The scoreboard, honestly: the hard targets, how often each one is actually looked at,
and the quiet human signals that never make it onto a dashboard.
Total Landed Cost Reduction
This is about bringing down the overall cost of getting a product from our factory to the customer's door, including freight, duties, and all the bits in between, as a percentage of the product's cost.
Target · Achieve a 3-5% year-over-year reduction in total landed cost as a percentage of COGS for your managed regions.If a product costs £100 to make, and it costs £15 to get it to market, you're aiming to get that £15 down to £14.25-£14.50 next year, without cutting corners on service.
On-Time-In-Full (OTIF) Delivery
How often our shipments arrive at the right place, at the right time, with all the correct items, and no damage. This is crucial for customer satisfaction.
Target · Maintain >98% OTIF for all international shipments under your remit.Out of 100 international orders, 98 or more should arrive exactly as promised, every single month. If a container is late or missing a pallet, that counts against you.
Distribution Budget Adherence
Staying within the allocated budget for all international freight, warehousing, customs, and associated operational costs.
Target · Operate within ±2% of the agreed annual distribution budget.If your annual budget is £2M, you'll need to keep actual spend between £1.96M and £2.04M. Anything over, you'll need a very good explanation and a recovery plan.
Customs Compliance Incident Rate
The number of times a shipment gets held up, fined, or rejected by customs due to errors in documentation, classification, or process.
Target · Maintain a zero-tolerance policy for critical compliance errors; keep minor errors below 0.5% of total shipments.You'll want to see no major fines or seizures. For every 1,000 shipments, you should have no more than 5 minor documentation issues that cause a slight delay, and absolutely no serious ones.
Carrier Performance Scorecard
Tracking how well our chosen carriers perform against agreed service levels, looking at things like on-time pickup, delivery speed, damage rates, and invoice accuracy.
Target · Achieve an average carrier performance score of 4.5/5 stars (or similar internal rating) across your top 5 strategic carriers.You'll review your carriers' performance every quarter. If one drops below 4 stars, you'll need to have a plan to either improve their service or find an alternative.
Team Development & Retention
How well you're building, mentoring, and retaining your team of distribution specialists and planners. This includes their growth and overall team morale.
- Your team members are progressing in their careers, taking on more responsibility, and feel supported. We'll see this in low voluntary turnover, positive feedback in 1-to-1s, and their ability to handle increasingly complex tasks independently. You'll also be seen as a fair and effective leader.
Strategic Partnership Management
The quality of your relationships with key external partners like 3PLs and customs brokers. Are they truly partners, or just vendors?
- Partners are proactively bringing you ideas for improvement, offering preferential rates when possible, and genuinely working with you to solve problems. You're getting good service, and they respect you. This shows up in successful QBRs and positive feedback from them.
Cross-functional Collaboration
How effectively you work with other internal departments (Sales, Finance, Product) to solve problems and drive business outcomes.
- You're regularly consulted on new product launches or market entries. Sales and Finance trust your advice on shipping costs and timelines. There are fewer 'surprises' for other teams because you've kept them in the loop. People actually *want* to work with your team, which is always a good sign.
Process Optimisation & Innovation
Your ability to identify inefficiencies in our distribution processes and implement improvements that save time, money, or reduce risk.
- You're not just maintaining the status quo
- you're actively looking for better ways to do things. This could be streamlining a customs clearance process, automating a report, or finding a new way to route freight. We'll see documented process changes and measurable benefits.
Risk Mitigation & Contingency Planning
How well you anticipate potential disruptions (e.g., port strikes, geopolitical issues) and have plans in place to deal with them.
- When a crisis hits, you're not scrambling. You've got a plan B (and maybe C) ready to go. You can articulate the major risks to our supply chain and what we're doing to reduce them. This means fewer last-minute emergencies and less financial exposure.
