Changing long-term processes is never an easy thing to do but it’s especially challenging when you’re talking about how item labeling is done in Asia. Right now, for example, when the internet is down, workers take a “sneaker net” approach to getting purchase orders out: Someone plugs a USB drive into a computer, copies the information then walks down the hall and plugs it into another computer to remove the file and then brings it back to the packer, explains Chris Beukenkamp, managing director, Asia, for SPS Commerce. “We have the internet everywhere but you’re lucky if a factory has a single internet connection -- and that’s usually on a manager’s desk. It definitely won’t be on the factory floor where they’re doing packing and shipping.”

The only thing that’s a given when it comes to gas prices is that they are in a constant state of flux, supplies are unpredictable and therefore new models have to be considered. Companies can be proactive, though, when it comes to their supply chain strategies. It is critical to have a dynamic, rather than static supply chain strategy in a time of rising oil prices.

Supply chain “masters” are in the best position to turn rising fuel prices from an inhibitor to an opportunity for change, according to the Accenture report, Past the Tipping Point: Record oil prices require new supply chain strategies to enable future high performance. They masters understand the need to re-evaluate the various components of the supply chain.