Building a strong membership program can be equated to the quote, “Without a solid foundation, you’ll have trouble creating anything with value.” In 2016, the FMI Membership department continued to build a robust and valuable membership program by focusing on new member recruitment, as well as building breadth and depth with existing members. We worked to developed new programs, roles, and communication strategies to meet the needs of our expanding membership base. This year FMI welcomed 21 new retail and wholesale members and 93 new associate members. We’re grateful for the support and engagement of the FMI Officers and Board members who assisted in FMI’s successful recruiting process.

Effective and efficient supply chains are a source of sustainable competitive advantage for retailers and wholesalers alike. The ability to optimize and transform supply chain capabilities requires collaboration with trading partners both on the physical movement of product and the information that enables smart supply chain forecasting and decision making. In 2016, the Trading Partner Alliance Supply Chain Committee established and prioritized its collaborative supply chain transformation efforts across four key areas.

Just as a prism takes a single ray of light and splinters it into its constituent spectral colors, to help make as much sense as we can of 2016, FMI is going to approach its end of year reporting by breaking the year into some dozen different spectrums of activity. Over the course of the next few days, we will publish a blog series featuring end of year summations presented from the perspective of FMI's different departments and covering the following topic areas

It is safe to say that most people will remember 2016 for tweet policy, hacked emails and then its surprising election results at the federal level, but we wanted to fill you in on what we did on your behalf this year.