Posted On June 22, 2017
What did it take to be an excellent baseball player 100 years ago?
In 1917, there were 16 major league baseball teams, which meant there were a little more than half the number of teams there are today. So, with fewer teams, there were fewer spots available. However, the St. Louis Browns and the St. Louis Cardinals were the westernmost major league clubs, and scouts really didn’t do a lot of looking for players west of the Mississippi—to say nothing of the Dominican Republic, Japan, Cuba, Mexico, and all the other places clubs find players in 2017.
Additionally, in 1917, major league baseball was segregated, which meant players weren’t always competing against the best professionals in the sport. Players also weren’t expected to be in peak physical shape or stay on a strict diet. In fact, they weren’t even expected to refrain from smoking or drinking in the clubhouse. Just compare pictures of Babe Ruth and the Washington Nationals’ Bryce Harper, and you can see the difference in what it meant to be in excellent athletic shape in 1917 and now. Professional baseball isn’t the only place you can look to if you want to see how the definition of excellence changes with time.
For example, what did it take to dominate the automotive market in 1917? It took manufacturing the Ford Model T—a car that defined excellence in its era, but is a far cry from the powerful supercomputer-on-wheels vehicles of today. It also doesn’t take 100 years for the definition of excellence to change. The iPhone debuted ten years ago this year. It’s hard to remember now how impossibly futuristic that device was, but what once seemed like a device only Batman would own now seems small, dated, and almost archaic.
The increased pace of change is why excellence can’t be a one-time event. Excellence must be a culture, and the foundation of that culture has to be continuous improvement. When it comes to the need for continuous improvement, supply chains, logistics, and transportation management are no different than baseball or smartphones. That’s why establishing operational excellence within your company means continuously improving your supply chain management. At Flat World Holdings, we believe in a culture of excellence built on a foundation of continuous improvement. We know how fast global supply chains change, and how your shipping department needs tools that allow you to compare rates, keep track of goods throughout the entire lifecycle of a shipment, increase visibility and efficiency, and above all make your supply chain a competitive advantage, rather than a liability.
Prologue Technology, a Flat World Company, has developed a suite of transportation management systems that integrate with your existing ERP. Prologue can deliver a transportation management system that serves you as your supply chain evolves, and helps you remain competitive—even as times change. The suite of supply chain tools that allow you to remain competitive will not be the same 10 years from now. That’s why we’re working on continuously improving our products and services, so you can continuously improve yours.
