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My kitchen table is piled high with interviews for the upcoming book, Metrics That Matter. Writing a book is a labor of love. It is my second book. To give readers a sneak peek for the book, here I share my interview with Peter. Peter is one of sixty-five companies that I have interviewed for the book. I am behind.
” Followed by “How are you organized, and what defines functional excellence? And, how do you tie functional excellence to corporate value?” Companies became less clear on the definition of supply chain excellence and how to implement decision support technologies. This gap grew over the last decade.
The solution solved a relevant industry issue. In the height of the e-commerce craze, the marketplace offerings started with a focus on e-procurement. The widely-held view was that the e-procurement market would fuel the next generation of marketplace applications. Transora had a short history. Clear governance.
The Failure of Existing Demand Planning Solutions. During the pandemic, supply chain leaders turned off their demand planning solutions. Also, the solutions lacked flexibility. No company interviewed was able to successfully use their current what-if solutions to model pandemic impacts. Lessons Learned. The reason?
I also shared with them my view that companies will ultimately find opportunities for supply chain innovation at the intersection of Software, B2B Connectivity, and Social Networking — a trend best illustrated by the rise of Supply Chain Operating Networks (SCONs). How are companies using SCONs in the real world?
Here are the three questions that I would like people to ask: Table 1: Comparison of Results for Best of Breed Solution Providers to ERP Expansionists in Supply Chain Planning. The first evolution of technologies were built by best-of-breed solution vendors. This new solution was favored by the Information Technology (IT) organization.
In follow-up qualitative interviews, one of the largest issues with organizational alignment was metric definition and a clear definition of supply chain excellence. To manage continuous improvement, companies need a clear definition of excellence and organizational alignment to that goal. They do not excel in planning or forecasting.
Within this setup, an ERP procurement module helps companies make purchases and manage suppliers. Numbers speak louder: According to Procurement Tactics’ top procurement trends in 2025 , 83% of CPOs prioritize digitization. Keep reading to learn: What Is ERP in Procurement?
If you are going to be excellent at ecommerce fulfillment, you need to have great perpetual inventory capabilities. Aggressively design and test products online and then bring the data into your forecasting tools to predict sales of new products by channel. The book is the end of three years of research and nine months of writing.
As an analyst in the supply chain market for 15 years, I have written many articles on best-of-breed technology companies purchased by a larger company. The initial software product release name was Real-Time Forecasting. E2open sells a cloud-based solution for network collaboration. History of Terra Technology.
Read about a venture capital studio that implemented procurementsoftware to manage purchases for 10 portfolio companies in addition to their own. Redbud Brands went from not knowing if a purchase order was approved to making every payment in time. “There was not a lot of structure,” Mr. Henson explained.
Streamline Your Route Planning Process Daily route planning can quickly become overwhelming, especially if you’re managing delivery routes using spreadsheets, manual methods, or basic mapping tools. Top 10 Route Planning SoftwareSolutions: Overview Here’s a quick comparison of the top route planning softwaresolutions in 2025.
When making discretionary purchases, I could look at my projection to make sure that if I made that purchase, I would have enough money in the bank, not only now, but at the end of the month when my mortgage and car loan came out. Then could I buy it? For me, this was game changing! What if I save my money this month?
Production schedulers and planners work every day to balance limited labor, materials, production time, and availability of machines and tools against forecasted demand, customer orders, and the backlog. They can do the following that directly help customers know when quoted orders will arrive and ensure orders are on time.
When I wrote the book Bricks Matter , I cavalierly penned a chapter on the evolution of supply chain thinking from cost to value. I found this out the hard way when Keith Harrison , contributor to the Forward of the book, asked me to define what I meant by ”value.” E2open last week announced the purchase of Serus.
As of January 1, 2022, it was taking a company an average of 73 days to deliver goods to truck or rail carriers after booking with an ocean carrier and completing the cross-ocean journey, according to E2open’s Ocean Shipping Index. Brand loyalty is no longer the driver for consumer purchasing decisions. HOW DID WE GET HERE?
In addition, poor visibility, unpredictable demand, and disjointed systems worsen the situation further and lead to inefficient procurement, misplaced stock, and emergency orders. Thats why a growing number of organizations are turning to AI software for spare parts inventory management.
Are you looking for logistics management books? In this article, we will show you 5 books that'll help you learn logistics faster than any other logistics book. Logistics Book Ranking Factors To provide the book recommendations, first, we collect the name of the books that appear on Amazon.com.
So, here is my invented future for 2015, starting with my most audacious prediction: Google will acquire a logistics service provider (3PL) and/or a logistics software vendor. And its technology assets too, like the Kiva robots Amazon purchased [in 2012] and the data centers that power its cloud computing services.
Reason #4 Making key decisions by modelling the supply chain in Excel. The typical example is as follows; A company uses complex software to model the supply chain considering a desired customer service level, lead time data, and statistical analysis of supply and demand variability. Reason #6 Not effectively managing inventory.
In parallel, PE/venture capitalists purchased/consolidated network solutions, slashing R&D and delaying investment, reducing industry capabilities. If you, like most, are running your supply chain based on ERP and Excel spreadsheet data, you are not prepared. Procurement was operating in isolation from supply chain.
The network senses, translates, and orchestrates market changes (buy and sell-side markets) bi-directionally with near-real time data to align sell, deliver, make and sourcing organizations outside-in. Thoma Bravo purchased Elemica in June 2016. The solutions evolved from different funding models.
Love it or hate it, daily necessities need to be purchased. Whichever reasons fuel the motivations of your target market, here are the top trends shaping how they’ll buy – and how you can stay front of mind and ahead of the competition. eCommerce Purchases and “The New Normal” Retail Categories. Data source: eMarketer.
We evaluate books related to customer service based on sales rank, reviews/endorsement by leading business leaders and show you the best customer service books. However, books will say that service is actually a lifeline of any business and it usually goes beyond customer satisfaction surveys. One of our readers asked.
Software maintenance costs are rising for the CIO. In parallel, the traditional software vendors are struggling with the Innovators Dilemma. They must evolve existing platforms to continue to fund their solutions; but at the same time, they realize that they are not serving the greater need of the market to reinvent the supply chain.
From my previous blog post , it’s clear that the road to achieving sales and operations planning (S&OP) excellence is not an easy one. But having the right solution to drive performance, beat the competition and maximize profits is a step in the right direction. The best part about having a solution that’s adaptable?
Peter Smith, Managing Director at ProcurementExcellence Ltd. If Procurement people, functions and organisations are going to be successful, it is obvious that we have to adapt to the changing wider business and social environments. Effectiveness covers what we might consider the traditional aspects of Procurement.
Supplier information is typically viewed by procurement organizations as one of two things. Procurement knows supplier information is useful and important, and that it needs to be cleansed and standardized after we collect it. Instead, it tells us about our own purchasing habits. When: Moving the Point of Data Collection.
Shippers also want the ability to deliver supply chain solutions that have fewer touchpoints to minimize product damage and maximize consumer satisfaction for their brands. In the world of large format items, such as furniture or appliances, deliveries are not as simple as your average two-day online book order.
As shown in Figure 1, users are more satisfied, the implementations are shorter and there is greater Return on Investment of solutions from Best-of-Breed solution providers—especially if the best-of-breed solution providers used are industry-specific. Consultants recommended the solutions by SAP and Oracle. The reason?
It includes free shipping of online purchases, free grocery deliveries to the home for orders of at least $35, prescription discounts and other benefits. XPO Logistics launched a Ship Net-Zero program, giving shippers the option to purchase carbon credits to offset emissions from shipments. Walmart+ costs $98 per year, or $12.95
How do they buy from you? How do they buy from you?” I find that in this world of the global multi-national that procurement processes have become convoluted and increasingly complex. (In In my opinion, we have made procurement increasingly complex without adding value. Why does it matter to you?
We’ve reviewed the most widely used and best-rated delivery route optimization software available today for route optimization, analyzing real-world use cases across industries to provide the best route service, while also analyzing previous routes, comparing feature depth, ease of use, and pricing transparency.
Executive, after executive, lament, “They have purchased many technologies and sponsored many projects to reduce inventories, but they are not seeing results.” There are too few people in the world who are really knowledgeable about inventory management softwaretools. However, let’s face facts.
At the event, James Rice, MIT, spoke on innovation, and his reflections on Clayton Christensen’s 1997 classic business book, the Innovators Dilemma. I, like many of you, read this book when it was published. Software planning was in the middle of a hype cycle. ” I thought. I wanted to catch-up. I was a skeptic.
According to Deloitte’s 2025 Global Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) survey , 41% of CPOs are actively renegotiating with existing vendors to deal with volume volatility and price hikes. Effective vendor collaboration isn’t built on iron-clad contract terms and purchase order s.
On the horizontal carrier integration front, Maersk has doubled down on its extension from ocean consolidation (Hamburg Sud, 2017) to air cargo, increasing Maersk Air by 33% with three leased cargo planes and two new Boeing purchases. Amazon has made a habit of excelling at logistics to retain end customers and third party sellers.
Today, 7% of order and purchase order flows move through business networks. Increasingly, companies are evaluating business network solutions to close the gap on inter-enterprise visibility, but as they work on the problem, they find that they need to somehow interconnect business networks. The gaps are large.
Amazon: The ecommerce giant Region(s): Global Ideal for: Sporting goods , books, consumer electronics, home appliances With over 300 million active users and billions of monthly visits, Amazon continues to prevail as one of the largest online marketplace in the world. The best 8 ecommerce marketplaces for selling online 1.
One of the barriers to greater progress in driving supply chain excellence is the current state of user satisfaction with current technologies. With the evolution of Software as a Service (SAAS) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) technologies there are now more options. Every supply chain organization is slightly different.
Therefore, a firm would be well served to develop a supply chain strategy as described in my book: Supply Chain Transformation. Research from APQC’s Open Standards Benchmarking in procurement shows that organizations without formal SRM programs report 121 percent longer supplier lead times.
Especially since many retailers have already purchased and shipped their goods ahead of the looming tariff changes. Getting the Right Tools for the Job. However, a technology solution that only provides visibility without a means to right the course isn’t enough to ensure reliability.
To drive global scale, companies need to design the supply chain to buy globally and execute locally. The company leverages globally sourcing strategies to buy products at a lower cost and then deploys some unique process logic to drive mass customization for retailers. Price to Tangible Book Value (PTBV). Is it elegant?
So, rather than get overly prescriptive, I’ll use this blog post to highlight some companies that have achieved success through excellence in inventory management , and outline some of the most effective elements of their strategies. Another takeaway is the importance of warehouse layout as an enabler for inventory management excellence.
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