We would like to remind providers of supply chain related technology and services that there are opportunities for being a named sponsor of the Supply Chain Matters blog.  Blog sponsors appear in our sponsorship panel located on the right-hand side.

Blogs have come to be a very influential source of opinion and thought leadership with this site being among the top ten blogs commenting on global supply chain developments  in business process and information technology.  Supply Chain Matters provides global reach with an average of 30 to 40 thousand monthly visitors, with an increasing number of unique first-time visitors.

As a sponsor of Supply Chain Matters, your company will be recognized not only for its products and services, but also a supporter of quality thought leadership.  Sponsorships are also available that include services in spring boarding your social media and product marketing strategies.

We would also like to remind major sponsors of conferences related to supply chain executive and business topics that we also provide opportunities for promoting your conference agenda on Supply Chain Matters. Previous conference advertisers have gained considerable click-through rates to conference registration sites.

For further information, you can either complete a sponsorship inquiry form, or send an email with your name, company, email and telephone contact information.  Please send email inquiries to: info <at> supply-chain-matters <dot> com.

We are happy to announce to our Supply Chain Matters readers that the supply chain management (SCM) practice of Infosys Technologies Limited will be a continuing Silver sponsor of this blog during 2011.  The Infosys SCM team continues to recognize the increasing reach and influence of Supply Chain Matters, as well as our joint efforts to provide added thought leadership in the area of global supply chain management business process and information technology needs.

The supply chain practice of Infosys continues to provide its clients with the ability to unlock added value from their supply chain business processes and information technology systems.  Key practice areas umbrella a wide swath and include areas of supply chain planning, strategic sourcing/procurement, multi-channel order fulfillment, and enterprise asset management. Industry coverage is broad and includes manufacturing, retail, energy, media and financial services industries.

Since becoming aware of the Infosys SCM practice in late 2005, I have monitored their engagement growth. Supply Chain Matters was delighted to welcome Infosys as a blog sponsor in 2009, and we look forward to continuing our joint thought leadership efforts throughout 2011.

During this past year, I continued to contribute guest postings regarding key supply chain and information technology strategic topics on the Infosys Global Supply Chain Management blog, and was pleased to exchange commentary with Gopikrishnan G.R. (Gopi), delivery manager and lead for the SCM practice, as well as other Infosys community readers. In 2011, this cross-blog exchange activity will expand and readers can anticipate guest postings and added commentary from Gopi and other Infosys practioners on Supply Chain Matters.  I will also be expanding my guest blogger contributions on the Infosys SCM blog.

In April, Supply Chain Matters will be attending and providing blog coverage of IBM Impact 2011 Conference in Las Vegas where Infosys will be featured as a Gold sponsor.  We look forward to meeting up with Infosys SCM clients, readers of this blogs and colleagues.

Today Infosys has a healthy track record of over 400 supply chain engagements with a 100% on-time delivery record.  This practice provides clients with unsurpassed project ramp-up capability with over 1000 dedicated package consultants. Consultants can be called upon to provide either functional as well as supply chain information technology expertise.  Infosys operates globally from 31 countries and 75 cities across the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and Middle East & Africa. Their supply chain technology skills span a variety of ERP and best-of-breed applications, with strategic partnerships that include Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, JDA, Sterling Commerce (an IBM company), ATG Commerce, IBM Maximo Asset Management and other technology alliances.

We look forward to having the supply chain management practice at Infosys as a sponsor of Supply Chain Matters, and also to a continued joint collaboration of thought leadership and industry commentary.

If you need additional information, you can view the Infosys SCM services profile in the About Our Sponsors page on the right-hand panel.

Insure that you have Infosys on your short-list of large-scale supply chain information technology consulting needs.

Bob Ferrari, Executive Editor

It is a sincere pleasure to announce to our Supply Chain Matters readers that supply chain technology provider Kinaxis will be a continuing Silver sponsor of this blog during 2011.

Kinaxis was the very first sponsor of this blog in 2008, and we are proud to be able to continue our close relationship.  They recognized early on that educational and insightful blogs would play an increasing role in how supply chain professionals share thought leadership and gather insights.

Kinaxis has been one of very few technology companies that has successfully designed and leveraged a highly successful B2B content and social-media community and we are proud of  our abilities to help in this effort.  As an example, The Supply Chain Expert Community has garnered multiple accolades and awards from industry publications, the latest being a highly complimentary write-up on ContentMarketingInstitute.com . The article begins: “Research the best examples of a successful B2B content marketing strategy, and this year’s breakout winner is clear: Kinaxis.”

This author is pleased to be able to provide continued weekly guest blogger commentary in this community throughout 2011. My specific Supply Chain Expert Community commentary is also co-published on the Supply Chain Matters blog.

Kinaxis technology has been designed to address needs for managing supply chain complexity and fostering agility in business processes. The company continues to grow its broad industry presence and customer base and recently announced a record year in 2010, demonstrating double-digit revenue and cash flow growth.  Customers include names such as Cisco, Genzyme, Honeywell, Jabil, Research In Motion, Toshiba and most recently, Olympus Corporation.. The Kinaxis RapidResponse technology that is available today is much more than a supply chain planning system, incorporating many features for scenario-based analysis and sales and operations business process support.  The technology is available to serve multi-industry supply chain process needs.  Current RapidResponse implementations can accommodate users in the thousands, integrating key information from large numbers of ERP systems.

It is a delight to have Kinaxis as an ongoing Supply Chain Matters sponsor.

If your organization has needs for extended supply chain visibility, rapid response, or sales and operations planning process support capabilities that can be implemented in a very timely manner, I recommend you place Kinaxis on your short list.

Bob Ferrari, Executive Editor

We have had the opportunity to review the broad spectrum of readership statistics for 2010, and we would like to sincerely thank all of our Supply Chain Matters readers for their loyal following..

In 2010, this blog experienced:

• A 64 percent increase in visits since the beginning of the year.  In 2010, there were close to 250,000 visits to this blog and over 3 million site hits.
• A 56 percent increase in unique (first time) visitors since the beginning of the year.  We welcome each of the nearly 100,000 new visitors to this web site in 2010.
• Nearly 52,000 search engine links referencing Supply Chain Matters content.

We have also received a lot of kind complimentary feedback regarding the quality of the commentary published in Supply Chain Matters along with the broad array of supply chain cross-functional topics that we elect to provide in our ongoing commentary and insights. This has led to follow-on individual consulting and other incremental business for our consulting and research business.

Again, thanks to all our readers for your loyal following, and keep the feedback coming.  We also extend a shout out with sincere thanks to all of our blog sponsors in 2010 and trust that readers had the opportunity to view each of their capabilities.  They have each demonstrated a commitment and have embraced the power of blogs as a new medium for global supply chain related thought leadership.  Please take the time to review their capabilities.

If you have interest in becoming a Supply Chain Matters sponsor, and would like to know more about our other services, please send an email to: info<at>supply-chain-matters<dot>com or fill in our sponsorship inquiry form which can be accessed on the top menu.

Bob Ferrari, Executive Editor

It is my sincere pleasure to announce that BIQ has elected to become a sponsor of this blog, and we welcome Eric Strovink and his able team to the Supply Chain Matters thought leadership community.

BIQ technology can best be described as self-enabling business intelligence and insight.  Founded in 2003, BIQ’s business premise is that business analysts need a powerful transactional data analysis tool that they can operate on their own, without the burden of long-term licensing commitment.  The tool needs to be flexible, yet powerful enough to analyze difficult or complex problems. BIQ’s marketing message notes that the company is entirely focused on making users of BIQ technology the smartest people in the room by providing the most advanced analysis system, which is a fairly clear and simple statement of this vendor’s capabilities.

BIQ offers a rather flexible deployment model which allows customers the ability to utilize a ‘pay-as-you-go’ arrangement, which greatly helps in the justification and benefits derived from use of this technology.  This is quite a refreshing change from having to lock-in a long-term commitment. We have often noted that with the increasing complexity involved in supporting global-wide supply chain activities, knowledge management becomes a rather critical competency, and BIQ supports this capability.The application of BIQ’s technology lies in many different areas of supply chain and procurement business processes, the most obvious of which is procurement spend analysis or discovering cost savings opportunities. In my recent discussion with Eric, he mentioned a broader array of use cases including the analysis of customer demand, aftermarket service and inventory needs, and other areas.  One of the most obvious testimonials to the power of the BIQ analysis engine is that many consultants and systems integrators utilize the tool in their ongoing consulting engagements, and their clients will often adopt the tool for ongoing use.

Please join me in welcoming BIQ to the Supply Chain Matters sponsor community. Take a moment to explore BIQ’s capabilities.

Bob Ferrari, Executive Editor

I am delighted to announce that ModusLink Global Solutions has signed on as a new sponsor for the Supply Chain Matters blog.

ModusLink has deep roots in supporting supply chain processes, having its genesis as the former RR Donnelly distribution entity for software media over 25 years ago.  Since that time, this provider has broadened its services, global presence and reach with service offerings that provide a seamless extension of a client’s supply chain capability. ModusLink takes pride in solving its clients’ cost, time-to-market, customer satisfaction and revenue objectives. Of the 2010 Top 25 Supply Chains cited AMR Research/Gartner, eleven are ModusLink partner customers.

ModusLink provides its customers experience and support in five major business areas, namely sourcing and supply base management, a broad range of manufacturing-related services, multi-channel fulfillment and logistics, customer and aftermarket support services.  Key support programs include among others, support for on-demand customer entitlement, management for digital and physical product content delivery, e-commerce fulfillment, and full aftermarket return and repair process needs.  Supply chain best practices that have been developed in customer partnerships have been added to a repository of detailed vertical market knowledge.

This provider provides a robust global presence which includes a network of solution centers that spans 25 facilities in 14 countries including the Amercas, continental Europe and Asia, with 8 sites in China alone. From a technology perspective, ModusLink has developed its own SAP-driven business platform to support sourcing, procurement, planning, fulfillment, and business intelligence needs.

Over these past weeks I have been speaking with many ModusLink professionals, including their very able Vice President of Marketing and Business Strategy, Lorcan Sheehan, who is a frequent contributor on the company’s Value Unchained blog.  This blog was launched last April to foster dialogue on optimizing the multichannel value chain. I have been favorably impressed with our conversations and I am looking forward to being a future guest contributor to Value Unchained.

In the meantime, please take the opportunity to click on the ModusLink logo or the About Our Sponsor page to learn more about ModusLink or to experience ModusLink thought leadership and community.

Welcome aboard, ModusLink.

Bob Ferrari

Executive Editor