Crimson & Co recently attended the ‘Convenience Retail Show’ at the NEC. Talking with many of the exhibitors and retailers it was encouraging see the amount of opportunities there are to enhance business performance through delivering a high-performing 'convenience focused' supply chain.  This echoes the findings of our recent article which has been published as a result of our retail expereince and work with a 'large convenience store chain' client.

The article addresses 'what a convenience retailer needs from a supply chain'.  It recognises that successful convenience retailers are aware of the fact that the supply chain is important to their business and often the instinct is to focus on minimising supply chain costs, but points out that the supply chain can be instrumental in delivering customer satisfaction and enabling the expansion of the business.

View the full article

In March, Criticaleye, the UK's leading community of business leaders published a feature article called 'Digits' in its award winning 'Review' publication. This insightful article contains key statistics from the past six months research from members.

Crimson & Co has undertaken significant research into supply chain costs and has discovered that typically 80% of business costs are attributable to the supply chain. This highlights the potential value that can be added through efficient supply chain management, especially in periods of economic uncertainty.

View the article

Is management communication of a corporate culture and values to its workforce little more than a mantra?

Good communication and culture transmission can bring huge benefits to an organisation when carried out correctly, equally, many organisations struggle to do so and suffer the consequences. Too many executives ignore the importance of good communication and then wonder why things go so wrong. In the UK food & drink industry, like other sectors of UK manufacturing, performance and delivery are dire and the sizeable benefits disregarded. Effective communication and the transmission of values is missing from all but a handful of the biggest organisations.

John Keighley, Senior Consultant at Crimson & Co comments "There's a massive untapped amount of knowledge on the shop floor, but there are challenges. How do you collect it, filter, investigate and prioritise?" However, when such processes are in place, the rewards can be significant. John cites his involvement with a UK food manufacturer. "Their cultural change need was to encourage all their staff across six factories to challenge the operational status quo and encourage a 'Can Do' culture. And by achieving this within the first 12 months, this company added another £5m to their profit of £30m." John notes that the companies succeeding in this area fall into two categories; those that had been faced with the choice of acting or failing and those that are led by visionaries.

Effective transmission and communication begins with a well-defined culture, then making that culture part of day to day business. Employees must be given the opportunity to challenge behaviour bottom up in line with the values. All this is a challenge that should not be underestimated. But, where it is done well, it can have a huge impact.

View the full article

On the 2nd of March 2010, Crimson & Co launched its in-depth review of the Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) market.

APS systems enable the optimal allocation of raw materials and production capacity to meet demand. There are various sophisticated tools available on the market to support integrated supply chain planning and execution. In addition to this, there have recently been significant developments in functionality available to support mature S&OP processes with the analytical rigour and depth of scenario planning they require. However, the various systems available in the marketplace have very different strengths and weaknesses, and suit different levels of planning sophistication.

For more information and insight into how an APS solution can help you better manage your supply chain, please contact us.

It was announced today that Crimson & Co, one of the most successful specialist supply chain consultancies of recent years, will partner with Consilia in support of its operations restructuring services.

Consilia Partners are a senior executive management team that support key stakeholders to significantly enhance the value of their investments. With its partner organisations, Consilia provides the following services:

• Business and profit improvement
• Working capital/cash release
• Operational restructuring
• Investment strategy
• Financial restructuring
• Pre- and post-deal transaction support

Crimson & Co will be the exclusive supplier of supply chain and operations improvement consultancy services to Consilia.

Crimson & Co's latest advert was featured in the February 2010 edition of the Manufacturer. We have run several workshops with the Manufacturer Magazine discussing with delegates how they can increase their plant efficiency by up to 40% in  6 months without capital expenditure.

To find out more information please go to our Red Line method page or contact us.

After the excess and celebration of the festive season, January is traditionally a time for cutting back. But for 2010, purchasers are expecting this mood of austerity to last for the next 12 months.  “Cost-cutting” will be the main focus for 38 per cent of respondents to the latest SM100 poll, which asked buyers to identify the top priority for procurement in their organisation. With an additional 22 per cent saying their main concern was to get more spend areas under purchasing’s control, the dominant tone seems to be: spend less and control more.

But scratch deeper and a more complex picture emerges.

In any economic climate, cost-cutting will be a top-three issue for purchasing, says Tom Woodham, director of supply chain consultancy Crimson & Co.  But this year, he expects cuts will be less of an issue than supplier relationship management. “I think a lot of people have been exposed in terms of supplier relations,” he explains.  Although in some cases this exposure has been when the supplier has gone out of business, it has also been the realisation that the supplier is more valuable to the purchaser than the other way around.

View the article

'Why should we be content with waste and inefficiency on a grand scale?'

Procurement in the NHS is desperately inefficient, a state of affairs which has prevailed for many years. Whilst it can be effective at a local level, the huge number of buying points creates many different needs and processes, which, in turn drive huge inefficiencies into the supply market. Any 'central' procurement delivered so far has been seen as presenting a series of qualifying steps to be allowed into the real market, comprising of the local organisations with buying power. As a consequence, there has been limited strategic market management, a proliferation of suppliers for similar products and no way of tracking the effectiveness of spend. The formation of NHS Supply Chain has only partly addressed these issues as regional procurement hubs serving hospitals in each of the SHA areas were created at the same time. This created three tiers of procurement, each looking to achieve procurement excellence and deliver cost savings. However, the customer did not know whom to use for what purpose.

What is the answer? Most organisations recognise the need to buy at the level at which they can achieve maximum influence in the market. In the case of the NHS, for most circumstances, this would mean at the national level. It is important to emphasise that this aggregation would apply simply to the act of procurement and not to the determination of need. The accumulation of demand should also be operational, rather than strategic, allowing the NHS to optimise the inbound supply chain for cost and sustainability purposes.

An alignment of inbound physical supply chain management with procurement at the maximum appropriate level of aggregation will deliver significant savings to the NHS. However, the only strategic driver for change is placing consolidated orders for committed volumes.

View the full article

We are delighted to announce the news of three new joiners:

Veronika Strausova
Veronika joins us from Airbus where she gained significant procurement experience in addition to her inventory management skills. Veronika has worked throughout Europe and has a deep understanding of international supply chain management in a blue chip context.






Matthew Atkinson
Matthew joins Crimson from L'Oreal where he gained extensive demand planning and forecasting experience. Prior to this, he worked across the supply chain at Innocent - from production planning, to supplier managment to demand planning. Highly analytical, Matthew brings a wealth of FMCG experience to Crimson.

Tessa Barrett

Tessa has a strong operational background with a specific focus on lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement initiatives. Tessa has a comprehensive understanding of FMCG supply chains and has worked across Asia Pacific and Europe. Her previous role involved analysing global raw commodity markets.

Crimson & Co wish all its staff, clients and friends a Merry Christmas and the very best in the New Year.

2009 has been a fantastic year for Crimson & Co as we continue to grow, work with more new clients and achieve successful outcomes with all of our clients. We are excited about 2010 and look forward to the challenges and opportunities it will bring!

Following the announcement that Tamarack joined Crimson & Co on the 20th October 2009, the news was featured in Supply Management; both in their daily update to members and on their online magazine.  The article read:

Crimson & Co takes over rival consultancy

UK supply chain consultancy Crimson & Co has completed a takeover of competitor Tamarack Consulting for an undisclosed fee. The deal, finalised last week, means Tamarack will cease trading and Crimson will take on its resources including staff, client base and intellectual property.

Richard Powell, managing director of Crimson, said: "Tamarack's clients include several powerful retailers and consumer goods companies and, as these are historically strong areas for Crimson & Co, we are excited about the opportunity to expand the relationship with these clients."  John Sewell, senior director at Tamarack, added: "Joining Crimson & Co builds on our commitment to develop supply chain strategies that deliver tangible bottom line results."  Among Sewell's recent clients are J Sainsbury, Argos, Avon Cosmetics, Asda, RHM (Manor Bakeries), Ahold and Somerfield.  Crimson & Co's recent clients include Avon Cosmetics, British American Tobacco, PZ Cussons, Tesco, Shell Lubricants and Novartis.


View the story

This year’s CIPS Supply Management Award attracted record entries – with almost 200 applications vying for top honours.  We are proud to say that our client, Leisure Connection, made the shortlist for the ‘Best cross-functional teamwork project’ category, which is a great achievement.

It was announced today that Tamarack, the supply chain strategy and performance improvement consultancy, will join Crimson & Co, one of the most successful specialist supply chain consultancies of recent years. As a result of this, Tamarack will cease trading.

Richard Powell, Managing Director of Crimson & Co, stated:
"Tamarack will reinforce the breadth of our offerings and extend Crimson & Co’s strong position in the supply chain industry."
“Crimson & Co has a strong cultural identity and Tamarack will be a perfect fit.”
"Tamarack’s clients include several powerful retailers and consumer goods companies and, as these are historically strong areas for Crimson & Co, we are excited about the opportunity to expand the relationship with these clients."

John Sewell, Senior Director of Tamarack, commented: "Joining Crimson & Co builds on our commitment to develop supply chain strategies that deliver tangible bottom line results for our clients.”
“Tamarack clients will benefit from Crimson & Co’s strength in depth, their practical experience of working with companies across the globe and their knowledge base of cross industry best practice."

Further details Julie Lowell, Marketing Manager

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)

Achieving Competitive Advantage: Aligning Product, Marketing & Supply Strategies
(PDF Document - 109kb)

Online video of the forum

An effective supply chain toolkit that identifies weaknesses for corrective action must be thorough in its methodology, broad in ambition and customisable for a range of industries and business types.

The Crimson & Co Supply Chain Excellence Toolkit meets all these requirements. It compares an organisation’s supply chain against industry best practice in order to provide an impartial assessment of process strengths and weaknesses. The objectives are typically raised service levels, reduced cost and an increase in working capital. The supply chain is divided up into six functional areas; buy, make, plan, deliver, demand and foundation. Each of these functional levels is further broken down into process maturity profiles. Each element of the functional area is then assessed on the maturity of the process. The modular nature of the system permits customisation and enables a business to select the parts that are applicable to its operation and have the most impact in their industry.

View 'The Manufacturer' article

Long supply chains may seem a liability in the current climate; but, warns Simon Butcher, we must not throw the baby of recovery out with the bathwater of recession.

In the current economic climate sales are down, costs and are up and finance is no longer readily available. For organisations with long supply chains these issues are exacerbated by long lead times, high MOQs and high inventories. These pressures drive companies to make changes to their supply chain cost - often logistics cost even though it is rarely the crucial element of supply chain cost. However, fundamental alterations to survive the recession must take into consideration ability to perform in the subsequent upturn.

For an organisation facing declining demand there are several options; reducing, deferring or cancelling orders will have an immediate impact but how will the supplier respond when you want to ramp up production? If the goods have already been made you could store them in the market or sell off surplus. Again these options have associated risks. The problem is that in a downturn the organisation would like to do the former (least damaging, earliest actions) but in an upturn the latter is preferable - providing flexibility to instantly meet new demand.

Planning for the upturn is difficult due to unreliable demand and the time lag between increasing demand and the ability to respond. Cheap suppliers are likely to have gone bust and there will be a shortage in both international and domestic transport capacity. Whilst there is a trade off in unit cost between EU and far east manufacturing (EU production typically leads to lower inventory whereas the far east will have lower labour costs) the loss of sales faced in an upturn is likely to be greater from companies using far east manufacturing due to the simple inability to get stock on the shelves. Supply chain agility is critical to mitigate this risk. The focus should be on procurement and manufacturing, i.e. the gap between emergent demand and the ability to supply to it. Logistical actions will not have an impact on their own; a co-ordinated, holistic response across the supply chain is what is required.

View the Supply Chain Europe Article

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.

In this context we benchmark:

• 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.

Specifically it considering:

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

Crimson & Co’s latest advert took pride of place in the ‘Supply Chain & Logistics Supplement’ distributed within the Daily Telegraph on 31st March 2009.

The supplement addressed issues such as climate change, cost containment and outsourcing amongst others.  The supplement will also be issued at the Multimodal 2009, which is on 28 - 30th of April at the NEC in Birmingham, as well as the SCL Europe summit 2009, which is on 8th -10th June at the Swissotel, Dusseldorf, which Crimson & Co will be sponsoring.

View the Daily Telegraph ‘Supply Chain and Logistics Supplement’

"About 24% more firms moved from the back of the pack to the front in the 2001 downturn compared with the subsequent period of economic calm, according to an eight year study that analysed the net profit margins."

Our Head of Supply Chain Excellence, Dave Bennett has produced a workshop on 'How to use the downturn to have a fitter, faster, stronger supply chain'. The workshop enables attendees to assess the relative standing of their supply chains and explore ways to drive improvements. This uses a Supply Chain Excellence process framework which incorporates cross industry best practice. Finally, it demonstrates 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)

Supply chain consultancy Crimson & Co has recently launched its innovative Red Line method to manufacturers.

Red Line^® is a flexible, thorough and empowering approach specifically designed to address common problems experienced by manufacturers and deliver rapid and dramatic results.

Click to enlarge

We are delighted to announce news of two new joiners, Dave Bennett and Karine Bartle.

Dave Bennett
Dave joins as a director of Crimson & Co having worked in the field of supply chain management for 20 years, both in consulting and line management/director roles. His previous companies include Coopers & Lybrand, Accenture, HP, Cable & Wireless and Exel/DHL. Whilst directing the healthcare business in DHL, he was responsible for the outsourcing of all procurement and logistics in the NHS – still the largest outsourcing contract awarded by the UK Government.

Karine Bartle
Karine joins us from DHL and has extensive international supply chain management experience in the Far East, USA and Europe. She has a strong operational background with a specific focus on retail and consumer sectors.