Most of us didn’t think much about the supply chain until the pandemic. Today, owners of even the smallest businesses stay on top of the supply of inventory and materials, so they can keep their competitive edge.
To catch up on the supply chain issues affecting small businesses today, I spoke recently with Radu Palamariu, author of From Source to Sold, an inside look at supply chain best practices, and managing director Asia Pacific & Europe for Alcott Global, a 30-person executive search company that holds quarterly events acknowledging talented supply chain professionals and has built a community among those in the supply chain industry. Alcott Global also has learning solutions and a tech database for the supply chain.
Elaine Pofeldt: Many ecommerce entrepreneurs found it very difficult to work with their supply chain during the pandemic and are still having problems. What advice would you give them about avoiding shortages, given that they aren’t as big as Walmart?
Radu Palamariu: The thing with being small is that you’re nimble and you can adjust quite fast. Try to focus and find and be creative around finding this type of solution. There’s no point at all to try to negotiate with big logistics companies. They’re not even going to bother with you, because you don’t have the volumes.
Elaine Pofeldt: Is there a resource you would recommend to get access to the economies of scale big aggregators have?
Radu Palamariu: Google. It’s safe to assume the tech solution you need already exists. Also look at the big aggregators. Take Shopify for ecommerce. You basically have all the systems that you need from Shopify from the inventory to the invoicing to the how they pay you.
Elaine Pofeldt: It sounds like someone can get up and running pretty easily in ecommerce without a big team if they master the supply chain.
Radu Palamariu: Literally, one of my friends sells toilets literally toilets but stocks the inventory in a warehouse in Singapore, which is just one island. They are from China, Malaysia and Indonesia. It generally takes up to two months to order one in Singapore. Yet because he has it in a warehouse in Singapore, it takes one to two to three days and for some people that matters, so he doesn’t he didn’t even necessarily hedge on having the best or cheapest.
Elaine Pofeldt: Is he a one-person business?
Radu Palamariu Yes.
Elaine Pofeldt: So maybe this approach to inventory is the next frontier for the one-person business.
Radu Palamariu: There’s one futurist who says that factory of the future will be a man and a dog. The man is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to make sure the man doesn’t touch any buttons. It’s stuck with me because that’s where we’re heading into automation at scale.
In the context of the small business, you’ve got to be clear what is the problem that you’re fixing what is it is the cost. Is it the cheapest? The fastest? The best quality? The most reliable? Be selective about what you’re really offering, and don’t try to be “vanilla” and please everybody. Selling
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