Today was our last company site visit, but it was very engaging. We learned about GAP Vassilopoulos and what they do and what they have to offer. GAP offers services in the following sectors: shipping, insurance, transport and logistics, airlines, hospitality, international couriers, financial services, airport management, merchandising, and business solutions technology. They also have workforce solutions, a travel agency, and environmental services. Some cool things that I learned were that they used to work with FedEx, but they switched over to UPS and they are expanding their marketplace by creating an app that is like Doordash but for retail. They do rebranding for special promotions that brands might have and they also offer stocking/shelving services too. Last but not least, they support ecological water treatments for the waters around Cyprus and other polluted water areas.
Some supply chain concepts that really stuck out to me were not the traditional concepts that we learned about in our pre-departure lessons, but some of the advice that he gave us to look out for in the field. Dr. Vassilopoulos talked about how communication is key and essential for all of the parts of the supply chain to work. he also talked about how political stability and instability can affect a country’s supply chain and the supply chains of others near (mainly Greece and how it affected Cyprus). He also talked about how they manage between lean supply chains and agile ones. Dr. Vassilopoulos talked about how transparency and visibility are keep factors on getting consumers to see you are reliable and get loyal customers, he used an iceberg example to explain this. Basically, a ship will only see the tip of the iceberg but not the entire thing and thats why we should have visibility to avoid damages. Last but not least, he talked about the Efficient Consumer Response model that basically says that a better global scale communication would reduce waste created by over production and better logistics results in lower costs for consumers and less waste.