Bill Spaide

Bill Spaide
Five Fulfillment Fundamentals

Catalogers possessing high-performing operational units concentrate on the following five fundamentals. 1. Optimum Location Superior merchandise fulfillment begins with facility location, which should provide average or better solutions to the following criteria: - An adequate labor supply of both full-time and seasonal workers, as measured in terms of costs, availability, stability and productivity. Note: This is the single most important location-related criteria. - Proximity of suppliers and customers to the facility, as measured in both inbound and outbound transportation costs and delivery time. - Local economics includes reasonable construction or building rental costs; availability of government incentives; and reasonable taxes (e.g., income, personal

Roundup: Catalog Fulfillment and Operations

Inside you’ll find: cost-cutting strategies for your fulfillment operations; how to protect your inventory from internal theft; how to assess your catalog systems options; and how to determine your optimal IT spend. Get Lean Successful cost-cutting strategies for your catalog fulfillment operations. By William J. Spaide Lackluster operating performance in your catalog’s fulfillment operations can result from a combination of factors: poor productivity, inefficient processes, and unanticipated marketing and merchandise results. Failure to identify early warning signs of trouble and, more importantly, not addressing these problems decisively and effectively, are common characteristics of the operational “also-rans.” It all comes down to a

Three Common Operating Mistakes in a Catalog Contact Center

Well-run catalog operations always have to balance service perform-ance with operating costs. That is, they must meet service objectives within a budgetary context of what is both doable and affordable. To that end, catalog operations managers often are forced to make compromises when it comes to both setting and satisfying service standards, with the better managers able to deliver acceptable service levels at a reasonable cost. Nowhere is this operating dialectic more evident than in the contact center. Although I might get an argument from a few warehouse managers, I believe the contact center is the most difficult fulfillment activity to manage in

The Future of Catalog Fulfillment & Operations

Crystal-ball gazing is not a widely practiced art in the world of fulfillment. Being very much a tactical discipline, fulfillment is more focused on the here and now. With calls having to be answered in 20 seconds and orders to be shipped in 24 hours, fulfillment is a near real-time, decision-making process — one that historically owes as much to operational flexibility as it does to operational planning. In the catalog industry, marketing innovation has spawned major developments in fulfillment operations. Marketers have been the dogs that wag an operation’s tail, and in the end it’s the marketers who determine the direction fulfillment