With a recent milestone of three months in my new role at ThreeSixtySCG, what better time to reflect on my initial perception from the outside looking into the realities of working in a rapidly growing business and what I now understand true end-to-end supply chain consulting to be.
Having previously worked for a number of years with many of the ThreeSixtySCG team, feeling welcome and intrinsically understanding the ways of working made the transition from a large corporate organisation to an agile, adaptable, business that much smoother. However, what I didn’t fully appreciate before joining was the scope of services – from business strategy development to in-depth market and customer analysis, or sales channel evaluation – that ThreeSixtySCG offer and ultimately, just how close to our customers’ the team are.
Many businesses, particularly in the logistics and supply chain industry, aspire to be seen as an extension of their customers business. ThreeSixtySCG epitomises this and, I believe, sets the example of a true partnership approach by how we engage with our customers.
On reflecting over the last three months, what makes ThreeSixtySCG the business it is today is its people and approach. The team is made up of some of the best logistics experts in the country and our approach of embedding ourselves in our customers’ organisation to deliver a true end-to-end solution is industry-leading.
The business prides itself on being different, our mantra is “We look at things differently because we are different.” In the world of logistics this is important. hThreeSixtySCG offers more than just supply chain consulting. It provides true end-to-end strategy, solution design, commercial review, integration, implementation, go-live and ongoing solution optimisation.
The watershed moment for me personally came a few weeks ago after speaking to our directors about our ongoing partnership with many of our current customers. A great example of this is our partnership with one of Asia’s largest retailers.
What began as an initial engagement to design and implement a new automated DC, has now grown into a multi-year partnership that included a business-wide review focused on how to grow customer share and loyalty. ThreeSixtySCG not only undertook workshops with all major internal business functions to develop a holistic strategy, underpinned by significant market research to understand what impact any changes to the supply chain would have on various demographics but then also developed a rollout plan including organisational structure changes to support the strategy.
This is only one example of the journey ThreeSixtySCG embarks on with all our partners but the one that stood out to me as a new employee of a business that truly understands it is never a black and white path we walk in these engagements.
The true benefit of engaging a supply chain consultant is that we’re all only as good as the sum of our parts – no individual or business will have the right answers all the time, it’s only through collaboration that we get to understand the correct solution.
So, what’s the real difference between ThreeSixtySCG to what I thought from the outside looking in? ThreeSixtySCG is a team of more than just supply chain consultants. Our industry knowledge, approach and genuine ability to quickly adapt when things change ensures we always deliver the right outcome for our customers.
Dean Boulter
Senior Consultant – Development
