During Christmas time slows down for many businesses. People go on holiday or spend time with their families at home. Offices are closed, warehouses have limited opening slots and cargo shipments go less frequent . Now it’s time to take action when it comes down to getting your products on stock before the Christmas holidays.

What about international holiday periods?

If you find out that almost two weeks are eaten out of your project planning due to Christmas, you need to take action now. But also check your planning with regard to Chinese new Year when you’re dealing with suppliers in the Far East.

7 tips to get your products on stock before the Christmas holidays

Here are 7 strategies you can implement right now to ensure your products are available for your customers.

1. Change sea shipments (partly) into air shipments to gain time. You’ll prevent losing precious time waiting for finished goods to arrive at your desk or warehouse.
2. Meet more frequently with your project team and external parties in the last quarter of the year to make sure you can pro-actively manage your project and take corrective actions in time. Better to have short actionable meetings than being informed too late about issues.

Want to learn the benefits of having weekly Core Project team meetings with your team? Check out this blog article.

3. Know exactly when your core project team members, third party suppliers and agencies have their last working day before the Christmas holidays. This will differ a lot per organization and per person. And is very important to figure out because when there is an issue with your product or shipment, you can’t reach the responsible person anymore.
4. Note down exactly when your core project team members, third party suppliers and agencies will be back after the Christmas holidays. This will enable you to immediately contact them to take corrective actions if needed.

Give your project planning a good start

5. At the beginning of your project, build in a buffer around the Christmas holidays in your project planning. This will avoid stress and overwhelm for your project team members. It will also facilitate that the introduction date of your new product to your customers can be met.
6. Create a very detailed project planning, including all project deliverables, even the required shipment time of samples, review time needed to evaluate these samples by your team and stakeholders, time needed to update samples and ship them again. If you go into the nitty gritty in your project plan, you’ll be able to micro-manage and be more in control of your new product development.

Check out this blog article if you like to know more about creating a detailed project planning.

7. When you enter the fourth quarter of the year, define a Plan B together with your team. If the unforeseen happens, you have an action plan ready and can mitigate the risks.

Here you have it, 7 tips to get your products on stock before the Christmas holidays. You don’t have much time left to take action, so go for it!

Free Training How to Work Smarter not Harder in Getting from Idea to Product Launch.

Want to learn more on how to grow & develop 👩‍💻 products efficiently from idea to launch? Sign-up for my free training How to Work Smarter not from Idea to Launch by clicking here.