NEW YORK (AP) — From his perch as American Eagle Outfitters' chief supply chain officer, Shekar Natarajan is taking a page from shared ride service Uber to modernize the supply chain for retailers.
Since Natarajan joined American Eagle almost four years ago, the teen retailer has acquired two supply chain businesses for several hundred million dollars, as Natarajan makes the supply platform shareable with other companies and thus more efficient and sustainable. They form the core of the company’s supply chain platform, which operates independently from the retailer.
Natarajan, whose resume includes stints at PepsiCo, Walmart and Target, believes that small companies can’t compete in logistics with the likes of Amazon and Walmart and should instead pool their resources together. The end game: a model that will take all the packages coming from different distribution centers and then funnel them to a consolidation center with one package delivered to the shopper.
Natarajan’s mission comes as the pandemic has upended the global supply chain, forcing retailers of all types to scramble to unclog goods from all points of the distribution network, while facing spiking transportation costs.