Securing Global Supply Chains: Seven Reasons Why “Getting It Done” Is So Hard

| MCM staff

We all know that a company’s global supply chain is a potent strategic weapon, economically speaking. Unfortunately, it can also be a potentially fatal area of vulnerability. Consider the hundreds of millions of shipping containers that move among the world’s seaports–about 80% of the world’s cargo, which adds up to 5.8 billion tons per year–and you can see that there is a lot of room for error.

Call Center Certification: What Really Makes Sense

| Maggie Klenke

Call centers have come a long way in the past five years in terms of elevating the role and stature of their operations. One contributing factor is the move to provide certification programs that can designate an individual or center as meeting a specific set of standards or having defined skills and knowledge. While some of these are only meaningful within the context of a single employer, there are others that are intended to make certification transportable so that hiring managers and potential clients can use such certifications in their recruiting strategies.

Supervisory Advisory

| Liz Kislik

How do most people learn to supervise? They repeat some version of what they saw an early boss, or teacher, or parent, or older sibling do. More often than you

Separate but Equal: Warehouse and Labor Management Systems

| Don Cook

Recent advances in warehouse management systems (WMS) and time and attendance (T&A) systems provide many benefits in inventory control, distribution operations, and personnel administration. They also provide an opportunity to obtain files that you can use to comply with certain labor management requirements. But though labor management is a key means of cutting costs and improving service, it is usually given a low priority during implementation of WMS and T&A systems.