Swiftly and sustainably

From factories to foreign ports, warehouses to customers’ homes

Our client came to us with a new commercial strategy: move closer to the customer by delivering goods, produced in Asia and sent to customers via Europe and Singapore, in 1–2 days. Reducing the CO2 footprint was also a priority. What would a more sustainable supply chain look like?

We designed a global footprint with new distribution centres and externally managed regional warehouse services. We created a global business and benefits case and reorganized IT operations. We worked with strategy teams in Austria and Germany. In Switzerland we set up advisory, supply chain, and tax and customs teams, and then replicated these teams at PwC in the regions. Collaboration between consulting and tax and customs was excellent. There was a great mix of specialists and generalists on the client side. We worked with them as a fully integrated team.

This was an effective community of solvers: taking tough decisions, testing user acceptance, pushing logistics providers to commit, and putting rulings into place to make sure the new system would work. We identified ten challenges at a time and solved them, one by one, until the entire implementation plan was accomplished.

Building a total supply chain network solution was a massive exercise. Now shipping is faster, transportation routes are reduced, customers receive goods within days, and CO2 emissions have decreased substantially: swift and sustainable outcomes.