Economist Intelligence Unit: Global Supply Chains: Understanding risks and rewards

The Economist Intelligence Unit, a side business, but totally separate, division of Economist Magazine, has just published a really good report called Global Supply Chains: Understanding risks and rewards. If you think supply chains are just logistics or just procurement, read this report and it will give the the broader picture. It was sponsored by Oracle, but I certainly didn't read any bias.

Also, in an effort of full disclosure, IBM was interviewed for the report to discuss its own supply chain. There is a great IBM supply chain case study about how the financial market crisis in the US, required a client to order 300 servers and have them ASAP to support an increase in online activity based on the crisis. The supply chain team delivered and shipped all of the servers from Mexico in 72 hours.

You can download a free copy of the report here. If you celebrate Christmas, consider it my gift to you. Happy Holidays. Speaking of holidays, I'll be back in New York for a few weeks. When I get back I'll have updates on shipping my car to Europe.

Photos of IBM Global Logistics in Italy circa 1951-1960

I recently came across the following photos that illustrate how IBM shipped its mainframes to clients in various parts of Italy between 1951-1960.

Photo #1 : Obviously, this was shot in Venice, Italy. I'm not sure what type of mainframes are in the two crates (I am guessing an IBM 650), which weighed nearly 2,000 pounds and rented for $3200 per month. Just a little risky putting two of them on a wooden gòndola, don't ya think? I would have loved to see how they loaded them on and how they planned to take them off.

Photo #2: Again, not sure what is in the crate or where in Italy this was shot. But I appreciate the fact that its being delivered on a wheelbarrow. I wonder how many wheelbarrow's FedEx, UPS and DHL have in their fleet. You can't make it out in this resolution, but in the middle of the crate it reads "Do not drop." Classic.

Photo #3: This would make a great poster illustrating really bad supply chain security. The IBM 7070 was a data processing system that hit the market in 1960 and it cost back then $813,000. So you gotta love the fact that IBM is not only advertising what is inside the trucks, but also where they are going "Banco di Napoli." To their credit, there probably were only a few dozen people in Italy in the 1960s who actually knew what to do with that 7070, but still not something we would ever promote in this day and age. Though, if would be great to live in a world where we could. The logistics carrier is a company called Barghi or Borghi, I can't really tell from the logo, but both come up empty in Google and Yahoo.