Enduring pandemic raises Peak concerns

The working group is comprised of more than 30 leading grocery and home appliance businesses such as Premier Foods, Unilever and Bosch Home Appliances, and facilitated by leading supply chain and logistics consultancy SCALA.

With the traditional retail “peak” season, which includes Halloween, the Black Friday weekend, China’s Singles’ Day and Christmas, as well as the end of the Brexit transition period, fast approaching, questions are now arising throughout the sector around how these seasonal challenges can effectively be managed when capacity is already stretched. 

To overcome these challenges, retailers have cited a need for the sector to work more closely with suppliers to share data and information. Through this, it is hoped that greater supplier performance management can be achieved; facilitating innovation while gaining a clearer picture of the challenges suppliers face, creating greater transparency and understanding across the supply chain.  

Labour availability and worker safety are also a widely-reported challenge. These are issues which are high on the priority list of both retailers and manufacturers. Safety of workers and the impact that more widespread testing will have on the availability of labour, changing advice on COVID-19, and availability of PPE have all been cited by group members. 

Finally, third-party logistics providers (3PLs) have also highlighted a challenging shift in customer patterns for home deliveries. Whereas, pre-COVID, peak delivery days were traditionally Wednesday-Friday, these days have now shifted from Monday-Wednesday. Interestingly, 3PLs are also reporting shifting product mixes due to retailers prioritising different product categories and SKUs. 

Group discussions take the format of weekly virtual conferences every Wednesday, with guest contributions from retailers and suppliers such as Morrisons, Asda and DHL, where members can share ideas. All members are invited to collaborate, and membership is completely free to all organisations that wish to join. As well as bringing the group together, SCALA acts as a trusted neutral advisor, ensuring confidentiality and best-practice is followed at all times. 

John Perry, managing director at SCALA, said: “Going forward, suppliers should accept that the pre-COVID-19 world has gone forever and expectations will now be based around demand in the ‘new normal’.”