Quotes of the day from the Retail Week Supply Chain Summit

Stewart Binnie, president, Aurora

“We have to homogenise our brands so they mean the same thing on the high street as they mean on the web - we have to make them special and attribute values to them, which cannot be commoditised. Somehow we have all contrived to be global and promised the customer they can everything they want wherever they want it, and that is only possible if the supply chain works like a clock.”

Paul Anastasiou, head of dotcom distribution, Asda

“I suspect we’re not too far away - maybe two or three years - where a parcel, a driver or a van is tweeting along the way towards the customer, or some variant of that. And we know that, through social media, feedback of a poor delivery experience is instant, so it’s important to get it right first time.”

Deirdre Burns, supply chain director, Boots

“When you’re doing a big [consolidation programme] you have to have the best team around you with clear vision and strategy… It doesn’t have to be costly or automated, it does need some key principles, it does need vision and courage.”

Tim Allison, UK logistics director, Dixons Retail

“It’s our role to challenge. Get close to the sourcing directors, challenge where the product is coming from. And it is key to challenge your commercial teams on your price per unit.”

Calum Lewis, operations director, Lego

“What I wonder about is how often we look at the people who work across a supply chain or network. Are they working with aligned objectives, do they understand what is achievable? Have we bothered to map that across our supply chain? Have we really looked at the people and relationships in our supply chain?”

Mark Knowles, supply chain development director, Boots

“Data is fundamental. Until just a few weeks ago, you couldn’t redeem points on our Advantage cards online. Through our transformational programme, you can now use points to buy online rather than just in store. That also helps us to understand customer behaviour - we understand a lot more how our customers behave across different channels and that allows us to [deliver better services] for customers as well.”

Jim Stanway, senior director global supply chain initiatives, Walmart

“We’re not going to solve enviromental issues by incremental moves, we need to make bold moves. We need to get large chunks of the population moved - if you do it small it’s waste of resources.”