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CEO Blog

28/06/2012

End of the quarter panic

My 10 favorite vendor quotes at the end of the quarter:

...

My 10 favorite vendor quotes at the end of the quarter:

1) We normally do not exert warehousing pressure on the distribution at the end of the quarter, and haven't for years. This time was an exceptional situation.

2) Mr. Spranger, of course no other distributor will receive this offer!

3) You can be sure that we will deduct the additional turnover now from your next quarterly goal.

4) But if you take these 100 pallets now, then we won't have anything left and you can be the sole supplier!

5) We simply expect a distributor to store goods for seven or eight months sometimes.

6) We will not leave you hanging with leftover goods!

7) You have to accept these three truck deliveries because in the next quarter we want to do business with our small direct partners via you.

8) This large order is very important for your reputation at our headquarters in the USA/Japan/....

9) If you have to rent an additional warehouse, then of course we will pay for the storage costs.

10) We restructured during this quarter and that is why we are unable to deviate, particularly in this quarter.

And yes, our warehouses are popping at the seams, and yes, we are looking forward to the nice products, but honestly, where will you find a manager who has the backbone to honestly tell his boss or the stock exchange that the market is like it is, and that every advanced quarterly business leads to price and profit erosion. And where will you find a stock holder who takes the time to check out what goods are being pressed through at the last minute - because these altered figures are not appropriate for corporate leadership and rating.

But what am I talking about? With us on 31 December it is exactly the senseless opposite, because we need as little inventory as possible due to Basel II. Even this indicator holds no weight regarding the value of the company, but why should I fight against windmills. :)

Ok, enough complaining. Now we need to make space, because on Monday the deliveries from 29 June will arrive. And some vendors who need three weeks to answer a simple delivery time question can suddenly deliver pallets, even on Saturdays. :)

22/06/2012

Love China!

For the past two hours, I have been sitting in the car on Hainan Island, on the way from Sanya to Haikou....

For the past two hours, I have been sitting in the car on Hainan Island, on the way from Sanya to Haikou. We had a successful "Mobility Weekend" in Sanya together with Honeywell and Elo Touch Solutions, but the trip back decided to be difficult.

Unfortunately a typhoon stopped by, making the weekend a bit more challenging. It only rained once though over the weekend - it started on Friday night and ended on Monday afternoon.

Bernd, who flew back to Shenzhen with the main group of travelers, spent the night in the airport and could see first-hand how the flight passengers banded together and made the check-in crew's lives miserable, until they ended up apologizing for the bad weather. Afterwards they stormed the First Class lounge. But it did not help: if no plane can land because of bad weather, then of course no plane can take off.

So, the entire group went via train to Haikou, without any sleep. There, the airport was also closed, but not quite as much as in Sanya. Instead of arriving on Sunday afternoon, our employees arrived at home on Monday night.

Since I did not need to go to Shenzhen, but rather Shanghai, I am just now driving through the car wash. Every few minutes I get a call telling me which flights have been cancelled and which have not. In China, they do not like to admit failures, and on the official airport websites it looks like "business as usual". Sanya alone has cancelled 75 flights, which are all on time, according to the website.

But the reality looks different. My driver takes me and my bottle of red wine through the night for hours, to bring me from the closed Sanya airport to the newly reopened Haikou airport. Then I get a call that my flight was cancelled, but that the flight one hour earlier will depart on schedule. I kindly ask my driver to step on the gas, but: he suddenly stops and steps out of the car. I thought I asked too much of him and that he was going to throw me out into the typhoon.

But: "Sorry, Sir, I can bring you to Haikou on time, but I have to cover the license plates." and he places covers over both the front and rear license plates. And just like that, you can drive 200 kph in China. Cool! Don't let anyone ever tell you that the Chinese do not have creative solutions.

As much as I could tell in the rain, we were caught by speed camera eight times, and we have been driving for two hours with our hazard warning flasher on. However, Hainan has brand-new highways, so that I can comfortably work on my laptop while drinking my wine. Love China!

The most important piece of knowledge about the stormy weather came from my mentor, Y.S. Chang, who sat completely relaxed with a cup of tea as the rain flooded the grounds: "Rain is good. Rain means money." Ok then.

You can see pictures from our Sanya trip on www.facebook.com/jarltech

05/06/2012

Logistics on Public Holidays

We do 40% of our business in Germany. But does that mean that on a public holiday we suddenly cannot help our customers in France or England?...

We do 40% of our business in Germany. But does that mean that on a public holiday we suddenly cannot help our customers in France or England? Why should a customer in Belgium have to wait longer for his order? Normally the customer does not even know that our warehouse is in Germany.

Even worse is when the public holiday does not affect all of Germany, as is the case with this coming Thursday. Hesse is closed, and of course, the shipping companies in Hesse. Should we let our competition take our customer from Hannover away from us, just because he needs his delivery on Friday? I think not.

If we tell a customer in Luxembourg or Poland that Jarltech delivers everything the same day, than we need to do so. Effective immediately our warehouse is open on public holidays with a smaller workforce, and our Sprinter fleet (trucks are not allowed to drive on public holidays!) delivers the packages simply to the shipping companies' foreign hubs. After France and Austria we are already on the go daily with several vehicles.

On such days our technical department has an emergency crew who speak the languages of the countries which are open, plus our sales departments in the open regions are also on duty.

This all costs a lot of money, especially when the public holidays are not the same throughout. Why aren't there a few general public holidays in Europe that (almost) everyone could agree to, like Christmas, for example? If the six other public holidays would be taken away, then by law every employee would automatically receive six additional vacation days... which would already give us better results, not to mention an increase in economical productivity.

However, it could be embarrassing for the church, if hardly anyone takes the day off on Ascension or Easter Monday, but the church would certainly survive. When it comes to globalization it becomes increasingly difficult to always have to deal with special national rules and regulations.