A game changer for today’s e-commerce companies: How efficient supply chain management helped Home Depot evolve

View original at blog.kinaxis.com

Over the last few decades, small and medium size (SME) companies have been leveraging their daily and long-term operations by using more efficient supply chain delivery and optimization techniques. Business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) companies are also following this trend to step their game up and deliver their goods and services by shorter production and delivery times. Logistics is one of the critical subjects for e-commerce companies. In a sense, logistics refers to the art of managing the flow of materials to deliver the product to the customers. Throughout the process of designing, manufacturing and delivering the product, companies can utilize their logistics activities within –and certainly not limited to- two domains. Physical supply Physical supply refers to the portion of logistics that covers activities to deliver the product-related materials to the suppliers. Physical distribution Physical distribution is the part where the company plans the delivery of the final product to the customers. Supply chain management has come a long way to overcome a variety of challenges related to logistics. Today’s enterprise management and planning solutions are helping most e-commerce companies to make better decisions, reduce the physical supply and physical distribution costs and improve the overall efficiency of the material flow. Although B2B companies benefit from the sophisticated and automated procedures and estimations more than B2C companies do, there are indeed real-life success stories that can help us to understand the importance of logistics in supply chain management. Home Depot is one of the biggest retailers selling home improvement and construction products and services. With more than 355,000 employees and 2,000 superstores across the US, Canada, Mexico and China, the company is doing pretty well with its efficient supply chain and logistics strategies. The company is also investing heavily in its e-commerce strategies to increase its customer base […]