Robotic Piece Picking: Anatomy of a Broken Business Model
This article is about the broken business model of robotic piece picking companies. If you are looking for the broken business model of Q-commerce companies, please read this article or…
The Technological Plateau in Warehouse Automation: Where Real Change Happens
Warehouse automation has been around for many decades. It is a complex and expansive industry that has, in recent years (specifically the last five to ten), been characterized by a…
Organizational Culture Doesn’t Go Away, So We Better Take Care of It
Some time ago, I published a text entitled “Remote Work and the Underrated Concept of Organizational Culture”. The point of the article was what the title suggests: I wanted to…
Warehouse Audits as a Regular Exercise
In some areas of logistics, there are certain tools and practices that are practically unknown in other areas. Audits are an example of this. In purchasing and supplier management, conducting…
Decoding Aldi and Lidl’s Success: A Logistics Perspective
I recently published an article in which I stated that high inventory levels are the most common problem in warehouses. Inventory levels are determined in part by SKU count, the…
Remote Work and the Underrated Concept of Organizational Culture
Let us start with the conclusion: One of the primary responsibilities of executives is to shape and maintain the organizational culture. If they do not recognize this responsibility and act…
Warehouse Automation for 3PLs
Why Adoption is Slower Than you Might Expect Introduction We are moving more goods from warehouses to consumers than ever before. And the more e-com replaces brick-and-mortar, physical commerce, the…
On the Power of “Good Enough”
Sometimes, we see companies with fantastic products – and they fail commercially. Sometimes, we see companies with fantastic products, and they can even solve real problems for real customers – and yet, they fail commercially. Now, there is certainly no shortage of reasons why companies can fail commercially in spite of having fantastic products, and I will not attempt to enumerate and discuss them here. Instead, I would like to highlight only one very specific reason which in my opinion often remains neglected, or even unnoticed altogether: competitors or substitutes that are good enough. Good enough is a very powerful concept. I claim that having a product that is good enough is often preferable to having a product that is superior. Let’s have a look at three examples of products or systems in the warehouse automation industry that are failing to meet commercial expectations through the lenses of “good enough”.
