Supply Chain Insights

Turn supply chain insight into action.
Then into the software that runs it.

Gartner, McKinsey and Deloitte publish the findings. We read the full report and turn each one into the process to change, the number to watch, and the software that runs it. That holds whether you run one warehouse on spreadsheets or a multi-site operation on an existing ERP.

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What we cover

Six things worth your inbox

Each issue, each report and each post falls into one of these. If none of them is your problem, the newsletter is not for you, and we would rather you knew now.

Analyst research, interpreted

Gartner, McKinsey, Deloitte, Capgemini and Bain publish the findings. We read the full report and say what the number means for your operation, and what to do about it.

How an industry problem gets solved

One challenge at a time: the mechanism behind it, the process that fixes it, and the tooling that keeps it fixed. Six industries so far.

AI in the supply chain

What runs in production today, from monitoring agents to forecasting models, and what is still a demo. We run both, so we can tell the difference.

Demand planning and forecasting

Forecast value added, champion models, consensus cycles and replenishment. Methods you can test against your own history before you trust them.

Systems that have to work together

Where an accounting package, a marketplace, a carrier and a spreadsheet meet, and what a harmonised data model changes about that meeting.

Opinion, with the working shown

Decisions we made and what they cost us. Where a different product is the better choice. We are not neutral, and we say so.

How we work

From a survey result to a process you can run

A survey tells you what happened elsewhere. A report of ours tells you what to change here, in what order, and which number shows that it worked. This is the translation we do every time.

01

Read the research properly

Every statistic we quote carries a named, published source. Where we could not verify a figure against the original publication, we left it out and made the point without a number.

02

Turn the finding into a process

A survey result is not an instruction. We work out what the finding means for the operation in front of us, then write the process as steps a team can run, with the numbers to watch.

03

Run it on software you already own

Most of the process is configuration on the platform. For the part that is specific to you, our consulting team builds it with you, on the platform or against the systems you already run.

The finding

McKinsey, 2023 Supply Chain Pulse Survey

78% of companies increased inventory buffers, and 78% pursued dual sourcing for critical materials.

Both are cash-expensive answers to a parameter problem. A buffer covers a lead time nobody measured.

The process

Build the real lead time per supplier from purchase order history. Set the reorder point from that number, not from memory. Put a second supplier against every critical part. Review quarterly.

On the platform

Supplier lead times, minimum order quantities and scorecards built from PO history. Purchase orders raised automatically at the reorder point.

Manufacturing report
The finding

Gartner forecast, 2024

More than 70% of recent ERP initiatives will fail to fully meet their original business case goals by 2027.

The business case fails because the project tries to replace everything at once. The process that costs the most money is usually one process.

The process

Name the one process that loses the most margin. Fix that process first, on a system that integrates with the accounting package and the channels you keep. Measure before and after. Then pick the next one.

On the platform

One system across procurement, stock and planning that sits alongside Xero, Sage, QuickBooks or an existing ERP, rather than replacing it.

Retail report
The finding

National Retail Federation and Happy Returns, 2025

19.3% of online sales are expected to be returned in 2025.

A return is not one event. It is an authorisation, an inbound shipment, an inspection, a stock decision, a refund and a ledger entry. Most teams run that on email.

The process

Treat the return as its own lifecycle with the same states every time. Decide the stock outcome at inspection, not at refund. Post the refund and the stock movement from the same record.

On the platform

Returns handling wired into stock and refunds, with each return a record in the same order lifecycle as the sale.

eCommerce report
Industry reports

Six reports, every statistic sourced

One report per industry: what goes wrong, why, what the research says, and what to do about it. Each one names the conditions in which a different product is the better choice. All six are free.

eCommerce

The Cost of a Split Order Book

19.3%
of online sales expected to be returned in 2025
67%
of companies do not trust their data enough to use it
20 pages, 13 cited sources
Retail

Empty Shelves and Dead Stock

$1.7tn
lost worldwide each year to out-of-stocks and overstocks
65%
of retail inventory records did not match the shelf
21 pages, 13 cited sources
Manufacturing

The Cost You Cannot See

8.3%
average out-of-stock rate across the FMCG industry
9.8%
procurement workload growth against 1.0% more staff
20 pages, 13 cited sources
Logistics

The Operator's Case for Joining a Network

41%
of supply chain cost sits in the last mile
20%
of e-commerce packages miss the first delivery attempt
18 pages, 13 cited sources
Mining

The Part That Stops the Pit

$125k
the typical cost of one hour of unplanned downtime
30-60%
of a mine's operating cost is maintenance
15 pages, 10 cited sources
Agriculture

Fourteen Percent Never Arrives

14%
of food produced is lost between harvest and retail
67.4%
of supply chain executives use Excel to run the chain
18 pages, 11 cited sources
Who writes this

A consultancy that built the platform it recommends

Cargopilot is a supply chain and automation platform: forecasting, procurement, inventory, manufacturing, logistics and reporting in one data model. It has run in production since March 2025.

The same team does the consulting. We map the process with you, build the workflow or the connector that is specific to your operation, tune the forecasting models against your history, and train the people who run it.

That order matters. We advise on the process first, and then supply the software that runs it. Where a different product is the better choice, the report says so.

Talk to the consulting team
March 2025
Core platform in production since
6
Industry reports, with 73 cited sources between them
1
Data model across forecast, procure, make, store, move and deliver
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