The Inovis Blog

I liked “That 70’s Show,” but having lived through my formative years in the late 70’s and early 80’s, I was never a fan of double digit inflation, an uncertain job market or my favorite businesses closing. During the Stagflation years, many businesses went belly up because they could not adjust to increasing costs and stagnant or declining sales in a highly competitive market. Some macro economists viewed this as a good thing as it weeds out inefficiency from the system. If you are on the receiving end then you have a hard time viewing it as a good thing.

The Stagflation years did seed the implementation of efficiency methods that we take for a given today. Early versions of Total Quality Management (TQM) and Just in Time (JIT) manufacturing were implemented by companies during that period as methods of keeping margin and generally surviving. These early efficiency methods were primarily based on process and not so much on data and tools since the tools and real-time data didn’t exist yet.

The government says we are not in a recession or have stagflation. They haven’t been in a grocery store in a while then. Flour is up 300%, eggs are up 300%, sugar is up 200%, Vegetable oil is up 250%. I don’t need to tell you how much fuel and utility prices have risen. Increased labor rates will likely follow soon. If you don’t want to go out of business then you must counter the increase in costs with optimizing your operational processes and supply chain.

Optimizing in this highly competitive and global economy is critical. It is too easy for your customers to compare and source from somewhere else in this day of electronic communication. Initiating efforts to minimize LTL, maximize fulfillment and distribution center efficiency through analytics and data quality, improve cash turn cycle through community management,  management of chargebacks and fees must all be done to not only compete but survive.

Technology and data interrogation based tools exist today that let you know conditions are right for something to happen – an early warning system. They provide alerts before an event happens so you can immediately collaborate with your partners to stop it or adjust. These tools are no longer innovative or something you test out as a proof-of-concept. Companies that use them will survive and companies that don’t will be pounding sand.

What’s in my MP3 player? Stevie Ray Vaughan. The Sky is Crying.