What is argued in this article was argued much earlier this year on Quora.
http://www.quora.com/Apple-Inc-2/What-would-be-a-good-use-of...
Apple's Supply Chain Secret
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Re: Apple's Supply Chain Secret
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's Walmart's supply chain like?
They've often been considered one of the best supply chain operations in the world, and aggressively drive their suppliers to lower prices and increase volume. One classic anecdote is that leading up to a hurricane, Walmart did some data mining and found that poptarts sold like crazy when hurricane watches were declared. Within hours they had dozens of trucks heading to the Florida coast filled with poptarts and they…
Funny how quaint the excerpt on data seems now. "Walmart has 460 tb of data, experts suggest Internet has half that."
Re: Apple's Supply Chain Secret
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
They've often been considered one of the best supply chain operations in the world, and aggressively drive their suppliers to lower prices and increase volume. One classic anecdote is that leading up to a hurricane, Walmart did some data mining and found that poptarts sold like crazy when hurricane watches were declared. Within hours they had dozens of trucks heading to the Florida coast filled with poptarts and they…
I agree that exploit is the right word here, but probably not for the reason you chose it.
Either opportunistic or exploitive are appropriate -those words are not always negative, to me they also have a descriptive meaning. If they saw a trend and they took steps to fulfill the foreseen demand, it's all good. I'm sure people were happy WalMart had that in stock, rather than think 'this WalMart, they're using this hurricane in an underhanded way to sell me more poptarts'.
Re: Apple's Supply Chain Secret
#14Interesting parallel to walmart.
I was thinking the same thing. Aggressive negotiation with suppliers is a feature of monopsonies. Edit: I've thought about it some more. There are parallels but important differences. The main one is products. Apple design the products themselves, have a very limited product range, and are more intimately involved in manufacturing than Walmart is. Walmart has a much more complex supply chain problem. Thousands of pro…
For the ones (such as me) who went "mono-what?", a monopsony is the situation where one unique buyer buys from different sellers. It's the opposite of a monopoly, where an unique seller sells to different buyers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony
Thanks for teaching me something Jacques :)
Re: Apple's Supply Chain Secret
#15> When the iPad 2 debuted, the finished devices were packed in plain boxes and Apple employees monitored every handoff point—loading dock, airport, truck depot, and distribution center —to make sure each unit was accounted for.
When I went to WWDC10, I was struck by the small detail of the conference security wearing black polos with the Apple logo and "Security" under the logo. At most conferences, the security is wearing jackets straight out of action movie central casting (e.g. "SECURITY"). I thought that was a nice small detail - to attire the rent-a-cops in Apple gear. But, now, reading this, I think they may have been full time Apple security staff. Security is paramount.
Re: Apple's Supply Chain Secret
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was thinking the same thing. Aggressive negotiation with suppliers is a feature of monopsonies. Edit: I've thought about it some more. There are parallels but important differences. The main one is products. Apple design the products themselves, have a very limited product range, and are more intimately involved in manufacturing than Walmart is. Walmart has a much more complex supply chain problem. Thousands of pro…
For the ones (such as me) who went "mono-what?", a monopsony is the situation where one unique buyer buys from different sellers. It's the opposite of a monopoly, where an unique seller sells to different buyers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony Thanks for teaching me something Jacques :)
Je t'en prie.
Re: Apple's Supply Chain Secret
#17> Most of Apple’s customers have probably never given that green light a second thought
Most, I'm sure. But personally the first time I saw light shining through my metal laptop, I was amazed, a little delighted, and slightly confused about how they were doing it (because, as the article mentions, the holes are too small to see).
Re: Apple's Supply Chain Secret
#18> Most of Apple’s customers have probably never given that green light a second thought Most, I'm sure. But personally the first time I saw light shining through my metal laptop, I was amazed, a little delighted, and slightly confused about how they were doing it (because, as the article mentions, the holes are too small to see).
The first time I saw that I actually took my laptop apart to see how it was done. It was just one of the simple features that I really enjoyed about my laptop. It just showed an attention to detail that no other manufacturer has yet to follow.
Re: Apple's Supply Chain Secret
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
They've often been considered one of the best supply chain operations in the world, and aggressively drive their suppliers to lower prices and increase volume. One classic anecdote is that leading up to a hurricane, Walmart did some data mining and found that poptarts sold like crazy when hurricane watches were declared. Within hours they had dozens of trucks heading to the Florida coast filled with poptarts and they…
I agree that exploit is the right word here, but probably not for the reason you chose it.
There's plenty to dislike about Wal-Mart, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with predicting a sudden shortage of a product in a particular area, and trucking in a bunch.
If they'd doubled the price, that would be another matter, but that's not what they did.
Re: Apple's Supply Chain Secret
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's Walmart's supply chain like?
This is anecdotal evidence from them coming to speak at my college, but... Walmart controls almost all of it's logistics. Whereas its competitors use other shipping companies, and have inventory sit in 3rd party warehouses, Walmart builds huge distribution centers that service multiple Walmart stores. The distribution centers mean they can purchase huge levels of inventory at discounted terms. Running their own logis…
To toss some info on the cost-cutting logistics pile, a friend of my dad was a buyer for Wal-Mart for a while.
According to him, Wal-Mart's corporate relocation assistance consists of a Wal-Mart truck and some random employees from a local store packing and stuffing your possessions in a semi.