UNF Logistics and Supply Chain Certificate

The UNF Logistics and Supply Chain Certificate, starting March 9, is a comprehensive program designed for today’s logistics and supply chain professionals.

Our instructor led program is taught by highly regarded industry leaders with more than 60

combined years of hands on experience.

Students will learn to identify best practices in costing and pricing, how to reduce costs, apply strategies that will increase productivity, network with other industry professionals, make lifelong connections that may be utilized down your career path and much, much more.

With this certificate program, companies and individuals can assure themselves of being prepared to compete in the international marketplace.

Modules Include:

• Supply Chain Management
• Transportation Management
• International Transportation and Logistics
• Logistics and Supply Chain Management and Strategy

Upon the successful completion of the program, participants will earn their UNF Logistics and Supply Chain Certificate.

Innovate or Perish

By Len Ferman

Change is the one constant that we can always count on.  And as part of the process, you can either be a change-agent or you can be on the receiving end of that change.  For businesses, this often means the difference between life and death. Don’t believe me?  Run down to your local Blockbuster and grab a movie?  Go for a run on the beach and take your state-of-the-art Kodak camera. Once you find a way to do either of those things…give me a call on your Blackberry.

The truth is the struggle for survival in the business world is real. The average corporate lifespan of an S&P 500 company is only 18 years, that’s down from 61 a half-century ago. It’s hard to fathom that companies of such magnitude can come and go so quickly. The message is clear – companies must innovate in order to position themselves to continue winning customers in the future. The rapid pace of technological progress now impacting all markets is shortening the window for existing business models to operate profitably. Simply put, how you make money today, and your existing customer value propositions, will not work forever. They may not even work two years from now. Only the companies that are working now to develop their next business model in their industry will survive. While companies that focus all of their energy and resources on current business models, will eventually find their customers will have gone elsewhere. It generally happens quicker than they ever thought possible.

A great example of rapidly changing business models happened in the DVD rental market. Just a few short years ago, most consumers rented videos by driving to a local Blockbuster retail store.  Blockbuster was one of the great startup success stories in American history, growing from scratch in the mid-1980s and topping out at more than 9,000 retail stores in the last decade. Netflix, however, usurped Blockbuster by introducing a superior business model based on renting DVDs by mail. Blockbuster initially saw Netflix as a tiny startup with no potential to make a significant dent in their market share. As a result, Blockbuster chose not to invest in the mail rental business. Netflix continued to grow and refine the mail rental business in ways that Blockbuster never anticipated. When Blockbuster finally realized they needed to compete in the mail rental business, it was too late. Netflix had perfected that business model and was already working on the next generation business model – streaming video. Today, Blockbuster is gone by way of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Netflix has a market cap of more than $40 billion – or five times higher – than Blockbuster at their peak. Netflix is an unusual success story, not only did they dethrone an industry giant, they are one of the few large companies that have been nimble enough to migrate from one successful business model (DVDs by mail) to a completely different business model (streaming video). In doing so, they retained the dominant #1 market share. As a result, Netflix stands up as one of the greatest innovation success stories.

Companies that want to thrive - not just survive - must learn how to have the nimbleness of Netflix. They must learn to become great innovators. That means they must have the foresight to invest some of their resources today, to identifying and testing future business models. They must constantly monitor the market they serve, to understand changing customer needs and new industry best practices. Then generate ideas that satisfy those needs and go a step beyond those best practices. They need to shape those ideas into prototypes that can be tested with their customers. By doing so, they are constantly designing their future and forecasting the direction of the market. When they notice the market condition changing, they’re ready to seize the opportunity by launching their prototypes. Companies like Netflix are excellent examples of this today.

On November 1, Len will teach a one-day, class at UNF Continuing Education, Innovating for Your Company’s Future. This interactive class will feature a combination of classroom learning and hands on skill development.  The class is designed to provide mid and senior level managers and business leaders with the tool set and skills necessary to enable their companies to innovate and grow.

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About Len Ferman

As a teacher, speaker and consultant, Len Ferman helps organizations in the area of business innovation.

Ferman has 28 years of experience in innovation with some of the world’s largest companies.  Prior to founding Ferman Innovation, he led the front end of innovation and was head of ideation at Bank of America. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, including:

•  2012 World Future Trends Summit
•  2013 Market Research Event
•  2014 Customer Experience Leaders’ Summit -  keynote speaker
•  2015 Corporate Researcher’s Conference
•  2016 CSX Fusion Conference

Len holds two master's degrees from Duke University (M.B.A. in marketing and a master’s in economics). Len has also been an adjunct professor of marketing at the University of North Florida, where he developed a course on business innovation.

Advantages of Online Learning for Boosting Your Career

In today's competitive job market, knowledge and skills are ever-increasing importance, and education in a relevant field is the ideal way of boosting your value to employers. However, if your time is already filled with work and life commitments, making room for a traditional class isn't always practical. Online learning offers many benefits and advantages for busy people who want to add new qualifications to their resume.

Flexible Hours for Learning

 

The single greatest advantage of online learning is the ease with which it can be made to fit into your existing busy lifestyle. There's no need to rearrange your schedule to fit in classes or fixed appointments. With online learning, you receive your study materials along with a deadline to be met, and from then on, it's up to you to study at your convenience. This makes it ideal for people with jobs, children and other commitments that make it difficult to find time for more traditional courses set to formal hours.

Variety of Study Subjects

With night classes at a local college, your choice of courses is limited to what's on offer within reasonable traveling distance. This isn't the case with distance learning. Whatever topic you wish to study, chances are you'll be able to find it as an online or distance learning course somewhere in the country. You will often find it easier to choose the level of qualification you want, from an introductory certificate to a full degree because this format offers much more flexibility than traditional adult education classes.

Online Support, Networking and Resources

Online learning usually makes excellent use of the internet, with online communities of students available to offer each other support and help at any time of day, along with online tutor consultations, coursework submission and study material downloads. Naturally, all of these features can be a part of traditional learning as well, but the nature of distance learning means that these facilities are often the foundation of the course, and are given a high priority and offer high value.

Up-to-date qualifications and expertise are prized by employers, and can make all the difference in building a successful career. For the reasons discussed above (and more), online learning with a reputable institution is an ideal way for busy people to give their employment prospects a powerful boost, and experience the personal fulfillment that comes with increased knowledge and skills.

UNF Continuing Education is please to announce a new partnership with Career Step, a leading provider of high quality online career training. Programs include, Pharmacy Tech, Medical Coding, Medical Transcription, Computer Technician, Veterinarian Assistant and many more. Visit our online learning page or join us at our Online Career Training Information Session at 6 p.m. on May 5 to learn how you can train for an in-demand career in one year or less! RSVP today! 

About Career Step:

Career Step is an online provider of career-focused education and corporate training. The company has trained over 100,000 students for new careers, has more than 150 partnerships with colleges and universities nationwide, offers a variety of continuing education courses for healthcare professionals and has educated more than 8,000 health information professionals through its Corporate Training Division. Career Step provides training for several of the largest and most respected healthcare employers in the nation and is committed to helping students and practicing healthcare professionals alike gain the skills they need to be successful in the workplace—improving lives, advancing careers and bettering business results through education.

Taking the Next Step to Ensure Your Company’s Survival and Future Growth

By Len Ferman

The pace of change in the world is accelerating more rapidly than in any prior age.  Adoption rates for new technologies continue to speed up.  To reach 50% household penetration took 71 years for the telephone, 28 years for the radio, 18 years for color TVs and just 10 years for the internet.  The 21st century business environment demands that companies embrace change or risk becoming irrelevant.  Exceptional companies such as Kodak, Blockbuster and Atari were once the dominant players in their industries.  Now they are relics of the past; defunct companies whose overwhelming leadership position provided no protection as they failed to act on changing industry conditions.  And they are not anomalies.  The corporate lifespan of S&P 500 companies has dropped from 61 years in 1958 to just 18 in 20112.  If companies in the S&P 500 are struggling to endure, then small and medium sized companies need also beware that their present business methods have limited windows of sustainability.  As a result, all companies need to take the next step now to identify how changes in their customers’ needs and their competitive landscape will impact their business.  And then use that information to develop plans for how to survive and thrive in the future.

It’s easy to take the next step.  The old proverb “well begun is half done” (attributed to Aristotle), applies here.  Most businesses fall into the trap of spending all their time focusing on business as usual and no time on planning for the future.  This is a natural tendency since it’s business as usual operations that bring in the cash.  Whereas planning for the future generates no revenue today and new initiatives have uncertain returns.  However, to ensure the long term health of the company there must be a balance.  Think of future planning as exercise for your business.  And once you start a regular program, you are well on your way to increasing your company’s lifespan. This is why I advocate a program of continuous customer innovation.

Continuous customer innovation involves creating the discipline in the company to perform three fundamental practices in a repetitive permanent cycle:

1) Explore changing customer needs, problems and market conditions
2) Generate solutions to those needs, problems and conditions
3) Evaluate and select the best ideas to implement.

Companies that adopt this continuous customer innovation process can help ensure they stay relevant to their existing customers and be attractive to new customers over the long term.
Adopting a continuous customer innovation process requires a commitment from the leadership of the company.  Leadership commitment includes both the adequate funding of the process as well as the acceptance of the process results.  This does not mean that every idea recommended should be implemented, but rather that leadership must at least consider, debate and evaluate the top ideas from each cycle.

Free Information Session
All companies should adopt a continuous customer innovation process.  But what are the specific steps to take?  How can you innovate to make your company more like Google, Apple and 3M and less like Kodak, Blockbuster and Atari?  The UNF Division of Continuing Education can help.  This spring a new course will be offered on the topic of business innovation.  The course will provide both classroom learning as well as hands on skill development in how to innovate for your company’s future.  For more information sign up for a free information session on March 25th.  

About the author:
Len Ferman is an adjunct professor of marketing at the University of North Florida teaching business innovation.  He is also Managing Director of Ferman Innovation, an innovation consulting firm.  Len holds a Masters in Economics and a MBA from Duke University.  He also has 25 years of experience managing innovation at Fortune 100 companies.  Until 2013, he was the head of ideation at Bank of America.  Len is also a frequent speaker at major business conferences on the topic of innovation and is a professional member of the National Speakers Association. For more information contact Len Ferman at Len.Ferman@unf.edu.

1 – Census bureau, Consumer Electronics Association, National Cable and Telecommunications Association
2 - http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/13/idUS206536+13-Feb-2012+BW20120213