Senior supply chain analyst Bob Eastman was at the Epicor Customer Conference, Insights 2013, in Nashville last week.

Epicor invited Bob to share his insight into current technology trends in the supply chain space. Check out that conversation on YouTube.

In this almost 9-minute video, Bob talks about the acceleration of the business cycle and some of the enabling trends (such as cloud and mobility) that address the challenges the speed of business presents to the supply chain.

Bob also discusses the pursuit of supply chain excellence—how strategy and technology must go hand in hand—and identifies three key requirements for success today: visibility, sales and operations planning, and metrics.

Everyone waits, as we go to press, to see how domestic political forces will impact the U.S. business climate right from the 2013 get-go. If ever “waiting with bated breath” was a relevant turn of phrase, it is probably now.

While both the near-term U.S. fiscal policies and the ongoing debt crisis in Europe will strongly influence the outlook for 2013, the further removed we are from the depths of the 2008 recession, the more companies want, and need, to shift from defensive to more offensive market-focused supply chain strategies. Read the rest of this entry »

My recent exhaustive series of articles on sales & operations planning (S&OP) entitled “APICS 2009 From the Expo Floor: Is S&OP Coming of Age?” and the related blog post entitled “Linking S&OP and CPFR (For Retailers and Manufacturers Sake): An Executive Panel Discussion” have drawn solid interest and valuable feedback. But even more, this prolonged exposure on the S&OP topic has resulted with an offer from Kinaxis to join the guest interview series on the Kinaxis blog on the same topic.

Prior to my participation, Kinaxis had published nearly a dozen blog posts from a series of expert guests (i.e., “a who’s who in S&OP”) including Lora Cecere of Altimeter Group, Coco Crum of Oliver Wight, Tom Wallace of TF Wallace & Co., Simon Ellis of IDC, Nari Viswanathan of Aberdeen, Steve Puricelli of Accenture, Bob Ferrari of the Supply Chain Matters blog, and Atul Pandey of Infosys, to name only a few.  You can see all the posts here.  

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Part 1 of this blog series talked about my attendance of the APICS 2009 international conference in Toronto, Canada in early October. I attended few education sessions, as my conference visit focused more on exploring the expo floor and talking to the exhibitors.

My overwhelming impression from the conference’s expo floor was that its main value proposition this year revolved around the flavors of demand management, most notably Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP). Part 2 analyzed the traditional shortcomings and the reasons for the S&OP concept’s (and accompanying software solutions’) current renaissance in light of its existence of a few decades.

Part 3 then analyzed the key success factors of deploying S&OP solutions and approaches, while Part 4 analyzed the role of top management in deploying S&OP solutions, as well as the strategic nature of S&OP. Part 5 will conclude by analyzing the S&OP solution from JDA Software as another product that arguably deserves to be in the S&OP Top 5.

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Part 1 of this series talked about my attendance of the APICS 2009 international conference in Toronto (Canada) in early October. I attended only a few education sessions, and my conference visit focused more on exploring the expo floor and talking to the exhibitors. My overwhelming impression from the conference’s expo floor was that its main value proposition this year revolved around the various flavors of demand management, most notably Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP).

Part 2 analyzed the traditional shortcomings and the reasons for the S&OP concept’s (and accompanying software solutions’) current renaissance in light of its existence of a few decades. Part 3 then analyzed the key success factors of deploying S&OP solutions and approaches. Part 4 of this series will analyze the role of top management in deploying S&OP solutions, as well as the strategic nature of S&OP. 

Read the rest of this entry »

In spite of the 2009 recession, some SCM vendors were able to create traction in the supply chain space this year. From an industry landscape perspective, three events from 2009 will have a more far-reaching impact than any other in this space, primarily because they’re priming the conditions for still more vendor competition and industry volatility in the year to come. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series talked about my attendance of the APICS 2009 International Conference in Toronto, Canada in early October. I attended only a few education sessions, as my conference visit focused more on exploring the expo floor and talking to the exhibitors. My overwhelming impression from the conference’s expo floor was that the main value propositions this year revolved around the various flavors of demand management, most notably sales and operations planning (S&OP). This made me think about the reasons for the concept’s (and accompanying software solutions’) renaissance in light of its existence of a few decades.

While Part 2 zoomed on traditional S&OP shortcomings, Part 3 of this blog series will analyze the key success factors of deploying S&OP solutions and approaches. But before that, let me first go further into what has lately changed to enable the revival of customer interest in this practice.

Indeed, why is S&OP more popular these days, given that the concept has been around for decades? Is it the combination of the economy (i.e., business folks’ awareness and the “wake-up call” to get serious and on the same page in today’s increased demand volatility, global networks with supply risks and uncertainty, increased product proliferation and shrinking product life cycles, globalization-based virtualization, etc.) and some favorable technical developments (i.e., analytics, information visualization tools, etc.)? 

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog post series talked about my attendance at the APICS 2009 International Conference in Toronto (Canada) in early October. I attended only a few education sessions, as my visit focused more on exploring the expo floor and talking to the exhibitors.

My overwhelming impression from the conference’s expo floor was that the main value propositions this year revolved around the flavors of demand management, most notably sales and operations Planning (S&OP). This made me think about the reasons for the concept’s (and accompanying software solutions’) renaissance in light of its existence of a few decades.

Read the rest of this entry »

While my colleagues Khudsiya Quadri and Gabriel Georghiu diligently attended numerous conference sessions and reported their impressions of each convention day (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4), my much shorter attendance of the APICS 2009 International Conference in Toronto (Canada) in early October revolved mainly around exploring the expo floor and talking to the exhibitors. My overwhelming impression from the conference’s expo floor was that the main value propositions this year revolved around the flavors of demand management.

This was not too terribly surprising, given that the past two years have dispelled any doubts about the advantages of managing demand effectively. First, as an overture to the recession, companies and consumers were battered by a sharp rise in energy costs (especially crude oil), which resulted in sky-rocketing transportation costs and reduced margins.

Then, when the recession came in earnest, they were hit by the precipitous economic downturn, which resulted in an almost unprecedented drop-off in demand (and fuel prices). Many companies were “left holding the baby,” i.e., their hedge transportation contracts that once seemed to be a smart strategy of locking carrier price and capacity.

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Part I of this blog series outlined the first three suggested “winning strategies” by JDA Software Group Inc. that manufacturers (especially of consumer goods) could instantly deploy to drive up margins and protect shareholder value in the current economic climate (malaise). I also took the liberty of mapping, with the help of some current and former employees of JDA Software and former Manugistics (now part of JDA), the appropriate current JDA solutions to each suggested strategy.

The second and final part of this blog series continues with the remaining three pieces of advice, and with my analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of this blog series introduced the notion of long tails in modern supply chains. That blog post also introduced the vendor ToolsGroup and its solution for planning and optimizing finished goods in distribution environments.

So, How Does ToolsGroup Solve the Distribution Puzzle?

Most of the benefits are driven here by the distinctive Stock Mix Optimization capability that has delivered higher service levels with much less inventory for ToolsGroup customers. As its name suggests, the feature is used to define and manage the right mix at each location in the supply network to deliver the targeted customer service level. Read the rest of this entry »