Technology and the Supply Chain: My Adventure with Skype

Had an interesting business meeting this morning.  While in my office in Pennsylvania, I was on speakerphone with a colleague in California while skyping (thank you, www.urbandictionary.com) with an engineer in Moscow who left a restaurant to do the call from his car. 

If this isn't the definition of technology enabling the supply chain, I don't know what is.  Technology makes possible things that would never have occurred to us a year ago – or even yesterday.  Since we truly are living in a flat world, we should explore any and all methods of using not only logistics technology, but any and all technology to improve our industry. 

In my Skype example, the technology came first, opening up the possibility for cheap computer-to-computer communication and easy global collaboration.   What's even more liberating is to start with the IDEA – then apply technology to enable even the wildest notions.  Take same-day delivery of online orders.  Amazon and Walmart are two of the biggest names positioning themselves for retail's "holy grail."

Thinking like this pushes the entire supply chain industry to a place where we are forced to change or perish.  Here's to the dreamers, the risk takers – those willing to chase agility and flexibility in logistics to achieve nirvana.