Category Archive

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory announced a plan to save $1.2 million annually by working on warehousing, transportation, and manufacturing improvements. This initiative is part of the businesses’ plan to accelerate growth and profitability after seeing a $1.9 million net loss in Q4, which ended Feb 28.

Over the last few years, there as been a lot of hype about digitization in the logistics industry. But there are large risks involved with this process. The most important decision is selecting the right digital partner. If the digital partner runs into financial trouble, all the work you put into adopting the platform into your business could go to …

In response to the increasing interest among Canadian companies to diversify their market presence beyond the United States and China, local governments are stepping up to support these businesses. One such example is B.C.’s Trade Diversification Strategy, which focuses on bolstering export development and investment attraction by capitalizing on British Columbia’s competitive advantages. The strategy targets new markets such as …

Canadian small and medium-sized companies can benefit from the Canadian Federal government’s innovative grant programs, but many are not aware of their existence. These programs include trade commissioners, IRAP, subsidies, and export programs that help businesses expand and succeed internationally.

In a recent survey of 305 US & European executives of transportation and manufacturing corporations, Deloitte uncovered five major forces that will impact the transportation industry’s future success:

In new, high-pressure situations, we often default to old habits which can be a recipe for failure, especially when new solutions are what is needed. The challenge is that unfamiliar, high-stakes situations create anxiety which stifles innovation.

The future is here. Robotics design company Boston Dynamics has created a versatile and automated mobile robot that they named Stretch™. This robot was designed to automate box moving tasks in warehouses and distributions centres. For example, their video shows Stretch unloading boxes from a container and placing them on a conveyer belt.

TEC Canada featured a great interview with Schulich School of Business professor M. Johnny Rungtusanatham, who offers some practical advice on improving your supply chain in 2023.

ChatGPT is all the rage these days. If you haven’t heard of it, it is a prototype artificial intelligence chatbot which specializes in dialogue. Journalist Hariesh Manaadiar decided to test ChatGPT’s knowledge about global shipping by asking it, “What to do if I lose my original ocean bill of lading?”

We wanted to highlight an excellent article from Harvard Business Review titled How to Be a Good Leader in a Bad Economy and share our takeaways. It seems like the world has just survived the Covid-19 pandemic only to enter a recession, and compounding crises make people more vulnerable. Normal “leadership principles” are not working and possibly making things worse. …

Did you know that the Port of Vancouver has a podcast? Breaking Bottlenecks just finished Season 2 which includes 5 episodes that explore bottlenecks in global trade and supply chain logistics. The podcast looks at “the intricacies, infrastructure and innovations that connect Canada’s businesses and communities with the world, as seen through the inner workings of the Port of Vancouver.”

The results of a recent SAP survey of senior business decision-makers show that supply chain disruptions are not over yet: 52% think their supply chain needs much improvement 49% expect current supply chain issues to last to the end of 2022 33% say issues will last until summer 2023

When I first took over the business from my father almost 20 years ago, our team was sharing one giant Excel spreadsheet to do our supply chain planning. The spreadsheet could only be updated by one person at a time, causing obvious limitations to our team’s efficiency. One of my first initiatives was to implement an ERP software, which we …

Last week a cargo ship carrying thousands of Porches, Audis, and Lamborghinis caught fire in the Atlantic Ocean.1 In December, a container ship crashed into a wharf at Taichung Port and sustained serious damage.2 In October, a fire started on a cargo ship off the coast of Vancouver Island.3 Statistics show that ship accidents have increased over the past 18 …

The Transportation Buying Trends Survey reflects what Canadian shippers expect in freight prices, surcharges, and capacity constraints for 2022. With transportation backlogs, capacity limitations, and the residual effect of COVID-19, this coming year is hard to predict.

We recently listened to an insightful podcast episode from HBR IdeaCast titled, “How to Use All your Vacation – and Really Unplug”, and wanted to share with you some things we learned. A recent survey showed that 82% of Americans work on vacation, and 90% check their work messages. And not everyone takes their full vacation, with only 50% of …

Last month we joined over 5000 people across Canada to attend the Deloitte360 conference, where Malcolm Gladwell gave a thought-provoking keynote speech. Gladwell argued that although advances in technology and data analytics will make the quality of our decisions better, it will make the life of decision-makers much harder. To explain, he compared puzzles with mysteries. A puzzle is a …

While the workplace can be a substantial source of stress on workers, research has found that how work is designed can have a significant impact on employee well-being, leading to improved job performance, lower health care expenses, and lower burnout rates.

With the arrival of the fall season, many companies are facing new challenges particularly in response to and impacted by the pandemic. In a recent podcast by McKinsey and Company, Senior Partner Celia Huber discusses industry shifts with Global Managing Partner, Kevin Sneader. According to Sneader, there are “The eight trends that will define 2021 – and beyond.” Today we …

At the beginning of 2021, 9 months into the pandemic, McKinsey published an article outlining trends that will define 2021. One of these trends was the movement from the popular management philosophy of Just in Time (JIT) towards what they called Just in Time Plus (JIT+). Now that we are two-thirds the way through 2021, we are seeing how accurate …