Proper logistics is the guarantee of success for any company. Logistics deals with the planning and coordination of goods and their delivery from the manufactures to the customer. It encompasses the activities “involved in the forward and reverses flow and storage of goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption” (Ross 99). Therefore, logistics processes include everything connected with these activities, for instance, “request for customer services, material supply, product storage, product shipping, information tracking, and recycling for used product” (Cheung 4). Improving logistics processes is possible through delivering goods directly to the customers and reducing stock pipelines; benefits of these changes can be shown through Bokomo Foods Company example.
The first way to improve logistics processes is to start dispatching the products directly to the customers. This can be done through online or telephone services. One of the greatest benefits of this change will be the improvement of the communication between customers and sellers. This will attract a bigger amount of consumers and will allow establishing a firm regular consumer base. In addition, it will help to save time and delivery costs because direct delivery does not demand extra expenses for paying the distributors or storing the products at the warehouses where the goods are exposed to the risk of being damaged. This will also significantly reduce customer lead-time, which will result in better performance of the company due to selling a greater amount of products.
Another change that can be introduced in order to improve logistics processes is to reduce the stock pipeline. This method is especially beneficial for middle and large companies which often face the problem of the surplus of unwanted products. These products find no market and eventually become stale, which is loss-making for the company and often demands only extra costs for removing them from warehouses or recycling them. Certain products, especially food products, cannot be stored for a long time this is why they are even more loss-making (Bragg 77). Thus, if the stock pipeline is reduced, the products will be renewed regularly with the fresh (or more modern ones, depending on what the company manufacturers) being supplied more often. This is why reducing stock levels can be beneficial for some companies.
If applied to the organization based in Africa, these changes can also be quite positive. Bokomo Foods is one of the organizations for which both the abovementioned changes of logistics processes will be beneficial. For instance, by starting to deliver the products directly to the customers (through developing a home-delivery service as an alternative) the company would be able to sell more products with some of its logistics processes (especially products storage and shipping) getting improved. Another change offered is even more beneficial for Bokomo Foods because any food industry needs to have limited stock levels to supply its customer with fresh products of high quality.
In sum, improving logistics processes is possible. All that it takes is certain time and efforts which will necessarily pay off with time. Thus, dispatching the products directly to the customers and reducing stock levels are two methods that may help to improve logistics processes and contribute to the development of any organization. This has been proven by the example of Bokomo Foods to which these methods can be easily applied. If these changes are applied appropriately, the company’s logistics processes are likely to tangibly improve.
Works Cited
Bragg, Steven M. GAAP Implementation Guide. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2004.
Cheung, Ronnie. Challenges in Information Technology Management. New York: World Scientific, 2008.
Ross, David F. The Intimate Supply Chain: Leveraging the Supply Chain to Manage the Customer Experience. London: CRC Press, 2008.