• VMI-Group winner of the Benelux Roundtable Challenge

  • On a wintery Saturday morning in January five teams entered the Flexibility headquarters in Breda to participate in the first edition of the Benelux Roundtable Global Challenge. As part of the Roundtable Challenge, local events have been organized across the globe to decide which team will represent the roundtable in the global rounds. I was present at the launch of the Roundtable Global Challenge in San Diego last year, and was excited to see it coming to reality with so many professionals traveling from all over Benelux to join our CSCMP event.

  • After a very warm welcome with coffee and cake, Jeroen Bolt, President of the Benelux roundtable, gave an update on the CSCMP Benelux developments. Danielle van den Berk, Label Manager at Flexibility followed suit by introducing us to Flexibility. Jochum Reuter kicked of the Challenge by guiding the participants through the complex set up of the Inchainge business simulation. The teams split up to play their first round to warm up. 

  • Two teams of VMI Group, one team of Supply Chain Students of the Erasmus University, a team of Amazon in Luxemburg and a group of interim professionals from the Netherlands set of on their journey to save the Fresh Connection company. After the first round all teams gathered for a lunch and feedback on the first results, but not for long as everyone was eager to move on! Another two rounds were played where some made mistakes which resulted in devastating ROIs for their company, and others went steady upwards to a positive ROI. 

  • Besides the high performance of the competing teams, I was happy to see the high level of learning and interaction in and between teams. Students learning from seasoned professionals and vice versa, many nationalities and backgrounds exchanging ideas and having fun. For me, this is what CSCMP is all about; diverse, inclusive and global and most of all a great environment to learn and grow as a professional. By the end of the day and three rounds, one of the VMI teams won the Roundtable battle by scoring the highest positive ROI. A big congratulations to the VMI team! 

  • They will now move on to represent the Benelux in the Global Challenge. Three rounds will be played in this stage of the Challenge, all global teams will play online commencing February 1st. The top three teams will play the finals during the Leadership Summit in Long Beach June 17th. The overall winner will receive an invitation to the Annual Conference, all expenses paid, in Orlando September 25th.

    We want to thank Flexibility for hosting and sponsoring Benelux Roundtable Challenge and the teams for joining us. It is good to see how quick connections between supply chain professionals establish and develop during a day. We all are looking forward to the performance of our Benelux team in the worldwide contest!

    By Freek Brilleman. Freek is Secretary of the CSCMP Benelux Roundtable and Managing Director of Bescope