By Rodney Manzo, Senior Director of Sage Supply Chain Intelligence
Every holiday season, retailers brace themselves for unpredictable demand, tighter margins,
and rising customer expectations. Much of the conversation centres on last-mile fulfillment —
will products get to customers quickly and affordably? But some of the biggest risks to peak performance are hiding much earlier in the supply chain.
The reality is that inefficiency in the first mile, where purchase orders are created, supplier
updates are managed, and production schedules are tracked, quietly erodes a retailer’s most
valuable resource: time.
And when operations teams lose time, they lose margin.
Quantifying the Cost of Inefficient Workflows
The average supply chain team spends about a third of its time on repetitive manual tasks: reconciling spreadsheets, chasing supplier emails, double-checking data across systems.
These tasks may feel like the cost of doing business, but their cumulative effect is staggering. Across a typical week, they add up to multiple lost workdays — and during peak season, those hours translate directly into slower replenishment cycles, higher freight costs, and less bandwidth to manage inevitable exceptions.
This is the “human cost” of inefficiency. Teams burn energy on administrative work instead of strategy. Skilled professionals spend hours copying and pasting data when they could be negotiating with suppliers, modeling costs, or planning promotions.
Over time, the grind leads to burnout and turnover — hidden costs that rarely show up in a spreadsheet but have a real impact on a company’s ability to deliver during the holidays.
Patterns That Keep Teams Stuck
Three common patterns emerge across retail and consumer brands that still rely heavily on
manual process:
● Fragmented visibility. Critical information is scattered across spreadsheets, inboxes,
and siloed systems. Teams spend more time collecting data than using it.
● Reactive firefighting. Delays or changes aren’t discovered until they’ve already
cascaded into late deliveries or stockouts. By the time action is taken, options are
limited.
- Hidden labor costs. Highly skilled operations staff are bogged down in low-value work,
making it harder to retain talent in a competitive market.
These patterns aren’t just inconveniences; they’re vulnerabilities. During the holiday crunch,
there can be the difference between record profits and costly stockouts.
How Leading Brands Reclaim Lost Time
The good news: leading brands are proving it’s possible to reclaim time and protect margins
without adding headcount. Rather than throwing more people at the problem, they’re rethinking
how the work gets done by:
- Automating routine updates. Instead of waiting on suppliers to send status updates by
email, high-performing teams rely on automated milestone tracking and real-time
dashboards. Information that used to take hours (or days) to chase down is now instantly
available. - Integrating data sources. By connecting procurement, logistics, and finance into a
single source of truth, brands eliminate silos and reduce the risk of error. Teams can
forecast more accurately, plan replenishment, and model the cost of decisions with
confidence. - Investing in proactive visibility. Rather than waiting for problems to surface, forward-
looking teams set up alerts and run “what-if” scenarios in advance. Whether it’s a
supplier delay or a surge in demand, they already know their Plan B (and Plan C).
By reducing manual friction, operations teams free up hundreds of hours per year that can be
reinvested in growth-oriented work: strengthening supplier partnerships, negotiating better rates,
or planning for new product launches.
Readying Operations for the Holiday Crunch
With holiday demand looming, the stakes are higher than ever. A brand that still relies on
spreadsheets risks overburdening its team and leaving margin on the table. Manual work is a
silent margin killer: every extra hour spent chasing updates is time not spent serving customers.
By contrast, brands that have built first-mile efficiency into their playbooks enter peak season
with a decisive advantage. They have more capacity to respond to fluctuations in demand,
fewer last-minute freight bills, and less risk of burnout among their operations staff.
Holiday readiness doesn’t start with the warehouse or the delivery van. It starts with the
everyday workflows that shape how quickly and accurately products move through the supply
chain.
Time as the Ultimate Competitive Advantage
At its core, supply chain management is about time — how quickly you can spot issues, adjust
plans, and deliver on customer expectations. Technology can’t eliminate volatility, but it can give
teams the foresight and speed to manage it.
This holiday season, the best gift a brand can give itself isn’t just lower shipping rates or
smoother last-mile delivery. It’s time. Time for operations teams to focus on customers, protect
margins, and make strategic decisions that drive growth.
When retailers stop burning workdays on inefficiency, they gain something far more valuable
than hours on the clock: the confidence to deliver, no matter how unpredictable the season
ahead is.
Rodney Manzo is the Senior Director of Sage Supply Chain Intelligence (formerly Anvyl), which
transforms how SMBs manage supply chain execution by bridging real-time visibility and control
to the first mile of the supply chain.
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