VISION: Optimising Business Processes and Systems to support the delivery of excellence. Our BCI department continually focuses on a solutions mindset to ensure tomorrow is better than today for our customers, people, and stakeholders. We work collaboratively across all areas of the business and with our customers to deliver the most optimal processes to enhance performance and profitability for all. Cameron Courtney, Head of Business Continuous Improvement, and Kataraina Natua-Moetaua, Manager of Business Continuous Improvement, comprise our Business Continuous Improvement (BCI) team. Kat joi ..read more

I was a new manager when I first heard “Five Ps” or Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance, and thought to myself… genius, so true, what a great saying. Only later in life did I realize that this common phrase has been duplicated, replicated, and modified for many years. No originality here, but nonetheless, the phrase has stayed with me. Every person has the same 24 hours in a day, and yet, some people manage to get a lot more out of their day. So, what is it that these people do differently? Well, they choose carefully what they will focus on for the day and more importantly, they choose ..read more

Industrial rents within the Auckland market are proving to be resilient. I was surprised by this because I have seen storage reduce across the SCS client base by about 10% since January 2023 and the data I found on stats.co.nz(1) looks like the market levels are even higher. I have not studied economics in depth but I naturally assumed the supply and demand relationship would dictate how the market would respond. On the demand side I believed because there is now less inventory this would mean less storage, and therefore the demand for warehousing would drop. On the supply side I could not see ..read more

At SCS we offer more than a standard 3PL service, as a supply chain management company, we have a broader offering that helps all facets of the supply chain. We delve deeper into our customers supply chains to help provide them with a comprehensive understanding of the physical, systematic and strategic components that contribute to the total cost of ownership, as well finding ways to unlock value within the supply chain. Our SCS guarantee: If in your subjective opinion you do not feel the value of our services is at least 5X the investment then there is no obligation to pay our invoice Within ..read more

Have you ever thought that splitting your stock holding between North and South Island may help you reduce distribution costs? Would you like to get stock to your South Island customers faster? Happier customers and less costs are always a good thing, right? Our customers that have taken up a split delivery model comment on the speed and cost savings that we can generate by strategically placing certain or all SKUs in each Island. SCS has warehouses located in Auckland and Christchurch that help us provide quick, cost-effective deliveries through the whole country. Theres no Auckland / Christc ..read more

SCS NZ is proudly 50% owned by NZ Post, NZ Post is an iconic NZ brand with a rich history stretching back 170 years to the early 1830’s when missionaries and traders had to rely on occasional passing ships for communication, SCS are honoured to be small a part of this story. This video provides a great overview of some of NZP’s future plans – well worth a couple of minutes of your time as it explains some of the technology for their future network ..read more

Excited to share this with you, our IT team has been working hard in the background to get our tracking up to the next level. SCS, to the best of our knowledge, was the first 3PL in NZ to offer a fully integrated web-enabled order and shipment track and trace solution in NZ, in the early 2000’s we built a web portal for Nest (an iconic NZ housewares store that sadly didn’t make it through the GFC) Dan wrote the programme on a flight to the UK for a wedding! What was revolutionary at the time was the ability to not only view, in real-time, your order status, historical order info, inventory a ..read more

There are good times ahead but we’re not out of the woods yet! Hi there, in January, I sent out a State of the Nation update predicting a less impactful increase in labour and freight costs this year vs last, I was tacitly referring to the last couple of years being brutal but now improving. I also stated my concerns around facility costs, which were shooting up significantly off the back of unprecedented space shortages last year. I am usually reasonably accurate with a lot of my predictions and we are definitely improving YoY but not quite as much as I hoped back in Jan (close though, not mi ..read more

Shared this with my staff today and thought others may get some value from it Important knowledge I think every high performer should heed. The biggest thing I have found with higher performers is to force holiday breaks regularly, every 3 months. When you red-line for too long, you lose perspective but don’t see it happening. It happened to me once big time (2008/9), and every high performer I know goes through it (with one exception who is a freak of nature, Kim). It’s like a top athlete; it’s not good to operate at peak fitness for too long. You need to cycle down and build back up. The iss ..read more

One of the major H& S risks within our business is our traffic management in terms of the operational activity that takes place with regards to Full Container Load movements.  I would like to highlight the risks in detail for your consideration: Devanning of Full Container Loads. (FCL) SCS often use contractors for the Devanning of FCL which creates risk as we have a shared PCBU status. Freight Arrival Predominantly we receive Full Container Loads (20ft | 40ft) LCL and Airfreight Each of our clients has a different carrier which is mainly determined by your International Frei ..read more