
Flexible force or not: consider these factors
6 May 2021March 2020, the Coronavirus has just reached Europe and many European countries are going into a severe lockdown. As people could no longer leave their homes, the online world became even bigger and more important than many companies once thought. This was also the case with Bakker.com, a company that originated as a mail order company in the greenery business within Europe and has since grown into a major player in e-commerce. Logistic Nomad helped scale up production and staffing during that hectic time.
Curious about this challenge and how Logistic Nomad handled it? Then read on!
Bakker.com
Bakker.com is a digital garden center where you can buy greenery. From plants, bulbs and seeds to pots and garden supplies. Before the COVID-19 crisis, they already operated 12-hour days, but since April 2020, this has increased to over 18 hours a day. This shift to nearly non-stop operations requires a significant amount of manpower for production, supply chain and management.
The assignment
The assignment focused primarily on managing around 50-90 production employees, with me (Peter, ed.) assigned as the evening shift team leader. The tasks were diverse and included process monitoring, workforce scheduling, administration and more technical duties such as resolving system issues in collaboration with the technical department. Since Bakker.com was running non-stop, the main goal was to replicate the daily process across the other shifts. The supply of plants, gardening supplies and packaging materials, as well as order processing and replenishment of internal inventory, were all already following the established standard procedures. These processes needed to be monitored and adhered to. It was a great challenge as external personnel were also required to support the scaling up. A new organisation with unknown processes and tasks always requires some adjustment. Yet, this is where the strength of Logistic Nomad lies – acting swiftly and making the most of the resources available.
A situation like this often offers opportunities, as external people bring new insights and fresh perspectives. The hired team of experts, of which I was a part of, was also given the opportunity to apply the knowledge they brought to existing matters. A number of things have been optimised and changed. For example, we also prepared a report with our findings and opinions on KAM (quality/Arbo and environment), the order of work, communication and information and the vision of the way of management.
The collaboration
The assignment was a success for both sides. It was a hectic but instructive 2.5-month period where I was able to contribute to help Bakker.com through the ‘Corona peak’. For Logistic Nomad, it was a learning assignment as it covered multiple areas within e-commerce; organisational, HRM and supply chain management. For Bakker.com, Logistic Nomad’s flexible deployability and experience in various disciplines was decisive. In any case, I look back with a sense of pride that we as a team have done a huge mountain of work in a short period of time!