2020 Reading Guide
It’s time to open up that book you’ve been meaning to read. These titles will help you catch up on the latest deep dives into the world of logistics.
Bubble or Revolution?
The Present and Future of Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies
By Neel Mehta, Adi Agashe, and Parth Detroja
Are cryptocurrencies and blockchain operating inside a bubble, or are they revolutionary? Some say that these emerging technologies are innovative advancements while others are more skeptical. This book offers a balanced and comprehensive analysis of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, breaking down the concepts and using real-world case studies to analyze their strengths and weaknesses. Interviews with tech industry leaders provide first-hand insight into the future of these technologies.
The Logistics and Supply Chain Toolkit
Over 100 Tools for Transport, Warehousing, and Inventory Management
By Gwynne Richards and Susan Grinsted
This handbook provides practical methods for tackling the challenges that come with logistics and supply chain management. Individual toolkits outline solutions and plans for disciplines including warehousing, logistics, supply chain management, inventory, and outsourcing, providing readers with specific solutions for complex circumstances. The toolkit also includes performance management and problem-solving tools that provide higher-level guidelines.
The Future Is Smart
How Your Company Can Capitalize on the Internet of Things and Win in a Connected Economy
By W. David Stephenson
From smart watches that track real-time health data to responsive kitchen appliances, the Internet of Things is embedded in day-to-day life. Consumer products are just the beginning—leading companies are preparing to use data sensors to track management, strategy, manufacturing, and maintenance. This book explains how businesses are tapping into technology not only to optimize their supply chains, but also to boost safety, reduce waste, and make customers happy.
Billion-Dollar Brand Club
How Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, and Other Disrupters Are Remaking What We Buy
By Lawrence Ingrassia
Entrepreneurs find new and creative ways to tap into the products people use every day. Taking a ride on the New York City subway or simply listening to a commercial break during your favorite podcast will introduce you to a wave of new brands disrupting everything from eye wear to mattresses. Learn how startups, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists are taking on companies that have dominated the consumer economy for more than a century.
Blockchain: The Next Everything
By Stephen P. Williams
Exploring the systems predicted to change economics, global trade, science, politics, and art, this accessible guidebook explains how blockchain technology can radically transform the world. Using anecdotes, metaphors, and clear descriptions for readers who aren’t tech savvy, this introduction to blockchain explains its most important aspects: why it can’t be hacked, how it empowers ordinary citizens, and what its widespread use means for society.
Integrating Blockchain into Supply Chain Management
A Toolkit for Practical Implementation
By Remko van Hoek, Brian Fugate, Marat Davletshin, and Matthew A. Waller
Blockchain can provide real-time visibility and insight into the supply chain process. After learning what this emerging technology can bring to the table, it’s time to evaluate how it may work for you. This book provides step-by-step guidance for integrating blockchain into your supply chain. Tools, frameworks, and case studies—along with a benchmark survey showing current blockchain use in supply chain management—show readers how to take an informed, business-savvy approach to blockchain.
Essentials of Inventory Management
By Max Muller
Go beyond the organized stockroom and master the fundamentals of inventory management. These concrete steps can help you project your future business needs, minimize costs, and fix supply chain problems. Charts, review questions, and formulas help explain concepts such as tracking inventory costs, calculating gross profit, deciding when to eliminate dead stock, and choosing the best location for a distribution center, giving you the tools to achieve optimal efficiency.
The Future Is Faster than You Think
How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives
By Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Technological acceleration is rapidly changing the world. What will happen to the way humans govern nations, raise children, and care for the planet in the next decade? This book is a roadmap for how future waves of technology may reinvent day-to-day life as artificial intelligence, robotics, and virtual reality converge with 3D printing, blockchain, and global networks. It also explores how legacy industries, such as transportation, retail, health care, and entertainment, may transform in the process.
Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word
How Six Everyday Products Make the Case for Trade
By Fred P. Hochberg
Trade lowers prices and spurs variety and innovation, but understanding the entire global trade network is not so simple. This book uses six everyday products with surprisingly compelling backstories to explain how trade has shaped modern life: the taco salad, the Honda Odyssey, the banana, the iPhone, the college degree, and the HBO series Game of Thrones. Using colorful examples and digestible explanations, this entertaining read dispels common myths and provides a thorough understanding of the basics of trade.
Logistics Careers Plus More for Dummies
By Daniel Stanton
Using simple, practical language, this guide explains how to plan and manage a successful logistics career at any stage of professional development. Operations, logistics, and procurement are interconnected parts of a larger system, which offers diverse career opportunities. This book shows readers the entire range of skills required for professionals at every point of the supply chain, and how each of those roles affects colleagues, customers, and suppliers.
Winning Her Business
How to Transform the Customer Experience for the World’s Most Powerful Consumers
By Bridget Brennan
Retailers can beat the competition by appealing to today’s most powerful consumers: women. Women drive 70% to 80% of consumer purchases, but the usual sales practices aren’t reaching them. Based on more than a decade of research, this book offers invaluable insight into women as consumers, and explains how an inclusive customer experience can benefit everyone. Businesses can deliver transformational customer experiences that speak to women by focusing on interpersonal skills, value-added knowledge, and emotional-engagement techniques that generate sales, referrals, and repeat business.
Revolutionizing World Trade
How Disruptive Technologies Open Opportunities for All
By Kati Suominen
As global trade approaches a new era, businesses are more empowered than ever, thanks to technological developments in trade and global production. Emerging tools and possibilities within digitization and trade, however, are being stifled by policy changes and outdated regulatory frameworks. This book examines these conflicting players and envisions new policies that may help catalyze global growth and development.
Logistics and Retail Management
Emerging Issues and New Challenges in the Retail Supply Chain, Fifth Edition
By John Fernie and Leigh Sparks
Sound logistics and supply chains are key for successful retail management. Updated with new developments in the field, this book illustrates the progress of retail logistics and the challenges that remain. It covers topics such as internationalization, corporate social responsibility, and green logistics, and reviews examples of successful organizations. This new edition also provides information on the luxury fashion industry and the unique logistical challenges of e-commerce.
The Innovation Mandate
The Growth Secrets of the Best Organizations in the World
By Nicholas J. Webb
For companies of all sizes and stages, innovation can be the difference between success and failure in today’s competitive marketplace. Innovation helps companies introduce new products, better connect with their customers, hone their supply chain, and hire the right people. This book provides a step-by-step process for continually generating and implementing great ideas, and maximizing their value to benefit customers and investors. Use the five-point checklist to ensure your company is innovation-ready and learn how to achieve profitable innovation.
Lean Demand-Driven Procurement
How to Apply Lean Thinking to Your Supply Management Processes
By Paul Myerson
With a focus on improving processes rather than simply cutting material costs, this book helps readers identify supply-side waste, especially in the realm of procurement, using Lean principles. The author details basic supply chain concepts and processes in a digestible format, providing process-improvement tools, methodologies, best practices, examples, and case studies. Learn how identifying nontraditional sources of waste through improved processes and, occasionally, technology can benefit your entire supply chain.
Operations and Supply Chain Management
16th Edition
By F. Robert Jacobs and Richard B. Chase
Modern businesses must continually analyze and optimize their supply chain processes. This newly updated text covers current issues affecting the industry, with a focus on the global economy. Relevant analytical data, real-world problem-solving strategies, and hot topics help readers understand the bigger picture. From manufacturing and service processes to sales planning and the Internet of Things, this book provides a wide base of supply chain knowledge.