by Fronetics | Feb 14, 2018 | Blog, Logistics, Supply Chain, Talent
Google’s management study shows that supply chain students who learn soft skills will be more innovative and successful.
A recent Google study of its top employees is shaking up the way we think about how we should be educating students. We’ve all heard about the importance of focusing on a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum to give students the skills they need to compete in the workforce. But Google’s study, dubbed Project Oxygen, suggests that the conventional wisdom about “hard skills” might be counterproductive.
Google’s findings have broad implications for the way supply chain companies think about training and recruitment. While an understanding of the industry and relevant technologies is, of course, important, it turns out that “soft skills” are often a more accurate predictor of innovation and success.
STEM expertise is not a priority
Project Oxygen ranked the seven most important qualities of Google’s top employees. STEM expertise ranked seventh. The shock waves of this finding are still resounding through the tech sector, as Google and other companies are rethinking the way they recruit talent.
Rather than searching only for top STEM students, Google has changed its hiring practices to include humanities majors, artists, and MBAs.
For Google’s top employees, these six “soft skills” all ranked higher than STEM expertise:
- Being a good coach;
- Communicating and listening well;
- Possessing insights into others (including differing values and points of view);
- Having empathy toward and being supportive of colleagues;
- Being an effective critical thinker and problem solver; and
- Being able to make connections across complex ideas.
What to look for when recruiting supply chain students
For training and recruitment of supply chain students, what’s emerging is a picture of a team player who is creative, empathetic, communicative, and caring. As a recent guest post on Fronetics’ blog points out, “soft skills are taking on more relevance as automation begins to handle the nuts and bolts of how products come to market, and how companies work with suppliers.”
This means that the function of the human component is to do what only humans can: be flexible, strategic, creative, understanding, and empathetic.
According to Cathy Davidson, founding director of the Futures Initiative and a professor in the doctoral program in English at the Graduate Center, CUNY, “We desperately need the expertise of those who are educated to the human, cultural, and social as well as the computational.”
Davidson goes on to point out that “what helps you thrive in a changing world isn’t rocket science. Broad learning skills are the key to long-term, satisfying, productive careers.”
What do you look for when interviewing supply chain students?
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by Fronetics | Feb 13, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Supply Chain
Here are three tips for writing pillar content that will help structure your posts, attract leads and gain better page rankings.
In case you missed our series on writing for SEO, pillar content is a highly effective way to define your brand, drive traffic, and convert website visitors to leads. But in order to be effective, these pages should be strategically designed to do their proper job in telling search engines what your site is all about.
Before we go further, let’s take a step back and talk about exactly what pillar content is. As search engines adjust their algorithms to favor topic-based content, savvy marketers are turning to topic clusters to structure their content.
“This method uses a single pillar page as the main hub of content for a given topic. All of your content assets related to that topic link back to the pillar page,” explains HubSpot blogger Amanda Zantal-Wiener.
Need some ideas for writing and structuring effective pillar content? Here are three tips to get you started.
3 tips for writing pillar content
1) Start thinking about your site differently.
Not so long ago, SEO optimization was all about keywords. But search engines are changing. As their algorithms get more sophisticated, they look for websites that can provide depth and breadth on a particular topic. That means topic-based content wins you better page rank. It’s time to start thinking about your site as a collection of topics rather than a collection of keywords.
2) Consider your core audience.
“Think about the top interests and challenges of your core audience personas to give you ideas for pillar page content,” says HubSpot blogger Sophia Bernazzani.
Good content marketing is all about cultivating your reputation as a trusted resource for your audience, and pillar pages are no exception. Chose topics that answer the needs of your target audience. Topics should be broad enough to be able to generate multiple related blog posts, but narrow enough that you can cover all related content on a single pillar page.
3) Your content is about answering questions.
“Pillar pages should answer any question or query a searcher might have about a topic — which will make them want to click on your pillar page when they enter a Google search term that your page ranks for,” writes Bernazzani. The goal is to draw site visitors with savvy pillar content, and let them explore all content in your topic cluster.
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by Fronetics | Feb 12, 2018 | Blog, Current Events, Logistics, Manufacturing & Distribution, Supply Chain
As Cupid spreads his wings, gifts of experience and romantic, at-home options will take over the market for Valentine’s Day 2018.
Consumers will spend a near-record $19.2 billion on Valentine’s Day 2018, up from $18.2 billion in 2017. According to NRF’s annual survey, over half of the country will participate (55%) in the romantic holiday, spending just over $140 on average.
Gifts of experience
A new Valentine’s trend is giving gifts of experience, such as a spa treatment, concert tickets, or a cooking class. Almost half of celebrants said they would prefer a gift of experience, and 23% said they plan on giving a gift of experience. Blue Apron’s Love at First Bite targets couples looking for gifts of experience with a foolproof, stay-at-home option for Valentine’s Day 2018. And they’re not the only ones! Hello Fresh, Plated and even Whole Foods are publishing blog articles and offering meal options for creating the perfect Valentine’s dinner from the comfort of your own kitchen.
Out on the town
The NRF’s survey also found that younger people (ages 18-34) are more likely to take their Valentine out for the evening than older generations. So it’s no surprise that 6 out of 10 younger celebrants (ages 18-34) would also prefer a gift of experience over candy and flowers.
Mobile trend
95% of Americans own a cell phone. The growing connection between smartphones and digital information is starting to take over Valentine’s Day, as well. Over half of participants plan to use their smartphones to assist with Valentine’s Day purchase decisions. Nearly 40% said they plan to use their cell phone to research products and compare prices.
Tradition prevails
Not to worry, though: Celebrants will still purchase plenty of flowers, jewelry and candy to mark the holiday. Celebrants are most likely to give candy as a gift, followed by greeting cards, flowers, and an evening out.
Here’s a look at how U.S. consumers will be celebrating Valentine’s Day 2018.
Valentine’s Day 2018 Supply Chain Infographic
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by Fronetics | Feb 8, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
These social media statistics are important to keep in mind when planning out your content marketing strategy.
A strong social media presence is key to successful marketing in 2018. Social media is simply unavoidable these days.
So, you jumped on board and you’re posting and tweeting. You’re creating content. You’re learning about search engine optimization and how to improve your rankings. But you’re still not reaching the audiences you were hoping to attract. What’s going wrong?
When you are posting on social media could be as important as what you’re posting.
Timing is everything, and that statement especially holds true when it comes to posting content to social media. If you are sending out your message and nobody is there to see it, you are that proverbial tree falling in the forest; you did not make a sound. Your post had little to no impact.
So, even if you are putting in the time and effort to craft informative blog posts, tweets with just the right message, or Facebook posts that inspire more than just page likes, you still are not getting the most exposure you can out of social media.
We have done our homework when it comes to the best times to post on social media. And the truth is there is no “one size fits all” answer to when you should post. There are general guidelines that differ for each site. But in general, it’s important to keep your target audience in mind when deciding where and when to post.
Here are some social media statistics that you need to consider when deciding when to post your content.
Social media statistics your business needs to consider when publishing content
(Made with Canva)
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by Fronetics | Feb 6, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Strategy, Supply Chain
Here are three tips for creating a content strategy that will help advance your business goals.
If we’re adamant about one thing at Fronetics, it’s creating a documented content strategy. But, as a recent Harvard Business Review article suggests, many strategies fail because they are not actually strategies.
This begs the question: what constitutes a real strategy? According to Freek Vermeulen, associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the London Business School, “A real strategy involves a clear set of choices that define what the firm is going to do and what it’s not going to do.” The keyword here is “clear.”
Here are three strategy-creation tips to help you create a clear content strategy that aligns with and furthers your business goals.
3 content strategy tips
1) Show your work.
Just like in high school math class, arriving at the right answer isn’t enough — you need to communicate the logic for how you got there. As you create or refine your strategy, take a step back and examine the reasoning behind each choice.
Says Sly Bailey of the UK publisher Trinity Mirror, “If there is one thing I have learned about communicating choices, it is that we always focus on what the choices are. I now realize you have to spend at least as much time on explaining the logic behind the choices.”
Understanding the reasoning behind each of your choices allows you and your team to fully believe in your strategy, and ensures you carry it out optimally.
2) Trickle down doesn’t work.
Many implementation efforts fail because executives see strategy creation as a top-down process. On this topic, Stanford Professor Robert Burgelman writes, “Successful firms are characterized by maintaining bottom-up internal experimentation and selection processes while simultaneously maintaining top-driven strategic intent.”
In other words, while you need top-down strategic direction, this will only be effective if you simultaneously empower your employees to create bottom-up initiatives that meet the strategic intent.
3) Flexibility is key.
Another source of failure for implementation efforts is the institutional unwillingness to change habits. “People are often not even aware that they are doing things in a particular way and that there might be different ways to run the same process,” says Vermeulen.
It’s important to identify and effectively work against the bad habits that hamper your strategy’s effectiveness. As Vermeulen describes in his book, Breaking Bad Habits, “There are various practices you can build into your organization to make it work.” This often involves identifying key processes, and asking, “Why are we doing it this way?” If the logic isn’t clear (see above), this process is likely a good candidate for change.
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by Fronetics | Feb 1, 2018 | Blog, Content Marketing, Logistics, Marketing, Supply Chain
Our readers voted LTX Solutions, Women In Trucking, and Apex Capital Blog as the top 3 logistics and supply chain blogs of 2018.
You voted, and the results are in! LTX Solution is your number one favorite blog of the year, with “Ellen’s Blog” of Women In Trucking and Apex Capital Blog coming in second and third.
We love hearing what blogs you enjoy reading and find valuable. There are lots of great industry options, so we know it’s not easy to narrow down your favorites. We had lots of great responses, but only Women In Trucking held its spot on our list of the top logistics and supply chain blogs from last year.
What did remain consistent from previous years is the quality of the content and the consistency of posting by the three winners. These key components have remained invaluable across all successful logistics and supply chain blogs.
Here are the top 3 logistics and supply chain blogs of 2018.
1. LTX Solutions
LTX provides professional supply chain logistics management and customer service solutions to improve transportation efficiency, reduce costs, and give companies a competitive advantage. The blog focuses on topics that impact the global supply chain, including freight management, cutting-edge data and analytics trends, and risk prevention. The blog, which consistently posts a few times a week, tackles the most pressing issues facing the supply chain industry, as well as professional tips and insight into the latest industry technology.
2. Ellen’s Blog – Women In Trucking
The Women In Trucking Association is a non-profit organization focused on encouraging the employment of women in the trucking industry, promoting their accomplishments, and minimizing obstacles. President and CEO Ellen Voie’s blog offers thought-provoking insight on topics from best practices to becoming a thought leader in a male-dominated industry. Her years of experiences and passion for advancing women’s position within the trucking industry make her blog invaluable to readers. For the second year in a row, this blog has been one of our readers’ favorites due to the relatable topics and insightful content, such as family problems stemming from job-related realities and assimilating to trucking culture.
3. Apex Capital Blog
Apex Capital specializes in factoring freight invoices for small to medium-sized trucking companies with over 20 years’ experience. Apex clients include owners and operators starting their own trucking company with one truck to large-scale companies with hundreds of trucks and employees. The blog focuses on the latest trends and happenings in the trucking industry. In the past five years the blog has published over 500 articles on topics ranging from trucking regulations, tips on running a successful trucking business, and interviews with industry leaders. The posts highlight news and information that companies can use to run and grow their trucking business.
Runner up: Muddassirism
Dr. Muddassir Ahmed’s blog focuses on all things supply chain management, including advancements in development and strategies, professional development, and improving customer experience.
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