Who has the best consumer products supply chain in the world? Is it Wal-Mart? Amazon.com? Dell?
Gartner likes to publish the Top 25 Supply Chains every year. Unfortunately, there’s one supply chain the esteemed analyst firm continues to overlook. And it just so happens to be the greatest supply chain success story of all time. I’m talking about The Santa Claus Supply Chain. Don’t believe me? Who else can claim:
A laser focus on the target market – Children of all ages100% perfect order rating, on-time delivery and fill ratesA global distribution channel that spans the world in 24 hoursDirect Door to Chimney Delivery ModelA committed workforce with zero turnoverThe very first known supply chain to run “in the cloud”
Let’s take a closer look at Jolly St. Nick’s supply chain superiority, shall we?
Manufacturing and Distribution Facility
At first glance, Santa’s manufacturing and distribution facility (the North Pole) is not ideally located from a logistical perspective. However he does have total control of his manufacturing and achieves tremendous economies of scale in production by having a single manufacturing facility (Santa’s Workshop).
It is also believed to be the largest single manufacturing plant in the world. With the global population surpassing 7,000,000,000 people, of which around 35% are under 19 years old (check out this cool dashboard to take a closer look at the world population in 2011 and beyond), the workforce (Santa’s Little Helpers) need to produce over six million presents every day of the year. As a result, inventory of billions of end products are built up towards the peak season (Christmas Eve) creating the ultimate warehouse management challenge.
In addition, The North Pole location is also a brilliant financial strategy as records show that it is it is exempt from all government taxes and regulations as, being located in the Arctic Ocean it is not owned by any single country and is considered “international territorial”.
Customer Service
Santa has an unblemished reputation for “delivering on the promise.” There’s never a late delivery, and in my experience, he usually delivers more than expected! I’d say that deserves a perfect order rating of over 100%. But how does Santa actually maintain such an accurate customer database (naughty and nice list)? With over seven billion records, it’s a prime example of “big data” and is of course more manageable because it’s “in the cloud”!
Order Processing
Traditionally, Santa has taken a large number of orders personally. Usually by face to face customer meetings (whilst sitting on his knee), or from letters delivered via the once popular mail system (older readers may remember it). Thankfully, Santa is no technology slouch either as he now accepts orders electronically through popular social networking sites (check out my prior blog Are You Ready for the Social Supply Chain?). That’s right boys and girls, even Santa is on Facebook. You can also follow him on Twitter @Santa or reach him via C2S (Child2Santa) at: santa@santaclaus.com.
Supply Network Collaboration
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