Mickey North Rizza talks women in the supply chain
As part of our series on women in the supply chain, I spoke with Mickey North Rizza, VP, Strategic Services at BravoSolution. Mickey holds the distinction of Top Female Supply Chain Executive. She has 25 years of senior-level procurement, sourcing and supply management experience. Mickey has also been an award-winning Supply Chain analyst with Gartner and AMR Research.
How did you get your start in the supply chain industry? (Similarly, why did you choose the industry?)
This is a fun story for me. At Michigan State, I was a Delta Gamma helping out our Anchor Splash team. My mission was to find a television that a local company would donate to the winning Fraternity. And of course, it had to be the largest and best TV on the market for the day. So, I pulled out the yellow pages, started calling around and found a few companies that were willing to help but would not donate. I learned to negotiate pretty quickly. At that time my major was prelaw – and I was bored. I looked into Material’s Logistic Management – an older term for Supply Chain and chose this as my major with two concentrations – Purchasing and Operations. The rest is as they say, history. Thank goodness Purchasing has evolved, as negotiating is just a minute portion, but for this young adult it made all the difference.
How did you get to where you are today?
I put in long career hours, learning everything I could from so many. My thirst for knowledge is still vast and that keeps me going and enjoying what I do. I also had some great mentors and some not so good leaders and coworkers. All of these individuals have taught me lessons in the business world – good and bad. I firmly believe that everyone has something to teach us – we just need to listen, process and apply it. Sometimes we internalize the lessons we learn and others we let go – but all are learning experiences for ourselves. In the analyst world we called it triangulation – someone can always use the knowledge you have gained and they in turn can impart knowledge to you – though you must listen to learn.
My mentors were the CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, Division Presidents, CPOs, Supply Chain Leaders, Business Unit leads, General Managers, Editors, Analysts, Marketing and Sales professionals and, yes, even many of the suppliers and vendors I have worked closely with over the years. Each has given me a reason to pause and consider at a particular point in time and that has somehow enhanced my career.
Lastly, I have a strong, close immediate family. My grandparents and parents set a great work example early. My parents continue to be a source of inspiration for me. My sister is an amazing woman in Technology and Consulting and a constant source of ideas as I listen to her stories. My husband, while in a very different profession, is awesome – he listens, coaches and gives me strength to achieve even more than I did yesterday. And lastly, Delta Gamma has taught me to be the best I can be, all the time and in every way possible.
Who do you see as leaders (female) within the supply chain industry?
I have broken up the leaders in a few categories because I think it is helpful in terms of their leadership and current positions.
Marketing
Andrea Brody, BravoSolution
Christine Crandell, New Business Strategies
Elaine Benfield, Ariba/SAP
Allison Crawford, Supply Chain Insights
Analysts
Lora Cecere, Supply Chain Insights
Noha Tohamy, Gartner
Dana Stiffler, Gartner
Maggie Slowick, Procurement Leaders
Procurement
Lisa Martin, Teva Pharmaceuticals
Stephanie Sklar Financial Services
Cynthia Dautrich, Kimberly Clark
Cathy Herr, Eli Lilly
Risk
Jessica Sanchez, CR Bard
Rose Kelly-Falls, Rapid Ratings
Edna Conway, Cisco Systems
Supply Chain
Linda Santus Topping, Colgate
Stacey Lallier, J&J
Kate Vitasek, University of Tennessee
What opportunities do you see for women in the supply chain?
The opportunity is vast. As more and more companies outsource, the supply chains become more complex. The complexity means that great technology becomes even more critical to ensure proper visibility, actionable solutions and knowledge management. Rolling this all together requires the soft skills of managing relationships internally as well as externally with our partners, the industry and also to manage the messages to the market. While business has traditionally been a man’s world, more and more women are now in businesses. Most women by nature have been relationship builders. They encourage, collaborate and innovate with others for the best outcome. It is only natural that these tendencies gravitate to the business world and most importantly into Supply Chain.
Challenges?
The challenges for women remain the same – breaking into the man’s world. While many women have done it, to be really successful women need to utilize some of the components of Lean In! In addition, women must be comfortable staking a claim on their position, working from this position as a leader and a coworker so that the company can achieve it greatest results. In many cases I know I have worked just as hard if not more so than my male coworkers, but I have also come to appreciate the lessons these men have taught me – work smarter, not harder; give it your all and expect perfection; take risks – never be afraid to fail because it is in failure you learn your greatest lesson and can apply it in the future; and always believe in yourself.
A final thought here is that we all can’t be perfect, but we can expect the best, believe in the best, give our best and achieve excellence. But you have to DO IT!
Any advice for women considering the supply chain?
Yes, go for it! The Supply Chain world needs you! Look at University programs such as Michigan State, Penn State, Rutgers, University of Texas, Arizona State University are just a few of a huge laundry list that ISM has on their website. In addition, groups like CSCMP, Procurement Leaders, ISM, SIG and many others offer continuing education courses to enhance your knowledge of Supply Chain. And for those that like to read, there are many great books out there (I am happy to supply a few of my favorites).
Any advice for the industry itself?
Yes, embrace women in Supply Chain. Their abilities are superb and when you select the right one, she can bring your company greater value than ever imagined. But you must watch, listen, learn, coach and offer opportunities to excel. And lastly, be a mentor to those that have a spark, work hard and apply themselves to make a difference. Man or woman, the Supply Chain of the future depends upon the perfect mix of talent. And as we know, Supply Chain talent is experiencing a shortage.
Mickey North Rizza is VP, Strategic Services at BravoSolution, assisting clients to bring & deliver more impactful value in Procurement, Sourcing and Supplier Relationship Management. She developed the first Procurement alignment tool, called BravoAlign that has aided many clients on their supply management excellence journey.
Prior to joining BravoSolution, Mickey was a Research Director for the Procurement and Sourcing practice of the Supply Chain Team at Gartner and AMR Research. She was an award winning supply chain analyst during her 7 year tenure and is still a highly popular thought leader and speaker in Supply Management.
Prior to becoming an analyst Mickey was a practitioner for 22 years. Her practitioner career includes Moduslink Corporation, where she held the positions of Vice President of Global Supply Base Management and Director of Procurement and Sourcing. At Moduslink, she was responsible for implementing strategic sourcing programs, driving strategic positioning of procurement and materials in Europe and the Americas, and introducing new procurement technology.
Mickey also worked as a Materials Manager at M/A-Com, Inc. a division of Tyco International. While at M/A-Com, Mickey developed and implemented strategic procurement plans and integrated roadmaps to accompany a supply chain model. In addition, she introduced a pilot manufacturing resource management system.
During her career, Mickey also worked as a Purchasing Manager at Advanced Techcom, Inc., Innova Corporation and Motorola; and was also a buyer & sourcing agent at AM General, a division of LTV Missiles and Electronics and Grumman Olson.
Mickey is a member of the Institute for Supply ManagementTM. She is a founding member of the ISM Supply Chain Risk Management Group, which she chairs for 2015. She was voted Top Female Supply Chain Executive 2013. Mickey is an active nonprofit volunteer with her work at ISM, as a Delta Gamma Foundation Trustee and Secretary (2006-2009) and her past board work with Lowell’s Boat Shop in her home town of Amesbury, MA.
Mickey earned a B.A. in Materials Logistic Management from Michigan State University.
The dearth of women working, at all levels, in the supply chain is not because women do not have the skillset and ability to succeed within the industry. Women are as capable as men when it comes to working within the supply chain industry. Indeed, it has been put forth that women are better suited for roles in supply chain management than men. Research conducted by SCM World found that the majority of men (63%) and women (75%) believe that the natural skillsets of women differ from those of men and that these differences are advantageous for supply chain management. Similarly, new research by McKinsey & Company found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15%more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.
The talent gap; an opportunity
According to Supply Chain Insights 60% of companies within the supply chain industry have job openings and 51% of companies are seeing an increase in turnover of supply chain leaders. Looking ahead, there are an estimated 1.4 million new supply chain workers needed by 2018 and the Bureau of Labor and Statistics predicts that the number of logistics jobs is expected to grow by 22 percent by 2022 – nearly double the rate of other professions. The supply chain talent gap arguably presents an opportunity to increase the number of women in positions throughout the supply chain and close the gender gap. The big question is how.
Addressing the gender gap
Here are 4 ways the supply chain industry can address the gender gap:
1. Increase visibility and tackle the image problem
93% of most companies’ supply chain is invisible. This statistic could also be used to reflect the number of people who know what the supply chain industry is; few people outside of the industry know what the supply chain is and what career opportunities there are. This needs to change.
To attract new talent the industry needs to make people aware of the supply chain – what it is, the integral role it plays in business, and the various opportunities there are within the industry.
“It’s important to acknowledge that diversity building is a proven growth strategy, not a superficial endeavor. But paying lip service to diversity and inclusion without a proactive strategy will lead to failure. Organizations need to prioritize, collaborate, and think long term.”
Women need to take responsibility for themselves and for their own careers. Women need to apply for jobs with confidence, even when they don’t have 100% of the requirements. They also need to speak up and ask for a promotion.
Kevin O’Marah, Chief Content Officer at SCM World, sums up the issue of the supply chain gender gap nicely: “Women in supply chain are too few, and their path to the top is at least partially blocked. Yet we all seem to think they bring something to the party that will make it better. The time to break this problem down is now.”
M&A can be a strategic move to increase visibility, efficiency, and profits, as well as a smart way to plug missing capabilities within a company, reach new markets, and expand geographically. M&A activity in the past few years has been bustling in all sectors, seeing a rise in both the number of deals and the valuation of them. Given our awareness that so many deals can fall through for various reasons ranging from objections from regulators and consumer advocates to an unraveling of confidence within the two companies, the amount of deals that have recently been attempted and successfully completed is impressive.
In A Comprehensive Guide to Mergers & Acquisitions: Managing the Critical Success Factors Across Every Stage of the M&A Process, that authors point out that: “many research studies conducted over the decades clearly show that the rate of failures is at least 50 percent. In surveys conducted in recent years, the percentage of companies that failed to achieve the goals of the merger reached 83 percent.” If the odds are so great, and the payoff may not be fully beneficial, why has M&A been booming? Will we see the bubble burst in the coming years?
The M&A Boom
According to the 2014 Deloitte M&A Trends Report, “activity had flagged in 2012 amid economic malaise in certain European markets and key emerging markets, as well as uncertainty about health care and other regulatory and legislative matters in the United States.” In 2013, with the economy slowly seeing signs of improvement, M&A activity also started to strengthen.
As stated by Big Four auditor PriceWaterhouseCoopers, 2014 was a very strong year for M&A and 2015 is set to follow suit. Robert McCutcheon, PWC’s U.S. industrial products leader, claims, “CEOs are more optimistic about the state of the U.S. economy and growth prospects domestically. That CEO confidence coupled with historically low commodity prices, new advanced technologies and a skilled U.S. labor force will likely continue to give the U.S. industrial products sector competitive advantage in the marketplace. We believe that the U.S. manufacturing resurgence will also continue and M&A will be a big part of the industry’s growth prospect going forward.”
Thompson Reuters’ recent Mergers and Acquisitions Review indicated that worldwide M&A had increased by 47% from 2013 to 2014, and that North American M&A increased by 55% during this period. With many pointing to continued economic improvement for the rest of 2015 and into the coming years, and with 84% of corporate executives anticipating “a sustained, if not accelerated, pace of M&A activity in the next 24 months”, when might we see the mighty growth of M&A plateau or decline?
Recent Failures
One of the most current failures in manufacturing came when the Department of Justice found that combining business between American company, Applied Materials, and Japanese company, Tokyo Electron, would “restrict competition”. The $10 million deal fell through in late April. With so many requirements, restrictions, and reviews of high dollar deals, these disappointments are commonplace.
Despite megadeals – transactions worth more than a billion dollars—rising from 62 in 2013 to 95 in 2014, many larger companies attempt but can not successfully complete an M&A deal. Perhaps the year’s largest M&A collapse came when regulators and consumer advocates prevented a $4.5 billion deal between Comcast and Time Warner Cable.
Over the years there have been many unsuccessful M&A deals. New York Times article As Big Merger Deals Boom, So Do Big Failures, author William Alden points to some of the largest megadeals gone awry, with many of the most expensive deals collapsing in 2014. However, it makes sense proportionately that with more attempts each year will come more failures.
Predictions
Some people see the wave of optimistic financial news continuing into the next few years, while others worry about the coming year— an election year. In his Forbes article, author Michael Schwerdtfeger, writes, “one thing markets hate is uncertainty, and shifting expectations of the political future can impact uncertainty levels. Expect 2016 to be a much slower year for dealmaking than 2015 as buyers try to predict the election outcome.” As we enter the election campaign season, we’ll see if the political uncertainty, does, in fact, shift the impressive growth of M&A deals.
Fronetics Strategic Advisors provides M&A support to companies of all sizes. Our firm is able to execute from target identification through post-deal integration and value creation. At Fronetics Strategic Advisors we work with our clients to build and capture value.
This article is part of a series of articles written by MBA students and graduates from the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.
Lindsey Marley completed dual undergraduate degrees in Business and History at Southern New Hampshire University. She is in her final semester of the MBA program at the University of New Hampshire. In her free time she enjoys traveling, reading, and spending time with her husband and their two dogs.
On November 24, 2012 there was a deadly fire at a garment manufacturing company which killed 112 people in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Another manufacturing facility in Dhaka collapsed on April 24, 2013 killing 142 people. The ready-made garment manufacturing industry in Bangladesh has grown to $19 billion dollars and is reported to be one of the most unsafe industries in the world. The consequences of corporations being lax in the sourcing of their products can have horrific consequences for people, the environment, and the company. Consumers in developed countries are demanding companies be more responsible in their sourcing as a result of the wealth of information found on the Internet about the production of goods and services.
Responsible Sourcing
The concept of responsible sourcing is in itself still being developed; however, responsible sourcing generally consists of two parts – people and the environment. There are several organizations which have provided guidelines to assist companies in developing their own code of conduct including:
One such industry-specific coalition, which was created in response to numerous tragedies such as those described above, is the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety which was founded in 2013 by a group of North American apparel companies and retailers.
Alliance: A Global Response
The Alliance created a binding five-year agreement to improve worker safety among the largest importing companies of Bangladesh garments. Some of the most well-known participants include Limited, Carter’s Inc, Fruit of the Loom, Gap Inc, Kohl’s Department Stores, LL Bean, Macy’s, Target Corporation, and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. The Alliance is accomplishing its mission through the use of a collective fund which was $42 million at the time of its creation.
The International Labour Organization has assisted the Alliance in the creation of an operational guide. The Alliance focuses on opening lines of communication between employees and management to ensure worker safety. Interviews with employees regarding existing safety practices and training are conducted and then safety discussions are coordinated between those employees and members of management. The Alliance also requires assessments be completed of garment manufacturing plants by independent engineers to certify worker safety and the structural soundness of facilities. After the initial evaluation and recommendations, the independent auditors return to confirm the changes previously discussed have been made as well as to assess the manufacturer’s ongoing compliance.
Had the Alliance been in place prior to the fire in 2012 the auditors would have found the illegally stored mounds of fabric and yarn, which accelerated the spread of flames, and required the materials to be stored in a more appropriate and safe manner. Another aspect of the fatal fire which could have been prevented was the allegation of factory managers directing employees to ignore the fire alarm. This wasted precious time for workers to exit the building safely. Ultimately, this lead many employees, trapped by the flames and smoke, to jump from upper floors to the rooftops of surrounding buildings or to their deaths. The tripartisan relationship that is created between the Alliance, employees, and management representatives is critical to ensure a clear, consistent message regarding basic employee safety. This communication helps to empower workers and could have encouraged them to challenge management’s direction to disregard the alarm when the fire broke out.
With regard to the building collapse of 2013, it was determined the four upper floors had been constructed illegally without permits. The three pronged scope of the Alliance (worker safety, fire safety, and structural soundness) again could have prevented this tragedy. In this situation, management at the garment manufacturing facility were aware of structural concerns before the collapse, but as in the case of the fire, ignored the risk and kept the factory open. Engineers working for the Alliance drill into factory walls to determine the structural integrity of the concrete and rebar used during construction to determine structural soundness.
Your Span of Control
These examples highlight the importance of maintaining a large span of control throughout your supply chain to ensure responsible sourcing. It is no small task to exercise this breadth of control for any company; however, companies can utilize the resources provided by the organizations listed above to develop their own requirements for responsible sourcing and supplier relationships. Companies can derive the maximum consumer exposure by enforcing responsible sourcing across their entire supply chain. It is also important to engrain this behavior into the culture particularly among employees who have the most interactions with the ultimate consumer.
Communicating to Your Customers
Consumer communication is the final piece of the responsible sourcing puzzle which brings together the voluntarily socially responsible company with their expecting consumer base. Responsible sourcing without informing consumers is a waste of good public relations. Many companies bury the information about their responsible sourcing efforts on the corporate website where consumers have to hunt for the information. Some coalitions and third party companies provide the insignia to compliant participants as a means of notifying consumers of their membership, but that is not always an option. If possible, a company’s commitment to responsible sourcing should be quickly and clearly communicated on its product packaging, in its digital footprint, and in the way it conducts and manages its supply chain.
The fast food giant Chipotle consistently communicates its commitment to responsibly sourced ingredients in its signage, website, commercials, and in its direct to consumer communications at the individual locations. The pervasive nature of the company’s responsible sourcing efforts has been strongly rewarded by its ever-growing customer base. In a time where consumers are switching brands to support socially responsible companies, it is imperative to keep a company’s responsible sourcing objectives, actions, and accomplishments at the forefront of consumer’s minds.
This article is part of a series of articles written by MBA students and graduates from the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.
David Chadwick is an MBA student at the University of New Hampshire with a background in retail store management and electrical engineering.
If technology continues to advance, humans may be obsolete in the supply chain as a result of both automation and RFID utilization. Both technologies have been introduced into the supply chain over the past decade, resulting in a major shift in performance and costs. While automation is a process which can navigate product throughout facilities, RFID can improve efficiency dramatically as well as being the major driver for the elimination of human involvement in the supply chain.
RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a form of extremely low-power data communication between a RFID scanner and an RFID tag. The tags are placed on any number of items, ranging from individual parts to shipping labels. The RFID tag itself consists of a microchip and antennae, usually without a battery to power it. The tags can be printed using special printers, which wirelessly load the identifying information to the tags. The information on the tags can be used for a wide variety of tasks. When an item goes through the RFID scanners, information is read from the tag, which could include any amount of information, such as:
Order ID number
Product bin location
Order status
Serial numbers for individual product components
Location logs
The information is not limited to just holding ID and serial numbers. Since the information can be updated and transferred through any RFID receiver when in range, it can be joined with other software to update databases, send information online, and more. The amount of information that RFID can provide can be matched with order management systems to track shipment and stock locations automatically as the products move through warehouses and trucks. Powerful receivers can also track the exact location of products within a warehouse in real time, instead of relying on time and location logs to determine the location. This has been a major benefit to UPS, who’ve had RFID tracking chips in their warehouses for over ten years.
The largest problem facing supply chain management today is the potential for the occurrence of devastating errors. These errors could lead to trucks leaving product behind, not stocking to capacity, losing product, or delivering to the wrong locations. There are numerous reasons for such errors to occur, but the most common factor in their inception is human error. Much of the errors faced result from manual inspection and control over product flow in warehouses by humans. Many systems still operate using written data tables and checklists, which can be written incorrectly. Despite major advancements in technology over the past decade, the digital world is being sourced by analog supply chains. This is an aspect which RFID control can create beneficial change.
RFID can lead to completely autonomous warehouses and distribution centers. This can be seen in current warehouses with high levels of automation, where picking machines transport bins of product to a central sorting area to be boxed, before returning to their location. Zebra uses this technique to ensure product location accuracy as a means of reducing lost merchandise. Zebra places a great deal of importance on product visibility and transparency as well as accuracy in locations. Implementation of RFID into this system can ensure that both the correct product and the correct quantities of product are collected at both points, thereby eliminating errors seen in traditional analog supply networks. Coupled with the potential for self-driving trucks and the ever expanding internet of things in the cloud, product information can be tracked at all stages of shipment and storage, increasing accuracy, efficiency, and accountability. Where warehouses and receiving departments had to endure a certain amount of shrinkage of products in the past, a fully utilized RFID-enabled supply network can determine exactly where product is at all times, ensuring that theft is discovered immediately and enforced.
While the reduction of human interaction in the supply chain and warehouses in general can be eliminated with enough technology, it is uncertain to what degree this technology will be implemented in all aspects of supply chain management. While there are huge benefits to operating in such a system, the major negatives include high initial costs and restructuring costs associated with implementing this network into existing, analog networks. Humanity may not be completely removed from the supply chain in the future, but this technology, as well as more advanced techniques for automation, will increase the efficiency and reduce the costs required to operate these newer supply chains dramatically while significantly reducing errors and inefficiencies.
This article is part of a series of articles written by MBA students and graduates from the University of New Hampshire Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics.
Nicole Brooks is an MBA candidate at the University of New Hampshire.
Amazon keeps on innovating.
Just when you think that Amazon offers it all, they keep surprising their customers with more unbelievable plans and ideas to better improve our lives. With a mission “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices,” Amazon continues to be innovative in an effort towards a bright future. For example, Amazon was an industry leader with the introduction of 1-day shipping, shifting consumers to expect this new luxury as the standard.
In the previous three year’s first quarter financial statements, the company has experienced a decrease in their growth rate: approximately 30% during the first quarter three years ago and down to 20% in the first quarter of last year. This has pushed Amazon to begin considering alternative paths of business if they want to continue experiencing growth. As such, they have started to diverge into the services industry and have developed a platform that is used to match buyers and sellers for essentially all types of goods.
Amazon’s latest innovations include but are not limited to:
Usage of the Kiva Robots in warehouses
Developing drones in an effort to achieve 30 minute delivery;
For the 2014 holiday season, Amazon put their new Kiva robots to work. Over 15,000 were placed inside the US fulfillment centers to “make operations more efficient” during the expected high volume holiday rush. They essentially eliminated the need for people to walk through the aisles to collect the necessary items for a shipment. The Kiva robots are programmed to know the placement of items within the shelving system and bring forth the shelf with the next needed item for the packers. The company’s forward looking decisions are based on Amazon’s future vision for what the industry leader could do next to make itself stand out.
Drones
Despite being turned down by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the early months of 2015, Amazon still fully intends to be able to deliver packages to customers utilizing their developed and tested drone technology. The video that can be viewed through the Amazon Prime Air webpage provides customers with an idea of what the drone would look like and what the process would be from the order being received at the warehouse to the package being delivered to someone’s doorstep.
Amazon has named this drone delivery service “Prime Air”. Prime Air has the goal and potentially the capability to offer customers 30 minute delivery. Yes, within a 30 minute time span from receiving an order Amazon wants to process it and be able to deliver those items. Of course, there would be a high premium associated with this, but it would minimize the need for companies to have to make purchases ahead of time, which for small companies, could be very beneficial for their bottom line. Currently, drones are being tested and allowed commercially in Canada as well as a handful of European countries. In Canada, for example, drones are only subject to be used when it is light outside, the weather is good, and the controller can keep the drone in his/her sight.
Amazon Home Services
Amazon formally introduced the Home Services platform to their website last month. This platform essentially is set up in the same manner as their goods and products platform, however instead of being shipped a product at the end, the customer is booking a service, such as plumbers, electricians, TV installation services, etc. This platform allows customers to look at the various offerings and to more easily compare different businesses and contractors based on the value that they perceive the service would ultimately be providing. The different home services, similar to a typical Amazon offering, will also have comments and rankings to help distinguish the variety of offerings.
Amazon Business
In light of the increasing “do-it-yourselfer” trend, Amazon has opened a distribution channel for those seeking high-tech electronic components and parts. In the past, these components would be bought directly through suppliers, authorized distributors, or various parts catalogs. Amazon, which caters to those who prefer to do their shopping online, has expanded their offerings with the Amazon Business platform. Consumers have the ability to create business accounts with multiple user access, set-up and utilize an approval system, and can qualify for free two-day shipping, among other benefits. With this specific addition, Amazon is expanding their platform to further cater to information technology and electronic industries, creating more of a reason for businesses to consider Amazon a one-stop shopping destination.
Amazon Destinations
Also recently announced, Amazon will begin offering an Amazon Destination platform for customers to quickly and easily be able to compare local hotels for a getaway. This is not yet currently available to customers, but once it is, similar to the offering above, will give shoppers an all-encompassing inside look at what the various hotels in the area have to offer as far as rate and amenities upfront.
The Future
At this stage, Amazon is a mature company with a well-developed online shopping platform coupled with industry-leading delivery and logistics offerings. Now with the expansions into service offerings, Amazon has proved that there is no limit to what they can do. Their steps have been logical and it only makes sense that they now spread their platform to consist of more things everyday consumers are looking for. We can already get any item imaginable through their website, why not any service. As the service offerings expand, it would not be a far stretch to say that in the coming years we will be able to plan weddings, book vacations around the world, and even possibly compare medical procedures through Amazon.com.
It’s difficult to accurately predict what Amazon will be doing fifteen years from now, but whatever they are doing, will mostly likely continue to shape consumer expectations and impact the surrounding business and consumer markets in ways we had not thought of beforehand.
Mickey North Rizza talks women in the supply chain![The supply chain gender gap [Infographic]](https://fronetics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/supply-chain-gender-gap.jpg)
