‘Delivering supply chain solutions’ was written on the side of the truck outside the office on Wednesday. What could be inside? Answer: It was a general delivery truck belonging to a carrier delivering all and sundry to all and sundry. Supply chain solutions indeed!
Solutions is a word which seems to get used a lot these days to obscure the real nature of a business.
One can understand why, if you’re in the gravel extraction business, you like to say you’re ‘in aggregates’, it sounds posher.
But if you’re in the chip business, delivering a complex ASIC or SOC, why do you have to call it a ‘solution’ when chip, ASIC or SOC will do perfectly well and each is more precise?
I came across an ad for a job agency yesterday saying they had jobs providing ‘end-to-end supply chain solutions to a portfolio of blue-chip clients’. I don’t suppose anyone reading it had a clue what they were on about.
Other over-worked words are ‘ecosystem’ (for partners/suppliers/customers),
‘paradigm shift’ (meaning 10% improvement), ‘step function advance’ (meaning 10% improvement), ground-breaking (meaning 10% improvement), and disruptive technology (meaning 10% improvement).
So a round of applause to the no-nonsense Welsh lorry driver spotted last weekend driving a lorry emblazoned with the stark, simple, slogan: ‘Skewen Slag’.
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