Connecting the Dots

Calling All Dudes

2009-12-09T13:48:59-05:00

Tony needs a dude. Not just any dude will do, and he definitely does not want a czar. His needs are immediate. Interested? Meet Anthony van der Hoek. He works on the Wal-Mart account team at Coca-Cola, and is known to his friends as Tony. He has a problem. With the proliferation of downstream data, Tony needs cleaner data more frequently. He is looking for a data dude to help architect what is needed. While other companies might call the job description data czar, Tony is adverse in today's environment to knight anyone as a czar. Essentially, he needs someone...

Beyond Rows and Columns

2009-12-08T11:10:53-05:00

I am hopeful. I see a kinder, friendlier BI world evolving. In our research, the most strategic IT investment for 2010 is business intelligence (BI). These investments will drive the majority of the spending in 2010. As companies contemplate this spend, I would like for it to not be your standard, traditional BI thinking that does not serve the line-of-business buyer well. Today, there are four market realities driving projects: The demand for industry-driven and content-specific analytics is accelerating. The line-of-business buyer is involved more than ever in BI decisions. There is a trust gap between line-of-business users and IT,...

Make Mo More Money

2009-11-24T13:13:14-05:00

Meet Morris Owens. He has saved his company $20M through business process outsourcing (BPO). However, his ambitions don't stop there. He wants more money, and has devised a way to get it. Some history Coca-Cola Enterprises is the largest bottler in the Coca-Cola system. The company has tripled in size over the past 10 years. To support the growth, Mo set up a shared services organization in Tampa, FL for accounts receivable. In 2006, a new president asked Mo, "Are you world class?" After benchmarking AR operations, he sadly admitted that he was not. In fact, Mo found that he...

The Death of DRP

2009-11-17T13:05:22-05:00

DRP is dying. It is a slow painless death. It is just slipping away into oblivion. Born in 1973, Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) was the workhorse of inside-out processes that is now outdated for the demand-driven world. The home of DRP, the DRP table, just no longer has a fit in supply chain planning based on outside-in processes. Consider the changes: Forecast demand for each SKU is being replaced by demand sensing and shaping technologies. Current inventory level of the SKU target safety stock is being redefined by multi-tier inventory management pull-based processes. Recommended replenishment quantities are being replaced by...

Let It Snow!

2009-11-16T16:11:05-05:00

For most people, fall brings back-to-school rituals, falling leaves, and carving pumpkins. Not for me. During this time, I spend my days on the IT speaking conference circuit. Fall is the busiest period of the year for an industry analyst. As others bob for apples and dress for Halloween, I travel from conference to conference until Thanksgiving. I left my house in August and I will return next week. (Imagine how strange I looked clutching a heavy black winter coat as I got on a plane in 90-degree weather.) Tonight is a good time to reflect. A lot has changed....

Wanted: Experience

2009-11-12T09:02:43-05:00

My friend Jim Messner of Alticor needs a supply chain planner. He has been looking for 18 months. His efforts have been focused and diligent. He wants to put a planner to work in Michigan, and thinks that I can help him. My efforts have yielded no takers. Even in these days of record unemployment in the state of Michigan, no one has called. Last week, unemployment hit 10.2% in the United States. There are six people chasing every job. Anyone that has visited Michigan has felt the grip of the record level of unemployment on the local economy. There...

Brad Has A Dream

2009-10-30T14:15:29-04:00

Let me introduce you to Brad Blizzard, Senior Director of Logistics at Colgate. He went to the University of Tennessee on a baseball scholarship, and through serendipity landed in a career in logistics. I am glad that he did. He has a dream. For many, it is a curveball. I have seen Brad twice in the last three months (once in August at the Transplace round table and last week at the Ortec user conference). When I speak, it is great to have Brad in the audience. Why? There is nothing worse as speaker than to ask a question, and...

Is She Right?

2009-10-14T12:44:11-04:00

Last week, I had a fight with a lovely lady. It was downtown Montreal. The dinner was beautiful, and I was tempted to just nod my head and agree. However, I was feeling a bit cantankerous (too much travel). So, I took on the group and pushed an unpopular view. It started as a simple statement by Sylvie Leduc, Molson Coors at the end of the CAS Customer Advisory Board (CAB). The discussion started as a dialog. The topic was trade promotion management. The group was lamenting—over a beer—about the lack of industry definitions and standards. This gap drives project...

Shouldn't the Goal Be To Grow the Category?

2009-09-29T16:11:49-04:00

For me, the fall and spring are conference seasons. During these months, I attend a lot of conferences (about 30 a year). It is like my version of the Amazing Race: globe trotting across the world and making my husband grumpy that I am not home more. My favorite conference is the CGT Innovation conference held in Miami. I had the great fortune to attend it last week, and I had an even a greater fortune to hear the story of Wayne Delker, Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer, The Clorox Company. Wayne feels that consumer products companies need...

So Much for the Shovel

2009-09-28T11:52:38-04:00

Last October, as the recession was deepening and legislators were wrapping up the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, there was a call for shovel-ready projects to improve roads and highways. Naive folks, like me, crossed our fingers and hoped that the stimulus dollars would be channeled into much needed upgrades of transportation infrastructure. I hate sitting in traffic, and as a logistics professional I know that the degrading state of U.S. roadways is adding to supply variability and longer order lead times for shipments. This week, my hopes were crushed and my bubble was burst. While attending CSCMP...

Innovators Are on Their Own

2009-09-25T14:25:15-04:00

I was speaking, but there was no interest. They were more interested in their iPhones. I asked for questions and heard click, click, click. They were typing on their mobile devices. This week, I was speaking to Silicon Valley venture capitalists on supply chain management (SCM). Their interest in funding SCM applications is gone. The go-go days of SCM investments are over. The folks in this important valley think that current applications have solved the problem. The collective belief is that the goal of SCM is to minimize inventory, and that the opportunity is over. They are far more interested...

Tweet!

2009-09-25T08:44:59-04:00

This night, I got 121 new followers on Twitter. As I write this blog, they are still streaming across my inbox. People that I do not know from a wide range of backgrounds and interests. I was stumped. I knew that it could not be my endearing personality, my struggle to be good at social networking, or my wit. I was at a loss of what drew so many new followers to my site. Until, I connected the dots... Sage Circle, an analyst firm on analysts, compiled a list of 724 technology analysts with Twitter accounts. They then loaded it...

Best-In-Market Supply Chains

2009-09-22T11:50:45-04:00

It is not the same. Two years ago, 4,000 people rushed for seats. The aisles overflowed. There was energy in the audience. This year, it was a quieter and smaller audience largely dominated by technology providers. This week as the curtain rose on the stage of the 2009 Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) 2009 conference, it was missing the spark. Despite the brilliance in the opening keynote presentation by Gary Maxwell, SVP of Wal-Mart and several deep panel discussions on the changing face of logistics, the conference under-delivered on the first day. The council is still in transition....

The Recession Is Making Supply Chains Stronger

2009-09-21T09:52:48-04:00

We are not back to normal. While companies want to sweep away the impact of the recession—like I will hopefully sweep my driveway clean of leaves this weekend—it is just not that easy. The impact of the recession hangs heavy in the air driving indecision. As I visited with seven companies this week, two things that are clear: IT budgets are getting a haircut and companies are getting more serious on driving supply chain excellence. 2010 is not about buying new software. It is not about new projects. It is instead about maximizing the usage of current technologies and building...

Getting to YES!

2009-09-17T10:17:42-04:00

Mary is trying hard. She is implementing her third supply chain strategy. The first two failed. She has asked for help. When it comes to implementing supply chain strategy, most companies fail. They fall victim to two plagues: change management and lack of governance. The plagues start with a few people exhibiting small symptoms, and then quickly spin out of control pronouncing the strategy Dead on Arrival (DOA) before the first project milestone. Last week, I was speaking to Mary on implementing a supply chain strategy. We talked about why prior two failed. As I probed, I hit a nerve...

A Supply Chain We Admire

2009-09-14T08:32:57-04:00

Last Friday, I visited a North American regional retailer. The topic was supply chain excellence. During the course of the strategy day I shared information on the emerging requirements on food and safety legislation: the ability to track one step forward and one step backwards in four hours. They were unfamiliar with the provisions of House of Representatives Bill 2749. The group smiled and rubbed their hands. Then one of the more vocal members of the group said, "we think of this as a supply chain to admire. We will never be able to afford a supply chain with these...

The Curtain Rises—Meet the Recession Generation

2009-09-09T09:12:44-04:00

There is a new consumer in town. As the curtain rises on the last stage of the recession, there is new shopper in the aisle: the recession generation. Affordability has a new definition. It is all about perceived value. With this change there is good news and bad news for manufacturers. First, the good news. Nielsen is reporting that retail dollar sales grew by 7.4% year over year in August to $85.9 billion within food, drug, and mass-merchandisers (including Walmart). This reflects an increase of 0.7 points from the previous year. Edible categories saw the greatest uptick in both dollar...

It Has To Be About Usage

2009-09-03T12:36:16-04:00

Today, I got an e-mail from Steve Hochman, previously a peer of mine at AMR Research, and now in charge of supply chain programs at Nike. He gave me some feedback on my upcoming webinar on downstream data. Steve was reading the AMR Research Consumer Products bulletin, and checked out the text describing the webinar. His caution was that the focus of the webinar needs to be less about downstream data and more about how to use the data to drive value. And how to save $$. Steve is right, and I appreciate the coaching. So, in the spirit of...

Keep on Trucking

2009-08-31T13:23:12-04:00

The lazy hazy days of summer should not lull us to sleep. We are still in an unprecedented recession. In July, consumer sentiment took a step back for the second month in a row, with retail sales down 0.1% month to month and 8.3% year to year. Unemployment is over 9%. This will continue to be a bad hangover for the economy. With the slowdown in the economy and the soft demand for dry van services, many companies took advantage of this situation to re-bid lanes, resulting in an average savings of 15%. However, this window of opportunity is closing....

Do You Have the Right Stuff?

2009-08-27T10:13:18-04:00

Collaboration is an overused word. While many companies bandy the term about, true collaboration only happens with there is a win/win value proposition for both parties. It goes beyond data sharing. Being able to power true collaboration, requires the right ingredients. Recently, we caught up with Procter & Gamble, to discuss a presentation at a recent Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) conference. P&G has been a leader in collaboration for over 20 years. Like any consumer products company, they have had a lot of false starts. The key to P&G's success in getting it right was making sure that the right...

Time To Focus on the Three Rs?

2009-08-25T09:19:49-04:00

It is fall. Time for school. Ever since elementary school, we have focused on learning our three R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic. However, when it comes to trade promotion management we are not so buttoned down. An ugly truth is how few companies know their ROI on advertising and trade spend. In our research, only 24% attempt it. One of the reasons is the lack of a standard industry definition. While the impact of trade promotion tactic can be easily calculated—you run an event and calculate the impact of an event—advertising, brand-building, new product launch and competitive activities are not...

Let's Hear It For PetSmart!

2009-08-24T09:17:38-04:00

It was late at night. You knew immediately what had happened. Fluffy, our wonderful Boston Terrier, had met a skunk. Worse still, there had been a fight, and it was CLEAR. We knew that the skunk had won. Little known fact: Did you know that the more hair that a dog has that the tougher it is to get rid of the skunk odor? We were in luck. PetSmarthad an answer. The groomer at PetSmart shaved her from head to toe. We breathed a sigh of relief as the noxious smelling hair piled high into the trash can unveiling a...

Need to Save $100 Million Dollars?

2009-08-18T12:21:59-04:00

This week, as I traveled, I heard a familiar story. Five supply chain managers had been handed a goal to save $100 million dollars. Seems that $100 million dollars is the going rate that supply chain leaders need to save these days. As they scratched their heads and wrung their hands, I smiled. By now, I was seeing the pattern. The recession is making us all more cost conscious. Need money? The common place for companies to wring out money is the SUPPLY CHAIN BANK. However, all TOO many times, we see that companies are penny wise and pound foolish....

What is customer service?

2009-07-30T09:00:00-04:00

It is late. The sun is setting as the plane lifted-off the Detroit tarmac. It has been a VERY long day. I am tired. I am on deadline for articles; and wouldn’t you know it, I was front and center in a comedy play of errors. My flight held for 25 minutes as we waited for passengers to run from gates A3 to A76 in Detroit. (How come they never do this for me???) The table on my seat is broken. I am typing this blog at a 40 degree angle. The person in front of me has inclined his...

I Think Better With a Mechanical Pencil in My Hand....

2009-07-28T10:41:20-04:00

It is Sunday. It is my day to read a stack of my favorite newspapers, file my expense reports, and write my articles for the week. To get started, I always make a pot a coffee and reach for my favorite mechanical pencil. I don't know why. It just works better that way. I love the mechanical pencil. It was invented in 1822. The unassuming mechanical pencil is ninety-years old. These days, I like anything that is older than me. As a victim of another birthday last week, things that are older than me make me feel young. And, as...

Are We Fiddling While Rome Is Burning?

2009-07-27T09:18:05-04:00

Collaboration. A term SO frequently used in the industry. Yet, progress has moved so slowly. We have focused on collaborative initiatives for 20 years. If you are like me, we have given speeches, participated in pilots, bought new technologies, and written about it. For many years, it was the flag that was waved. Yet, today, for many of us 30 years later, we have fundamentally not changed out-of-stocks at the shelf, inventory levels in the channel, or the industry's time to respond to new products in the channel. Why? Recently, I led a webinar session on collaboration. In the session...

I love the ice cream cone

2009-07-22T12:01:17-04:00

What do ice cream cones, bottled water, and condoms have in common? Before you let your imagination run wild, it is a mundane topic—the redefinition of waste. Today, 70% of consumer products companies are trying to improve the customer experience and reduce packaging waste. We can no longer take the landfill for granted, and so much of the client experience is about packaging design. If only all products were like the ice cream cone, where there is a great client experience and there is nothing left to put in the landfill. Each summer, I spend time on community service teaching...

A Sticky Situation...

2009-07-20T10:13:22-04:00

The fingerprint results are negative. The shelves are empty. Forty-nine products are missing. It is believed that is known that he had contact with 72 persons in 30 states. The impact was severe: 34 hospitalizations. 300,000 cases were shipped to Danville, Virgina. What happened? Who is it? It is none other than E.Coli 0157:H7. Where did this bad actor come from? How did he travel? We still don't know. It remains a mystery. That is our story. It is a sticky situation. It should not be the way that the cookie crumbles. But, for Nestle, the recall of cookie dough...

You Can't Afford Not To Sweat the Small Stuff

2009-06-16T08:52:45-04:00

While companies often think of demand shaping as a large corporate program, many times it is the little things that shape demand. Consider a couple of examples: Health and Wellness: I was eating lunch at the Capital Grill last week in Washington. The menu had a calorie count beside each item. Believe it or not, a wedge salad and a piece of cake was more than the daily minimum calorie count for a marathon runner. Our table quickly modified our order. The Voice of the Customer: Mommy blogs and concept testing from blog sites are growing in importance. Did you...

Obituary 2010: The Food Industry

2009-06-15T17:25:00-04:00

As I sit and listen to the news about the need to fund healthcare reform, the role of health and wellness, and the new set of regulations on tobacco, I wonder if we are writing the obituary for the food industry. It would read like this… Today, we mourn the death of an old friend, packaged convenience food. Some say that he has been born again as a drug. For evidence to this fact, please contact the Federal Food and Drug Association (FDA). Born in the 19th century and having mastered and prospered from the skills of salting, curing, drying,...

The Square Root of Zero will be Zero

2009-06-15T17:22:50-04:00

I am not an economist. While I loved my macroeconomic theory courses, they, in many ways, resembled Goldilocks and the Three Bears for me: a story I loved listening to but that took the shape of fables in my brain. As we slipped into recession, many clients asked "When is the economy going to turn around?" I would laugh, and say, "Does this old gal look like an economist?" However, as clients keep asking me this question, I feel like I should know, so I have been devouring 2-3 books a week and avidly reading the Financial Times, The Wall...

Don't Forget There Needs To Be Value in Value Chains

2009-06-15T17:11:49-04:00

In 1989, as part of my graduation from the Wharton School of Business, I had the great opportunity to work on a school project in mainland China. It turned out to be a month before the events in Tiananmen Square. The project focused on the evolution of state-owned enterprise in the emerging economy of China. Before I had this opportunity, the concept of the state-owned enterprise was unknown to me. For a small-town West Virginia girl, it was eye-opening. I had never fathomed that business would ever exist to not make money. Democracy and capitalism have always had a tenuous...

The ABCs of Packaging Don't Add Up for Value

2009-05-22T12:33:47-04:00

In consumer products, the package becomes a statement of the brand. However, as companies have become bigger through mergers and acquisitions and global expansion, the approval of packaging and the management of artwork is a major issue. Consider the facts: A is for Approval It takes 22 weeks to approve a package. At least five people in the organization have to sign off on the design. B is for Barrier Artwork approval is the number one barrier to time to market. Technology can reduce the time for artwork approval by 30% and improve productivity by 5%, yet, only 35% of...

Today, I Won the Amazing Race

2009-05-22T12:30:26-04:00

Today, I won the amazing race. No, not the CBS prime time AMAZING RACE where contestants compete for $1 million dollars. Instead, I won the amazing race that each of us as business commuters face each day. I fought weather delays, mechanical issues, and customer service challenges to slip into a conference room seat on time after a 2,700 mile business trip with two weather delays and one mechanical issue. Yes, many of us run this amazing race each day. We fight the uphill battle of an airline system that was designed to improve efficiency based on a hub strategy....

Is Business Intelligence an Oxymoron?

2009-05-13T14:13:04-04:00

Today, I was fortunate to facilitate a panel at the Red Prairie, Red Shift Conference in San Antonio, TX. The focus of the panel was the Future of Technology. I was joined on the panel by Keith Martin, SVP and CIO for Associated Grocers. Keith's organization is the second largest co-op in the United States. I was struck his comments. Keith shared that the role of the CIO in thinking about business intelligence is how to liberate data for discovery. He then pressed on to share that conventional technologies drive pre-defined data relationships that limit discovery. The challenge for business...

Health and Wellness Meet the FDA

2009-05-13T08:33:46-04:00

It was a bad day today in Minneapolis. It came in the form of a: CERTIFIED MAIL RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED The letter was to Ken Powell, Chairman of the Board for General Mills from the FDA. The letter is direct and to the point (abstracts listed below): "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reviewed the label and labeling of your Cheerios® Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal. FDA's review found serious violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) and the applicable regulations in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR). You can find copies of...

Will You Be Ready?

2009-05-11T08:50:27-04:00

In consumer products, sustainability could change dramatically if a category leader moves to carbon footprint labeling. While most companies fear that governmental compliance will drive carbon footprint labeling in the United States, we think that it is more likely to come from a category leader driving differentiation through a "green marketing" program. Do you remember when the giant brewer began putting plain-English "born on dates" on bottles and cans of Budweiser in 1996? Ads for Bud touted the beer's freshness. It changed the category. Most companies struggled to redesign their value networks to follow suite. Today, most beer has a...

Another Night in a Hotel...

2009-05-08T15:21:47-04:00

I spend about 200 nights on the road. While travel may sound great to the unknowing, for the road warrior, it is a lonely, tiring experience. Even more so for me, because I seem to attract travel stories. I am a magnet for late planes, lost luggage, and weather delays. This causes me problems. This blog is a celebration of service by companies that have gone the extra mile to put me back on the road. Despite our movement to a service economy, too few companies deliver true service. Here is my story... Nordstrom: This retailer's name is synonymous with...

Cool Technologies for Food Traceability

2009-05-04T09:27:07-04:00

I loved David Mackay, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kellogg's demonstrated leadership before the U.S. House of Representatives on March 19. Kellogg was a victim of the recent recall of PCA peanut products. PCA Coporation, the now infamous manufacturer of peanut butter products, provided ingrediants that resulted in a $70 million dollar loss for Kellogg impacting the stock price .12/share. The company had relied on the industry standard of inspection by AIB; and unfortunately, found out that inspection is not adequate. For those of you that have not read it, it is worth a read. His recommendations of a...

Rolling Back the Clock

2009-05-04T08:42:49-04:00

This week was exciting for me. Three new analysts joined the core supply chain team at AMR Research. Steve Steutermann most recently from Procter Gamble, Paul Lord recently with Lyondell, and Allen Johnson previously with IDS Scheer. It is fun to see new analysts learn the tricks of the trade, but it also brings back memories. Being an industry analyst is a tough job. As the holder of the pen, when an analyst writes something positive about a technology provider, the vendor is very supportive. However, when the piece is negative, the technology provider unleashes their analyst relations team to...

Celebrating Earth Day

2009-04-29T13:40:30-04:00

I remember attending the first Earth Day twenty five years ago. Some things have changed—my waist size, my hair color, and my marital status—but, the situation at our landfills has not. Our supply chains are too efficient in delivering waste to landfills. There are five moments of truth in the value chain. Influencing the consumer to buy Having the product to sell when consumers want to purchase it Delivering brand excellence in brand usage Servicing the product during the lifecycle Disposal Unfortunately, too few companies own the moments of truth in the design of supply chains. Demand shaping activities --pricing,...

The Consumer Has Changed. Are You Ready?

2009-04-29T13:34:16-04:00

Making the unpredictable more predictable… The grocery market basket is down 6%. The impact of the recession is profound on volume resulting in a reduction in supply chain efficiency. However, this is not the most serious impact. The more dramatic shift is in shopper behavior. The shopper of 2009 has changed. The changes of the shopper in 2010 will be more extreme. The changes are hard to predict. We have a conundrum. Supply chains are designed to base future supply on historic order streams. Their supply chains have a two week lag to sense true demand. Yet, today, history is...

From Seat 1D

2009-04-29T13:26:25-04:00

This week, I visited a company that had a 24-hour cycle time, a commitment of 99% service level and an item master that had grown 3X in the past three years. Without a supply chain redesign, this is a recipee for disaster. What about you? Are you trying to propel a strategy for an end-to-end supply chain that is agile, efficient and responsive? If so, you also may be cooking up a recipe for disaster. How so? Supply chains cannot be agile, efficient and responsive at the same time. Why? The research shows that companies need to choose. You need...

Going Bananas...

2009-04-29T13:21:31-04:00

This week, I was invited to attend the Lawson Cue Conference in San Diego. Five years ago, Lawson was an underdog of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market. Sitting at the conference of 1900 attendees on a sunny San Diego afternoon, I thought back five years ago to the go-go-period of the dot.com bubble. When ERP software was riding high on the hype cycle and the number of ERP providers looked like my Saturday to-do list .... Who would have thought that Lawson software would be one of the survivors? Or that they would be trying to...