Two teams from Crimson & Co ran in 10k races on the 29th November as part of the third 'Crimson Challenge'. Four Crimsonites (Crimson Team South) ran in the Woburn Abbey 10k in Bedfordshire and three Crimsonites (Crimson Team North) ran in the Knowsley Hall and Safari Park 10k near Liverpool. Both teams ran good races, but there can only be one winner, so congratulations to 'Crimson Team South' who won with a combined time of 2 hours 38 minutes. As you can see from the photo Crimson Team South didn't waste much time in celebrating their success in the nearest pub! All funds raised went to the RNLI to help fund vital training and equipment to enable volunteer crews and lifeguards to continue to save lives. 

Crimson 10k Team North  

Crimson 10k Team South 

Thank you to all of our guests at our second client alumni event for making it such a success.

Speaker: Phil Streatfield
Event: Client Alumni II
Location: Rhodes 24, Private Dining room, London
Date: Thursday 19th November 2009 

Following on from the success of our first alumni event in May, we held a second event at the Michelin-starred Rhodes 24 restaurant. Crimson & Co’s client alumni is an invite-only network for clients and former clients designed to foster supply chain leadership.

We would like to extend a huge ‘thank you’ to Phil Streatfield, former Logistics Director at Woolworths, for his fascinating presentation on the last days of Woolworth’s and the thought-provoking insight he gave us on, amongst other things, the impact of funding choices on a business. This stimulated much discussion over the evening and will, I’m sure, remain at the forefront of our minds as we continue through these challenging times.

We would like to thank our guests for such positive feedback, we will be announcing the details of our next event shortly.
 

Extended Supply Chain is Europe’s premier strategic forum for director level supply chain professionals.

Crimson & Co is delighted to announce that it is a Gold sponsor for this leading conference. As part of the forum Crimson & Co will be running a workshop to foster supply chain thought leadership. Speakers at this prestigious event include supply chain leaders from Pepsico, Asda, Cisco, IBM and hp amongst others.

Thanks to all of our guests at our recent Champagne, Canapés and Wine Tasting evening for making it such a lively and successful event!
 

Set in the cellars of the wonderfully worn-in Berry Brothers & Rudd wine shop near St James’s Palace, the Crimson & Co team was joined by partners, friends, suppliers and clients as it celebrated its continued success.

The champagne and canapés were excellent but, as usual, the highlight was the walk-around wine tasting, which this year was based on ‘Rediscovering the Classics’ featuring premium wines such as Chablis, Hermitage, Barolo and Ch. Lynch Bages, 5ème Cru Classé, Pauillac from Bordeaux.

A team from Crimson plus friends and family took part in the Dragon boat racing regatta in Marlow. Dragon boat racing has ancient Chinese origins and its history has been traced back more than 2000 years.

Today Dragon boat racing involves teams of up to twenty paddlers in a 40 foot boat with a drummer and helm, paddling frantically to beat the other teams down the course. The drums, shouting and colourful boats make it an exciting sport both to watch and to compete in. The team won four races despite being up against tough competition from various rugby clubs and made it all the way to the semi finals.

A great day was had by everyone with all proceeds going towards Wooden Spoon. Wooden Spoon is rugby's charity supporting mentally, physically and socially disadvantaged children and young people. Spoon has committed to over £14 million in spending for projects for children and young people. It has organised over 2,000 events and has over 25,000 ties worn by its loyal members and supporters.

Crimson & Co with Criticaleye hosted a forum at University of Chicago Booth School of Business on 9th July entitled “Achieving Competitive Advantage: Aligning Product, Marketing & Supply Strategies”.  Nick Miller, Principal, Crimson & Co was one of the speakers at the forum along with Andrew Moore, Supply Chain & Merchandising Director, George and Sean Rickard, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Cranfield School of Management. The forum was be chaired by Charlie Wagstaff, Founder & Managing Director, Criticaleye. It was an interesting discussion and people stayed for a long time afterwards debating some of the issues that were raised, which is testament to a great debate. Please see below a synopsis of the event:

Achieving Competitive Advantage: Aligning Product, Marketing & Supply Strategies. Outside M&A and product innovation, the only vehicle to achieve competitive advantage in a recession is supply chain excellence. To move into a leadership position and trigger sustained market performance when recovery comes, companies must ensure they have best-in-class alignment of their supply chain, marketing and product strategies.

In this context we consider:

• How better to align your product and marketing strategies with your supply chain
• The current economic climate. What options do companies have? Why do some companies thrive in this period?
• Demand driven supply chain strategy. What is it? How is it different? What are its benefits?
• Getting started. How to begin the transformation to a demand driven strategy
• Enabling the process. Implications for organisational design, performance measurement and information systems

In order to give best practice advice, Nick Miller, Principal, Crimson & Co has produced the following:

Checklist: Supply Strategy and Competitive Advantage
(PDF Document - 46kb)

View the write- up of the forum
(PDF Document - 109kb)

View the video of the forum

Thanks to everyone who sponsored Alison Walthew and Jane Powell in the Chester 5k race for life and everyone who sponsored Oliver Hale, John Keighley and Tom Lye who cycled 60 miles from London to Brighton in the British Heart Foundation bike ride.

This year, the race took place around the city centre starting and finishing at the famous Chester Racecourse with over 6,000 women taking part in the event. Alison and Jane exceeded their targets and raised £215 for Cancer research. Cancer Research UK is the world's leading independent organisation dedicated to cancer research. Over the past 10 years alone, thousands of lives have been saved through earlier detection and improved treatments.

Oliver, John and Tom raised a total of £790 in sponsorship for the foundation. The British Heart Foundation undertakes pioneering research into heart disease, develops vital prevention activities and ensures quality care and support for everyone living with heart disease.

The team attempted the Yorkshire Three Peaks, climbing Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough in a 12 hour period. This challenge involved a 24 mile walk over a variety of terrain and over 1,600 metres of climbing.

All Crimsonites, except those on holiday, took part. We all chose the right level of challenge, with 8 climbing all three peaks, 8 attempting two peaks, 10 scaling a single peak and two completing a six mile challenge and providing logistical support. That's 50 peaks climbed in total!

Whilst this was a great day out for us all, we also wanted to take the opportunity to raise money for charity. Our chosen charity is Beechwood Cancer Care Centre in Stockport, which provided immense support to fellow Crimsonite Matt York, his wife Hayley and their two daughters during Hayley's recent illness. Sadly Hayley died in May this year.

We set a target of collectively raising £1,500. We successfully raised £2,261. As we hit the target Crimson topped that money up with another £1,000, making a grand total of £3,261. We would like to thank everyone who donated. www.justgiving.com/crimsonchallenge

Crimson & Co was proud to sponsor the ‘Supply Chain of the Year Award’ at the European Supply Chain & Logistics Summit 2009 held in Dusseldorf, Germany.

The Supply Chain of the Year Award spotlights world-class organisations that have recognised the critical role that supply chain performance plays in reaching their goals. It is often the case that supply chain excellence remains the domain of the functional specialist but true business excellence is derived where the supply chain agenda is raised to the top of the organisation and can be seen to contribute to and underpin successful market strategy.

Believing passionately in the ‘demand driven supply chain’, we were delighted to help to recognise and reward the outstanding work of companies that have achieved significant success in supply chain delivery, as well as progress in growing shareholder value. Such achievements are hard earned and deserve the cross industry recognition that this award represents.

Crimson & Co with Criticaleye recently hosted a discussion session entitled "Supply Chain Management: A Route out of Recession?" It was hosted by Nick Wilkins, Senior VP Global Manufacturing and Supply Chain EMI and chaired by Janet Godsell, Research Fellow at Cranfield School of Management. The event proved to be a great success and was the first in a series of Criticaleye events which will be hosted and/or delivered by Crimson & Co.  Please see below a synopsis of the event:

"Supply Chain Management: A Route out of Recession?"

The supply chain provides an obvious area of focus for managing a response to the current economic situation. Whilst supply chain management is a well developed concept, most organisations have failed to implement it as an element of an integrated market strategy. The response therefore often takes the form of a cost-cutting exercise, rather than strategic realignment.

• How the ‘supply chain’ is positioned within their respective companies in terms of organisation structure but also in terms of its involvement in the corporate strategy and its alignment to the marketing and product strategy.
• How their companies are responding to the current economic downturn. Where is the focus? What lessons are being learned that will change business processes in the future?
• How their supply chains support this sort of change.

• The strategic positioning of supply chain.
• The organisational response to the downturn.
• The role that the supply chain plays in supporting this response.
• The opportunities to use the supply chain more strategically.

View the discussion write-up
(Supply Chain Management A Route Out of Recession - PDF document - 97kb)

Thanks to all our guests at our recent ‘Client Alumni’ event for making it such a great success.

Speaker: Janet Godsell, Research Fellow at Cranfield School of Management
Event: Client Alumni Launch Dinner
Location: The Ivy Private Room, London
Date: Tuesday 19th May 2009

Set in the private room of The Ivy, one of London’s finest restaurants, Crimson & Co hosted a launch dinner for the Client Alumni which is an invite-only network for clients and former clients aimed at fostering supply chain leadership.

For the first in the series of our networking events the topic for debate was ‘Supply chain management: a route through and out of recession?’ The discussion was informed and initiated by special guest, Janet Godsell, Research Fellow at Cranfield School of Management. We would like to thank our guests for such positive feedback and are already planning the next event!

Crimson & Co has recently exhibited at the Logistics and Distribution forum held at the Radisson Hotel, Stansted.

Our main point of focus for this event was putting logistics at the forefront of supply chain strategy. We used case studies as a basis to discuss how some of the world’s most successful companies have used logistics to deliver customer driven supply chain strategies. We would like to thank all of the delegates we met for such interesting and stimulating discussions and for such positive feedback.

Thanks to all of our guests who joined us for the CIPS Annual Dinner 2009, on Wednesday 11th March at The Dorchester Hotel.

This prestigious event provided an occasion for procurement professionals to enjoy an evening of fine dining, convivial company and networking opportunities in one of London's finest hotels. After dinner speaker, Frank Gardner OBE, the high profile BBC security correspondent delivered an inspirational and compelling insight into his experiences and challenges working in some of the world's most dangerous war zones.

Extended Supply Chain is Europe’s premier strategic forum for director level supply chain professionals.

As part of the forum Crimson & Co delivered a 'Thought Leadership' workshop to companies including Cadbury's, Nokia, Microsoft, NAPP Pharmaceutical, 3M, Wolseley and Burger King amongst others. We would like to thank the delegates for such positive feedback and comments.

Our Head of Supply Chain Excellence, Dave Bennett hosted a workshop on 'How to use the downturn to have a fitter, faster, stronger supply chain'. The workshop enabled attendees to assess the relative standing of their supply chains and explored ways to drive improvements. This was done in a fully interactive session, using a Supply Chain Excellence process framework which incorporates cross industry best practice. Finally, delegates saw how this approach has delivered very significant benefits to a market
leading consumer good business as it has globalised its business operations.

Download the Workshop Presentation (PDF Doc 4.2mb)

The Fast Track Masterclass introduced delegates to Crimson & Co’s Red Line® method, which increases the efficiency of manufacturing plants by up to 40%, within six months, without capital expenditure.

Delegates discovered how some of the world’s most successful manufacturers have used the Red Line^® method to improve their cost base, customer satisfaction, market share and employee morale.

The master class was run for senior manufacturing executives, and was led by John Keighley, senior consultant at Crimson & Co, who has extensive experience of leading the Red Line^® method and delivering results of this magnitude across three continents. He shared his insights into why this is achievable and showed delegates how to apply the proven approach to their businesses.

Go to The Red Line^® Method page