Amazon steps up its game in ocean shipping
According to a report by USA Today, Amazon is increasing its ocean shipping services between the U.S. and China. The e-commerce giant has been developing its own shipping services since its Chinese affiliate, Amazon China, was granted a license to become a freight forwarder between China and the U.S. in 2016.
As of the beginning of 2018, Amazon’s freight shipping subsidiary has shipped more than 5,300 shipping containers from China to the U.S. This service was initially only available to manufacturers and sellers in China, but Amazon recently confirmed that it was opened up to U.S. sellers in the beginning of the fourth quarter of last year. This is all part of Amazon’s strategy to eventually have control over most of its global transportation network. The shipping service it provides is a ‘soup-to-nuts’ service, cutting out almost all of the middlemen. This gives Amazon an even greater advantage as it is so far the only e-commerce company that has been able to manage the entire transaction end-to-end.
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DHL innovates hiring process in an attempt to improve hire rates
DHL Supply Chain has recognized that the supply chain talent gap is “one of the most significant issues” facing the industry right now and that this problem is not expected to get any easier for companies, despite an increase in AI adoption and development. To address its skills gaps issues, DHL has started a new hiring initiative which includes a new social recruiting site. The company has already seen some positive results; DHL has received around 445 job applications a day and managed to reduce the time spent on administrative by around 32,000 hours this year.
The innovative new hiring and retention program will leverage increased process automation for hourly workers, establish a network of regional recruiting centers and ultimately provide more scheduling flexibility for hourly workers. Nowadays, job candidates expect a highly convenient hiring process and an experience equal to that of a customer at the hiring company. The program speeds up the time-to-hire and should help DHL meet such expectations. As put by DHL’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Tim Sprosty, to attain and retain the talent required to meet customer’s needs, DHL needs to “apply the same level of operational excellence” to hiring and retention processes as it does in developing supply chain solutions.
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Cross-channel freight trade could decline by as much as 87% under no-deal Brexit
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to avoid news about the potential complications for the supply chain industry if Britain should fail to reach a Brexit agreement. Some companies are relocating, downsizing or stockpiling due to Brexit uncertainty, and ports and border authorities are readying themselves for delays and long lines of waiting trucks.
A Border Force document obtained by Sky News estimates that cross-channel freight trade could decline by anything between 75 to 87 percent for six months in the event of a no-deal Brexit. An area that raises particular concern is the traffic from Dover-Calais and in the Channel Tunnel due to matters which are outside of the UK government’s control, such as the imposition of the “third country” checks on UK trade by EU countries, most notably France. The document states that France “will apply at least the legal minimum of third country customs controls on all goods and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks on specified food and agricultural products. This includes the imposition of 100% customs documents checks.” It is also suggested that Agrifood exports would have to be rerouted away from Calais and the Channel Tunnel to ports with an existing Border Inspection Post, such as Zeebrugge or Rotterdam.
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