The general membership meeting scheduled for June 21, 2012 was postponed by one week to June 28.
The two key items in the agenda were:
- Voting on the proposed amendments to the By-Laws
- Benchmarking on distribution cost and its components
In the second item, President Ike Castillo developed and explained a clever, yet simple, methodology for analyzing a company’s distribution network and estimating the distribution cost components as a % of sales revenue. Benchmarking can cover the structure of the distribution network and the overall distribution cost and its components.in terms oof transport, and warehousing.
Ike enjoined those present to join the exercise. Only those who would participate will be given a copy of the results.
Turning to the first item, the Board had over the last several months discussed various proposals and finished with a total of 13 proposed changes in the By-Laws. The body present at the GMM on June 28 voted on the 13 items one by one.
In short cut language, the 13 items are:
- Honorary members to have same rights and privileges as individual members
- New category of member – academe member, with same rights and privileges as individual members
- Restriction from membership for companies doing 100% transport business to be removed, provided the services offered are not monopolistic
- Company representative may now come from the company’s marketing, selling and business development functions
- Limit on number of logistics service providers to 20% of members to be removed
- Provisions on definitions of individual, honorary and academe members
- Admission to membership to require payment of fees first
- Application fee non-reimbursable in case of loss of membership
- Academe members to pay annual dues
- Annual dues also non-reimbursable in case of loss of membership
- Limit on number of directors coming from logistics service providers to be increased from two to three
- Restriction of an elected president’s term to two terms if consecutive, but no restriction if non-consecutive
- Electronic voting allowed on amendment of By-Laws
In talking about changes in SCMAP three columns ago, I said that major changes are forthcoming in SCMAP.
The result of the voting did not surprise me. All 13 amendments were approved by wide margins over the No votes.
The most significant amendments are:
- Removal of the restriction from membership of companies which are 100% into transport service business (Amendment 3)
- Removal of the restriction on logistics service providers to 20% of the membership (Amendment 5)
- Allowing the entry of academe members (Amendment 2)
- Restriction of an elected president’s term to two terms if consecutive, but no restriction if non-consecutive (Amendment 12)
The restriction on purely transport providers from joining had prevented membership of shipping lines since the beginning. This was obvious as DMAP was born from the opposition by DMAP founders to shipping lines petitions for rate increases. Under deregulation now, the fight over shipping rates has become less confrontational (recall the rate hearings at MARINA in the 1990s). The amendment will open the doors to shipping lones, truckers and air transport providers.
The 20% restriction on LSPs has caused a long waiting line of applicant LSPs. The restriction had been put there as a cautious move, an apprehension versus too many members focused on selling services rather than contributing to the development of SCM. But how can we justify excluding LSPs from the SCM industry? Thus, this change will have the biggest impact on the face of SCMAP
The entry of academe members may or may not have a significant impact, depending on the resulting interest of students and their perception of the membership fee and annual dues. The amounts are yet unspecified and will be set by the Board. If the amounts will be anything near the fees for individual members {P4,000), I expect a low response.
Address inquiries and comments to Ed Sanchez at tel. 671-8670, fax 671-4793, cell 0918-914-1689, or email scmap.org@gmail.com. Those interested in SCMAP training and other activities are requested to send their e-mail addresses. Visit SCMAP’s website at:www.scmap.org
