of innovation, …
It comes as no surprise that the procurement function is using big data to drive digital change. According to a recent survey of over 650 leaders in procurement, supply chain and finance from Europe and North America, 72 percent of respondents stated big data and predictive analytics as one of the top five priorities for their organisations. These organisations are investing heavily in technologies that, beyond cost savings …
Creativity is the final bastion of what it is to be human, the one thing that machines are not going to be able to do, and therefore our jobs are safe provided they require creative input. A new book out this month by Marcus du Sautoy, The Creativity Code, discusses to what extent computers can be programmed to invent and …
A new discount retailer opened its doors recently on UK high streets. The chain, known as ‘One Below’ initially opened four stores in Leeds, South Shields and Doncaster. All four sites were previously occupied by the failed discount retailer Poundworld but the link with Poundworld doesn’t just end there. One Below is the brainchild of father and son team Chris …
Welcome to the Spring edition of 4C Associates’ quarterly Oil & Gas sector update. With oil majors publishing their first set of quarterly results of 2019 (reporting Q4 2018), it has demonstrated that after years of fighting to gain control of costs, the industry’s ‘big-guns’ can finally get back to generating significant cash flows. Still, the question surrounding the long-term …
The Retail sector is going through profound, fundamental and on-going change. High street shops are closing at an accelerating rate while fierce online competition is squeezing already tight margins. Many retailers are responding by restructuring and transforming their businesses in different ways, but with such complex programmes there are many things that can go wrong. Here at 4C, we have …
2018 was not a great year for the retail industry. Increasing costs and diminishing footfall resulted in shrinking profits. However, there are numerous ways that retailers can look to improve their profitability in 2019 to reduce mounting pressure. Creating innovative private label ranges is one sustainable way to reduce costs whilst getting more customers into shops. From past experiences working …
