by Elizabeth Hines | Dec 20, 2017 | Blog, Talent
Here are our most-viewed blog posts from 2017 about talent, including tips on retaining your top talent and helping turn your employees into brand ambassadors.
The start of the new year brings along a host of resolutions. Finding a new job or advancing in a current position are common new year’s resolutions for individuals. For companies, identifying new strengths and interests within your employees and hiring and retaining great talent are common goals.
We’ve assembled our top 10 talent posts of 2017. We hope these posts help you and/or your company overcome challenges, and achieve your goals for next year.
Top 10 most popular talent posts of 2017
1. Gender Diversity is Not a Women’s Issue: It’s an Economic Issue
Gender diversity is generally viewed as a women’s issue. It is not. Research conducted by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org finds that despite corporate America’s stated commitment to gender diversity, outcomes are not changing. Moreover, the research finds that employees do not believe companies are taking the necessary steps to enact change. Read more.
2. Top Supply Chain Management MBA Programs 2018
Looking for talent? Try recruiting from these top-rated supply chain management MBA programs and schools. We have written before about the importance of recruiting and strengthening the relationship between academia and the supply chain industry as means to solve the growing supply chain talent gap. If your company is looking to hire, consider strengthening your rapport with schools that offer supply chain programs or specialties. Read more.
3. Are We Thinking About “Soft Skills” All Wrong?
By calling them “soft skills,” are we shortchanging competencies that are critical for supply chain and procurement professionals to succeed? One of the biggest stories in the world of Supply Chain and Procurement talent over the past few years has been the emerging importance of Soft Skills. As the field has become more strategic — with a greater impact on wider areas of business — professionals in the field have had to become stronger at advocating for it. Read more.
4. Great Supply Chain People Are Getting Harder to Find, But Do Companies Have a Talent Management Issue?
Is the Supply Chain talent gap problem really a talent management problem? This guest post from Argentus explores the so-called “talent deficit” in the field from all angles and perspectives. The fact is, it’s becoming harder for companies for find the talent that they need for these positions as baby boomers retire and the function evolves. Read more.
5. Employee Brand Ambassadors Can Influence B2B Buying Decisions
As peer influence becomes increasingly important in B2B buying decisions, empowering employee brand ambassadors will benefit your bottom line. I’ve written lately about the rise of influencer marketing. It’s a strategy B2B businesses are starting to understand and use to their advantage. But you don’t need a Kardashian or even an important industry professional to get started. Employees are your most natural, ready-made influencers. Read more.
6. Freight Driver Shortage Update: Will 2017 Come to a Head and Cause Issues for Shippers?
Growing woes over a forthcoming capacity crunch are not going away anytime soon. But, the capacity crunch may have a major impact on the freight driver shortage and vice versa. In a sense, fewer drivers mean that capacity will grow tighter. Yet, as capacity shrinks, the incentive for drivers increases. Read more.
7. 3 Ways to Attract Millennial Talent for the Supply Chain
Hoping to draw more millennials to your talent pool? Implementing these three ideas might help win them over. By the year 2020, millennials are estimated to make up a majority of the workforce. In addition, a 2014 study found that 46% of B2B buyers were millennials, and that number is on the rise. This seismic shift in workplace demographics calls for a new approach to attracting and retaining talent. Read more.
8. 3 Questions to Ask before Making a Professional Change and Overcommitting
Thinking of making a professional change? Here are some questions to consider before taking the plunge and overcommitting. We’ve all been asked to take on new projects at work when we’re already completely swamped. In the moment, it can be very hard to say no. And we’ve all jumped on LinkedIn to see what other opportunities are out there. More money, less headaches. The grass is always greener. Read more.
9. Could Liberal Arts Grads Fill the Supply Chain Talent Gap?
Mark Cuban thinks liberal arts grads will be the next in-demand employees. Could they be the answer to the supply chain talent gap? The supply chain talent gap has been called a “perfect storm.” Every report cites doomsday statistics of the impending crisis when, by 2025, 60 million baby boomers will exit the workforce, leaving only 40 million millennials to take their place. Read more.
10. Three Tips for Retaining Your Top Talent
Investing in your top talent and playing an active role in developing their careers will motivate them to stay around. Company loyalty is a thing of the past. In today’s day and age, everyone is looking for the next best thing, and that is true in the workplace as well. But this doesn’t mean that retention of top talent is hopeless. Read more.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Dec 14, 2017 | Blog, Logistics, Supply Chain
Here are our most-viewed blog posts from 2017 about the supply chain and logistics industries, including posts about some of the largest supply chain companies in the world, Starbucks and Amazon.
Throughout the year, we write innovative posts to help readers stay in the know with the latest news and happenings to the supply chain & logistics industries. These posts provide insightful and relevant information from thought leaders, current trends, and tips to stay ahead of your competitors. Here’s a look at our most popular posts from this year.
Here are our top 10 supply chain and logistics posts of 2017.
1. Supply Chain Putting the ‘Star’ in Starbucks
Starbucks’ closely managed supply chain may be the key to the premium coffee giant’s success. The international coffee giant has widely studied and acclaimed supply chain management practices, which, according to some, make Starbucks’ coffee and customer experience superior to those of its competitors. Read more.
2. 8 Must-Follow Logistics & Supply Chain Blogs for 2017
Supply chain professionals should be following these eight blogs to keep up with the latest industry news and happenings in the coming year. They cover a range of topics, from technology to strategy, and feature thought leadership by some of the brightest minds in the field. Read more.
3. Top 5 Trends to Know to Compete with Amazon’s Supply Chain
Supply chains must accept that they cannot equal the power of Amazon’s supply chain without embracing new trends. While supply chain entities struggle to stay competitive with the e-commerce giant, more organizations will look for ways to eliminate inefficiencies and boost operations. Fortunately, these five trends may alleviate some of the strains of competition by giving supply chain partners an advantage in the global market. Read more.
4. 5 Podcasts for the Supply Chain and Logistics Professionals
These podcasts bring the latest news and thought leadership in the supply chain and logistics industries right to your earbuds. Podcast’s popularity has skyrocketed since the smartphone became as necessary as car keys, giving you to-the-minute facts and information, right in the palm of your hand. If you’re looking to increase your podcast listening, here are five that highlight topics of interest to supply chain and logistics professionals. Read more.
5. What’s the Difference between Supply Chain Management and Logistics (Infographic)
Argentus’ infographic sheds light on the differences between these often-confused functions. Both Logistics and the wider Supply Chain are vital to how companies run today, but the two are still so often confused. We put together an infographic outlining some of the key differences and points of overlap between them. Read more.
6. 5 Books Every Supply Chain Professional Should Read
Add these books to your reading list to stay on top of industry trends and jump start your professional development. Read more.
7. What are the Supply Chain Impacts of Amazon’s Whole Foods Acquisition?
Amazon’s foray into the grocery space has larger implications for its overall strategy, and the possible benefits for the eCommerce goliath are diverse. Big news out of the grocery retail world as Amazon has announced its acquisition of major organic foods retailer Whole Foods Market – for an eye-popping $13.7 billion sale price that doesn’t look so massive given Amazon’s $136 billion sales volume in 2016. Read more.
8. Packaging Trends to Watch in 2017
Will sustainability trends from the consumer packaging industry have an impact on electronics manufacturing this year? Packaging trends suggest a wide range of startups, researchers, and big companies are committed to finding solutions that match the buzzwords du jour — sustainable, bio-degradable, natural, and eco-friendly. Read more.
9. The Top 3 Logistics and Supply Chain Blogs for 2017 – Readers’ Choice!
Our readers voted Morai Logistics, Women in Trucking, and the Oracle Supply Chain Management Blog as the top 3 logistics and supply chain blogs of 2017. Every year we ask our readers to vote for the best industry blogs. The results are always interesting — there’s really a lot of great supply chain and logistics content out there, plus it’s great to see where our readers are finding value. Read more.
10. The State of Supply Chains: The Supply Chain Has Gone Digital (Infographic)
2016 was the year of the digital supply chain — here’s a look at how things changed. The digital transformation has already reached most supply chain organizations. Per GT Nexus, 75% of executives surveyed recognized the digital supply chain as an important factor for the next five years. Read more.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Nov 20, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
Measuring brand awareness has been notoriously difficult. But these 4 metrics can help you evaluate if potential customers are encountering your content.
Companies work hard to get their products and services out into the world. It’s a key step in gaining exposure among potential customers and earning new business. This process is called brand awareness, the extent to which consumers are familiar with your brand.
Heightening the public’s knowledge of your business will generate leads, some of which will turn into sales. But this knowledge, or brand awareness, has proven difficult to measure. Do potential customers know your name, what you sell, and where to contact you? Creating ways to measure how recognizable your business is will show you what people think of your company, as well as where you should be focusing your time and money to help grow your exposure.
Here are 4 metrics to measure your brand awareness.
1. Social media reach
The larger your social media reach, the larger the potential audience. The reach of your social media content has a big impact on your brand awareness. Tracking engagements on each network will help you measure progress, build a greater following, and, ultimately, generate more site visits.
Use tools like Sharedcount, a free online tool that tracks the number of times a piece of content has been shared on the most popular social media sites — including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — to easily keep track of your social reach.
2. Blog shares
Your blog content is the perfect fodder for organic brand awareness, especially if sharing your posts is easy. Create a share bar on your blog to allow your readers to quickly share your content through social media networks. Measure your number of shares to track your most popular blogs, monitor your growing brand awareness, and help guide the topics of your future blog posts.
3. Brand mentions
Are customers talking about your brand online? There’s a great deal of value in knowing what they’re saying. Monitoring brand mentions online can provide honest feedback and objective insight from current and potential customers.
There are several tools to help you track brand mentions online. Here at Fronetics, we prefer the ease of Google Alerts, which allows you to set up custom alerts when your brand is mentioned online. We also use Hootsuite, where you can track brand mentions, as well as keywords and phrases across all of your social media platforms.
4. Website traffic
Every visit to your website represents someone who is familiar with your brand. The question is: How are people finding your website? Think of web traffic in terms of sources:
- Organic traffic – users come across your website from search engines
- Direct traffic – users type in the name of your website or brand directly
- Referral traffic – users find your website from links on other websites
- Social traffic – users come across your website from social media content
- Paid search/social – users click on one of your paid digital ads, which drives them to your site
- Email traffic – users click through one of your marketing emails
You’ll want a healthy balance of each source to ensure your brand awareness campaign is diversified. Measure each of these metrics using a platform like Google Analytics or HubSpot. As each grows, you’ll know your brand awareness is growing alongside.
Use these 4 metrics to measure your brand awareness and track your progress as you work to grow your exposure. See where you’re having the most success and where you need improvement, and adjust your strategy accordingly.
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by Jennifer Hart Yim | Nov 14, 2017 | Blog, Current Events, Manufacturing & Distribution, Strategy, Supply Chain
No doubt 3D technology has transformed the world of business. There are numerous inspiring ways by which 3D technology has to reshape the future.
This post comes to us from Adam Robinson of Cerasis, a top freight logistics company and truckload freight broker.
If you are also instructed to learn about the impact of this revolutionary technology then you are at the right spot. Here are seven ways in which this new 3D trend will shape the future of manufacturing sector:
1. Boost Local Production
According to a recent survey based report it is come to know that 3D technology will allow the manufacturer to double the mass production level. It will enable the producers to reach their targets without increasing each unit production cost.
It will also reduce the shipment costs as a local manufacturer will no need to bring material from other countries. Instead, they could easily install 3D manufacturing plant in their own factory to cut the extra cost.
This way local business will easily boost their production process as well as reduce the cost of manufacturing.
2. More Customized Products
When you will engage 3D technology in the manufacturing process, you will get a chance to produce customized goods. It means that you could build everything from clothes to cars in a unique way.
According to a report, it is revealed that in coming years mobile users will get the opportunity to use 3D printing app.
In additional professional designers with also use 3D printing techniques to enter into the new age of industrial design. So, if you want to develop customized products to drive more revenue then you should use 3D printing method.
3. Best For Creativity
It is true to say that 3D technology is the best tool for creative lovers. This is because it enables manufacturer to open up new possibilities to grab the attention of more customers,
Many experts have predicted that the introduction of 3D technology will enable the creativity lovers to fulfill their every desire in an innovative manner.
Whether you want to design a phone or furniture mode, 3D technology will soon make it possible for you to accomplish your goals perfectly.
4. Avoid Copyright Issues
We all know the importance of copyrights to safeguard ones intellectual property. This is why businessmen hire lawyers to overcome a number of legal disputes that are rising due to copyright.
It is anticipated that 3D printing will secure the creativity of artists as everyone will hold ownership of their 3D design.
In case, you are also concerned because of the copyright issue then this technology will help you to overcome legal issues quickly.
5. A New Tool For Large-Scale Producers
Suffice to say that 3D technology is best tool for countries which are totally dependent on manufacturing industry. For instance, as China heavily depends on the manufacturing industry, 3D printing will enable China to target a huge domestic market.
In addition, it will also assist countries that are rapidly moving toward manufacturing sector. It gives them the great benefit to switch their operations to mass-manufacturing level all over the world. This strategy will benefit every growing economy to step in the next level in the coming future.
6. Build New Horizons For Every Industry
The 3D technology will revolutionize production process of every industry including the healthcare sector, education sector as well as food industry. The reason behind this is that scientists are working on 3D models that will facilitate every industry so that more people will take benefit from it.
From research, it is come to know that a popular hospital has printed a jawbone by 3D printer. If you also engage in health sectors then you will also find yourself building human body parts in a 3D manner. Many experts have also researched that 3D tools will also help to assemble chemical compounds and printing drugs.
7. Reduce Crime
It is predicted that new 3D technology will reduce the crime level. This is because people can keep guns that are made on 3D printers to secure themselves from criminals.
In addition, people can create CCTV camera and other 3D technology to catch the criminal in an easy manner. Moreover, it will also help in the production process of military equipment and chemical weapons.
Wrap-Up…
Therefore, it could be said now that 3D printing will offer uncountable benefits to small scales as well as the large-scale manufacturing industry to drive more revenue. If you also belong to the manufacturing industry then you should also tap into the potential of this superb technology.
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by Elizabeth Hines | Nov 7, 2017 | Blog, Content Marketing, Data/Analytics, Marketing, Social Media
Use these four steps to determine which social media KPIs your business should be tracking to ensure you’re meeting your content marketing goals.
Whenever we create content marketing strategies for clients, we always tailor them to align with their specific business goals. So, for example, if a client is interested in getting more leads, we implement a plan designed to convert website visitors into contacts. And, equally importantly, we make sure lead generation is a metric we are constantly measuring.
Social media management is usually an important part of a comprehensive content marketing program. So, too, do we create a social media strategy specifically tailored to a client’s content goals. And this begins with establishing the right social media KPIs (key performance indicators) for those goals.
I wish I could give you a list of metrics that would work for every business. But, of course, it doesn’t work that way. Depending on what you’re looking to accomplish with your marketing plan, you’ll want to strategize, execute, and measure progress accordingly.
To get you started, here are four steps to help you decide which social media KPIs to measure based on your specific content marketing goals.
4 steps to determining your social media KPIs
1) Understand the difference between metrics and KPIs.
According to social media strategist and author of Going Social and Getting to Like Jeremy Goldman, “It’s completely normal to get metrics and KPIs mixed up to some extent.” Metrics, he says, “are simply measurements quantified,” while KPIs are “metrics that you’ve determined are mission critical to your business.”
Why is this distinction important? While we can measure more than ever before, sometimes too many measurements lead to a loss of organizational focus. In fact, Goldman suggests defining relatively few KPIs in order to maintain focus. “The more KPIs your organization has defined, the less focused it likely is.”
2) Define your business’ specific social media marketing goals.
In order to figure out the most relevant performance indicators, you need to establish and document a set of goals for your social media presence. Once you’ve done that, you can select metrics that help you analyze your progress.
For example, if you’re trying to get as many views as possible on your company’s white paper, your best KPIs are probably going to be visits to the lead-gen form connected to the white paper, as well as the total number of white paper downloads.
3) Start with the basics.
What is your organization’s mission statement; what is its reason for being? “It may sound like a lofty place to start,” says Goldman, “but you can’t succeed without an understanding of the firm and where it’s looking to go.”
Once you’ve got a clear idea of your brand and your company’s mission, make sure you have an understanding of your role within the context of the larger organization. Having an understanding of these basics gives you tools to focus on what serves the whole.
4) Survey your metrics.
Take a close look at all the metrics available to you, making sure not to assume everything is important. By the same token, don’t discount a metric that might not seem at face value to be important — be as objective as possible.
Next, you can determine your KPIs. “Break down your list of metrics and pick a few you’re determined to work night and day to measure your success by,” suggests Goldman.
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