A cloud-based cure for Santa's supply chain problem?

Tongue-in-cheek holiday blog post suggests cloud-based procurement system might keep toy deliveries on track.

By DC Velocity Staff

Once December rolls around, we receive quite a number of holiday-themed press releases and suggestions for articles, all of them fun and interesting. But the award for cleverest goes to Melissa London of the e-procurement software provider SciQuest, who wrote "What if Santa Had a Supply Chain Problem?" on the company's "Kitchen Sink" blog and news site.

"Any way you look at it, Santa Claus faces the most daunting supply chain and logistics challenge in the world—and as the single-source supplier of all things Santa, he cannot fail," the story begins. London then goes on to point out that Santa relies on an almost infinite number of toy suppliers, his customers are widely dispersed, and his central warehouse location is "the very definition of remote."

What could go wrong? Well, if the old server farm out by the reindeer stable crashed, it would take a while for repair technicians to mush their way to the North Pole. And if Santa's suppliers had to pay huge numbers of supplier transaction fees, they'd probably run the other way, and then what would the Procurement Elves do? The solution, not surprisingly, is for Santa to use a cloud-based e-procurement system with no transaction fees—hmmm ... kind of like the one SciQuest produces.

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you're not already logged in, you will be asked to log in or register.

Comments powered by Disqus

Feedback: What did you think of this article? We'd like to hear from you. DC VELOCITY is committed to accuracy and clarity in the delivery of important and useful logistics and supply chain news and information. If you find anything in DC VELOCITY you feel is inaccurate or warrants further explanation, please ?Subject=Feedback - : A cloud-based cure for Santa's supply chain problem?">contact Editorial Director Peter Bradley. All comments are eligible for publication in the letters section of DC VELOCITY magazine. Please include you name and the name of the company or organization your work for.