Dan Coll and Ninaad Acharya welcome Mike Simpson, Vice President of E-Commerce at NFI, joined for this episode of the eCom Logistics Podcast. They discussed Mike's impressive career, which began with him serving in the Army and went on to include him becoming President of Retail and E-Commerce for Jenko, which was later acquired by FedEx and is now known as FedEx Supply Chain. Mike is now the executive sponsor for NFI Veterans Committee and is leading FedEx's expansion in the E-Commerce fulfillment space.

The three start off their conversation about the peak season, which had just ended. Mike shared his insights on the importance of automation and scalability in this new era of eCommerce, and why it's important to find the right balance between labor and technology. He also discussed the need to invest in people and facilities to ensure success in a market that is growing rapidly and becoming increasingly competitive. Learn more from Mike in this latest episode of the eCom Logistics Podcast.

ABOUT MIKE

Michael Simpson is the Vice President of eCommerce at NFI. He graduated from the University of Connecticut and was an Officer in the US Army stationed in Louisiana prior to moving to Texas to start his supply chain career. 

Has spent over 20 years in supply chain leadership roles, mostly in the Retail and eCommerce industry.  

Vast experience in eCommerce, forward, reverse, repair, inventory management, value-added services, quality control, customer service, team development, and many other areas to support growing businesses. 

Exec sponsor for Veterans committee at NFI.  Supports attracting veterans to NFI, and then supporting, retaining, and developing Veterans that join NFI, as well as supporting the local Veterans community. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• 03:02 Key takeaways from peak season
• 09:30 How the housing crisis will impact the industry in 2020
• 15:21 How to attract and retain employees
• 21:38 The biggest return for the company
• 26:56 The fundamental basis of automation is no longer efficiency
• 29:09 What is the progression of automation in retail
• 34:38 Understanding Scalability
• 44:31 NFI’s strategy for expanding into major markets

QUOTES

39:51 Deeper understanding of scalability’s definition - DAN: "Scalability isn't just I went from 100 orders a day to 5000 orders a day Scalability means I might have gotten into different sales channels. And maybe I was digital, native, and all direct to consumer. Now I'm heavily involved in marketplace and Amazon, I'm also doing some retail distribution and drop shipping."

43:46 Use niche tools to prevent supplier misses - MIKE: "What we've done is we've taken that time to really listen to the customer, the voice of the customer piece that you had mentioned, Dan, a big component of that was making sure we knew what the market wanted and needed, and how do we modify and enhance our offerings and NFI."

Find out more about Mike in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-simpson-mba/
• Website: https://www.nfiindustries.com/

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