Once more, Apple has rocked Wall Street and financial media with spectacular fiscal Q1 financial results, again fueled by the company’s supply chain capabilities.  However, with each passing quarter, that supply chain becomes subject to more visibility, not all of which will remain complimentary.

The numbers are staggering even in context to the fact that the quarter included the holiday selling period. They included a 118 percent year-to-year increase in profits amounting to $13.1 billion on sales of $46.3 billion.  There is commentary that Apple could once again overtake Exxon Mobil as the world’s most valuable company in terms of market value. Internationally based sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue indicating the increased tapping of emerging markets as consumers around the world succumb to the Apple experience.

In terms of output volumes, Apple delivered 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads during the quarter, sustaining an average fulfillment volume of over 402 thousand iPhones and over 165 thousand iPads per day. These are volumes that can challenge any global based supply chain. The iPhone 4S is now available in 90 countries across multiple channels. Company executives also admitted that the company struggled to meet demand and could have done better if it could have ramped production. The iPhone was noted as on ‘significant’ backlog at the end of the quarter, and the unavailability of supply has been cited as a cause of rioting at Apple’s new Beijing outlet as consumers and black market profiteers sought new iPhones.

Gross margin was equally impressive growing to 44.7 percent compared with 38.5 percent one year ago. Wall Street has been taken back with the fact that the company generated $16 billion in free cash flow during the quarter, along with a near $100 billion cash balance. In its reporting, the Wall Street Journal made note that Apple not only benefitted from strong demand but also lower component costs, highlighting how the company’s supply chain remains a distinct advantage. Keep in mind that the consumer electronics industry has been dealing with certain supply shortages brought about by the compounding effects of the Japan tsunami and Thailand floods. Apple’s influence over suppliers made its mark and volume remains a considerable influence.

The lens on Apple naturally turns to what comes next and how can it sustain these spectacular results.

For its supply chain, the lens is of course maintaining a steady stream of supply while supporting a new edition of the iPad later this year. As the company’s distribution turns more toward international channels, the risks will increase. Company officials see China as a huge untapped opportunity but the reality of being the most expensive smartphone implies either more prepaid plans and distribution channels or a scaled-down version. The lens on supplier social responsibility policies has also widened considerably.

Supply Chain Matters provided previous commentary related to Apple’s recent release of its 2012 Supplier Social Responsibility Report.  This weekend, New York Times columnists Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher penned one of the most revealing articles in our memory concerning the supply chain capabilities of Apple.  The article, How the U.S. Lost Out on IPhone Work, (paid digital subscription or free metered view) extracts observations from former employees and others as to why Apple elects to source all of its major manufacturing operations in China. It describes one incident where 8000 workers at one of Apple’s contract manufacturers were awakened after midnight and started a 12 hour shift fitting last minute re-designed glass screens into frames to support iPhone volume production.

Bottom line, Apple believes that China provides far more speed, flexibilities and far more skills than can be garnered elsewhere, including the U.S. Corning’s CFO is quoted: “The consumer electronics business has become an Asian business. As an American, I worry about that, but there is nothing I can do to stop it.   Asia has become what the U.S. was for the last 40 years.”

The Times article raises some profound conclusions as to the definition of supply chain flexibilities, and we urge our readers to absorb all that is within the article.  Apple employees and management appear to demand total flexibility without regard to the worker ramifications associated with such directives. At the same time, they enjoy the healthy financial benefits in corporate profits, bonuses, and over $2 billion in stock awards. Apple CEO Tim Cook, the architect of the current supply chain received a 2010 compensation package valued at $59 million, while the average Chinese factory worker garners $17 per day. Not many of these Chinese factory workers could afford to buy a new Apple product.

From our perspective, the most profound cited quote came from an unnamed current Apple executive who states that the company does not have an obligation to solve America’s problems, but rather making the best product possible. Having its pile of cash grow even more each quarter only leads to more perceptions of greed and lack of national or social responsibility as U.S. job growth continues to falter.

Readers no doubt are aware of the technology vendor hype concerning the need for supply chain flexibility.  The looking glass into Apple’s supply chain is perhaps revealing a real-world definition.

The Times columnists began their article by citing an event last February and the question that President Barrack Obama posed to Steve Jobs: What would it take to make iPhones in the United States?  We believe that Apple, and all of us in the supply chain community need to think long and hard on that question.

What’s your view? Have countries such as the U.S. any realistic opportunities in closing the supply chain capabilities gaps in consumer electronics and high tech?

Bob Ferrari

©2012, The Ferrari Consulting and Research Group LLC and Supply Chain Matters.  All rights reserved.

Every now and then we reach a point when it is time to make a statement about the current challenging business environment, especially when it relates to global supply chains, and this is that time.

Catching-up on last week’s reading, in particular two related articles published in the Financial Times, triggered this commentary.  One article noted that the biggest U.S. companies currently have an estimated $2 trillion in cash balances as a result of healthy earnings in 2011.

Reflect on that number for a moment, TWO TRILLION.

What a problem to have!

Where do you think a good majority of this cash is going to be directed?  If you speculate stock buyback and dividend payout programs, you are absolutely correct.  Amid a perceived uncertain economic environment, and not to mention a presidential election year, companies seem very reluctant to either hire or invest in longer-term capabilities. According to FT, analyzing the most recent figures available, last year, from Q4-2010 thru Q3-2011, U.S. companies diverted $336 billion into share buybacks,  That is the highest volume since 2007. Corporations also raised dividend payouts by 11 percent in 2011.  Some large companies actually issued more debt to finance buybacks of more than $2 billion.

That brought us to recall a January 4^th FT Insight Commentary article penned by John Plender (paid subscription or free metered view).  He observes that corporate profit margins are at all time highs because of savage labor shedding or shifting of labor costs to lower cost regions.  The open question raised by Plender relates to where will this cash be routed in 2012.  Pender opines that the obvious outlet again will be share buybacks.  Why? Because the compensation incentives of many of today’s senior executives is pegged to increased earnings per share measures.  He points out that academic evidence shows that a high proportion of CFO’s admit to a willingness to sacrifice economic value to meet short-term earnings target.  These trends are referred to as financial engineering.

Both articles are cause for considerable concern.  Manufacturers should not be faulted for being cautious given the current uncertain economic environment.  There should be some cushion of cash as a contingency.  However, the upcoming challenges in 2012 point to a significant need to reassess supply chain strategies and invest in longer-term capabilities.

Supply chains have been under enormous stress these past few years.  They have had to respond to relentless pressures to cut costs, reduce overhead and increase productivity.  For well over ten years, a flight to low-cost manufacturing regions was fueled by these pressures for cost reduction. However, the year 2011 offered stark evidence that the era of low-cost sourcing of manufacturing comes with significant risk, especially when supply chains are profiled in the leanest dimensions, or the sourcing of key components is too focused and vulnerable to disruption occurring in a single region.

Supply chain professionals had to perform yeomen activities and work countless hours to respond to assess and respond to major supply disruptions. Interestingly enough, the companies who managed the disruptions best were those who had healthy inventory safety stock levels.

We heard one senior supply chain manager express it best- we are perhaps in an era of the one quarter supply chain, configured for short-term measures and financial results.

Thus, the purpose of this commentary is to send a wake-up call to corporate boardrooms.

There is ample and proven evidence that companies who invest for the long-term, whether in people, process or technology, will reap the rewards of long-term industry competiveness.  Even in times of uncertainty, those that invested where far more able to leverage market opportunities when opportunities presented themselves in the market.

We all, as stockholders, whether direct or through our long-term retirement savings, need to send a clear and loud message to CEO’s that while languishing in earnings in cash is great and leads to healthy bonus compensation, the tradeoff can well be more financially damaging to the economy and to the corporation..

How about channeling some of that cash into investments in people, process, and in longer-term supply chain capabilities. Executives need only review our 2012 Predictions for Global Supply Chains to understand that challenges remain and investment in a longer-term window is way overdue.

Bob Ferrari

We provide our first update to our early November commentary reflecting on the holiday fueled fulfillment battle of Amazon’s Kindle Fire vs. the Barnes and Noble Nook Color.  Both e-readers were expected to be one of the hottest selling gift items for the 2011 holiday season, and indeed they were. While both providers appeared to rise to the challenge of supporting consumer fulfillment needs, each ran into some difficulties. Overall, it appears that Amazon has initially risen to the challenge.

Visibility to these two e-reader offerings stems from the acceptance by consumers of an alternative to Apple’s highly popular, but more expensive iPad E-reader. The battle of e-reader market presence is a high stakes one and includes the broader implication of a mass of installed devices that become conduits for very profitable content sales for years to come.  Thus, the supply chain strategy is one of supporting volume, and as pointed out in our initial commentary, sacrificing some margin on hardware for the broader implication of future recurring sales of electronic content.

For its part, Amazon was not shy in hyping the success of the Kindle during the holidays. While not disclosing a specific number, Amazon did disclose that customers purchased well over one million Kindle devices per week with all three members of the Kindle e-reader family holding the top three slots on the Amazon.com best seller list. The Kindle Fire was noted as the number one best-selling, most gifted and most wished product on Amazon, since its introduction just before the holidays.  You gotta just love the power of web analytics!  As to the strategy of leveraged content sales, Amazon reports that Christmas Day was the biggest day ever for Kindle book downloads.

All is not completely rosy and as is the case with new products that may have been rushed to market, there are reports of some quality problems among early Kindle Fire users. A New York Times article published in mid-December(paid subscription or free metered view) notes customer complaints related to lack of external controls, other than the on-off button, web pages that are slow to populate along with concerns for overall security and parental  controls.  A similar mid-December commentary published in the International Business Times notes the top ten problems concerning the Fire, again reinforcing these same issues.  The Mobile Gadgeteer featured on ZD Net recently notes a more troubling problem related to random freeze-ups of the device with the need for a hard re-boot that can cause the loss of some existing content.

For its part, Amazon is demonstrating a proactive response to customer feedback and concerns offering lots of helpful hints or advice for remediation.  There is also speculation that Amazon will provide some form of an upgrade in the early spring.

Today, Barnes and Noble announced that Nook sales surged 70 percent during the holiday season with better than expected sales of the Nook Tablet as well as associated electronic content. However,  a breaking news article published by the Wall Street Journal (paid subscription or free metered view) quotes B&N as noting that it had “overanticipated the growth in consumer demand for single purpose black and white reading devices this holiday” and incurred significant expenses in advertising and promotional support. In our minds, that translates to significant missed forecast of anticipated demand. Once more, B&N disclosed that it is exploring options to separate its Nook business with strategic partners.

There will certainly be more detailed information over the coming weeks including news from Apple on holiday sales related to holiday sales of the iPad.  In its quest to provide a lower cost, reasonably featured e-reader, Amazon may well encounter more consumer feedback in the coming weeks.

From the information thus far, it would appear that the fulfillment battle of Kindle vs. Nook is leaning more toward the former in terms of order volume penetration and supply chain responsiveness during this past holiday season. Supply Chain Matters will feature more follow-up commentary in the coming weeks.

Bob Ferrari

© 2012 The Ferrari Consulting and Research Group LLC and Supply Chain Matters.  All rights reserved.

This commentary can also be viewed on the Supply Chain Expert Community web site, upon which the author is a featured guest blogger.

One of the cornerstones of the Supply Chain Matters blog is to track the history of specific supply chain related events involving industries and to help our readers connect the dots in term of strategy and results. In May 2009, we featured a commentary regarding Fiat Group and its unfolding strategy of opportunistic supply chain strategy, specifically its planned acquisition of Chrysler in the U.S..  At the time, this author was impressed with Fiat chairmen Sergio Marchionne and his strategy to make both companies global players in the industry.

As we approach the end of 2011, the story of Fiat and Chrysler is much more positive, with an even stronger potential.  We call readers attention to an article published in the December 19 edition of Time, Power Steering- How Chrysler’s Italian boss drives an American auto rival. (paid subscription required) Author Bill Saporito pens a very insightful look at Chrysler, where it was, and what it is becoming, and in particular, the noticeable leadership of its chairmen, Sergio Marchionne. Sergio has a knack for turning around dysfunctional automobile companies along with a keen understanding of operations and value-chain management.

The article points out that Fiat’s small-car prowess, engine technology and superior manufacturing capability was a perfect complement to Chrysler’s needs. Fiat which now owns 53.5 percent of Chrysler, has made its impact. Chrysler revenues were up 23 percent in Q3-2011 and could top $55 billion.  Operating profit could reach $5 billion vs. hemorrhaging $1 billion a month in 2009. In May, Chrysler transferred $5.9 billion to the U.S. treasury, paying off its bailout loan six years ahead of schedule.

The article goes on to expound on the unique leadership style of Mr. Marchionne, specifically his no-nonsense approach to management, his deep analytical abilities, and attention to the details of all aspects of the business, including manufacturing and value-chain.  He has thus far resized the company, flattened management layers, and overhauled the vehicle line-up in record time. Mr. Marchionne is a strong believer in elimination of management layers and practices promoting people buried in the ranks to higher levels of responsibility, giving such people all that they need to succeed and prove their potential. It is referred to as loose-tight management, a concept which many successful companies have practiced.  At the same time, he also holds people accountable for definitive results and is not shy about pulling the plug when results are not forthcoming. The author notes that: “Marchionne has the Steve Jobs gift of absolute focus.” He gets into the details. He also does not choose to have his office within Chrysler’s former executive penthouse, opting instead to locate his office in the engineering department, a visual reinforcement that it is no longer business as usual.

As was noted in 2009, Marchionne has a vision that the surviving global automotive OEM’s will need to have sufficient volumes of production to support each of the major world markets, at least one million for each major product platform in order to drive required global production cost efficiency and sustained profitability.  This translates to a combined goal for producing 6 million vehicles among the Fiat and Chrysler brands, with today’s volumes at 4.2 million vehicles. Fiat has become a global leader in efficient, high-volume, robotized production of small displacement engines and there are plans to have a similar focus for V6 engines.  Fiat also excels in small diesel powered engines, and its production facility in Poland recently exceeded a production target of 4 million 1.3 litre, 16 valve MultiJet technology engines. Technology and world class manufacturing knowledge transfer is underway among both companies with a cultural premise that production workers, not engineers, own the quality control process.  A global manufacturing boss has been appointed to oversee both Chrysler and Fiat, and the article points out that Mr. Marchionne has been known to show up from time-to-time at warranty analysis and quality performance meetings. Chrysler itself has not been known to invest in advanced supply chain software technology for planning and business intelligence but that may perhaps change.

The first totally new vehicle of the combined Fiat-Chrysler collaboration will debut in 2012 with a C-class Dodge branded vehicle. It will be based on the Fiat platform of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, adapted for U.S. market requirements. There is a further plan to invest $23 billion to develop new vehicles for Chrysler through 2014, a rather aggressive plan by U.S. automotive industry standards, and all vehicle can be adapted by Fiat for other global sales needs.

The Time article concludes with a very characteristic Marchionne quote: “People need to trust you that you’re going to pull them out and that they will follow you when you pull them out.  If they don’t get that comfort, they’re going to drop you. This is true of organizations.  It’s true of countries.”

We would add that this quote represents a philosophy that is rather important for senior and team focused supply chain management in the coming year and beyond, namely the ability to lead, get into the details, provide people with the means and tools to accomplish their goals, and to foster consistent accountability.

In our 2009 commentary, we closed with the statement that whether the combined force of Fiat and Chrysler was totally successful, we have the opportunity to observe a visionary company with a leader that truly understands the importance of a leveraged global value-chain and integrated supply chain execution.  Two years later, this case study continues to play out with positive potentials.

Time will tell if this will become a definitive case study in vision and consistent execution in supply chain management but the scorecard thus far is rather positive.

Bob Ferrari

© 2011, The Ferrari Consulting and Research Group LLC and Supply Chain Matters.  All rights reserved.

This continues our series of commentaries outlining our 2012 Predictions for Global Supply Chains. These predictions are provided in the spirit of advising supply chain organizations in setting management agenda for the year ahead, and in helping our readers and clients to prepare their supply chain management teams in establishing programs, initiatives and educational agendas for the New Year.

Readers can review the full listing of 2012 predictions at the following link.

In this Part Two posting, we explore our first two predictions for 2012.

Prediction One: A continued spillover of high uncertainty of events related to the global economy will make business growth highly challenged, and thus provide another challenging year in global supply chain management.

As we noted in our 2011 Predictions scorecard, 2011 moved from a manufacturing resurgence to a period of high uncertainty. Both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) now point to a period of high uncertainty in 2012.  The IMF’s World Economic Outlook stated in September that: “The global economy is in a dangerous new phase.  Global activity has weakened and become more uneven, confidence has fallen sharply recently, and downside risks are growing.” In preparation for the November G-20 Summit meeting held in Cannes, both organizations noted that the world economy has elevated risks of falling back into recession without bold actions on the part of governments.

The IMF points to considerable uncertainty about how fiscal sustainability will be achieved in the U.S., Japan, and some Eurozone economies.  The agency further points to the need for consistent, coherent, and co-operative approach to crisis resolution in regard to the ongoing Eurozone fiscal crisis. While growth in the Asian region has propelled the global recovery thus far, strains in the Eurozone crisis could have a negative impact on Asian growth. Signs of a slowing in previous growth cycles in the emerging markets are already showing.  China, Brazil, and India are collectively slowing according to Q3 GDP numbers.

The OECD projects GDP growth will remain weak in the advanced G-20 economies over the next two years and the growth pace of major emerging markets is expected to be lower. The OECD points to a marked slowdown with patches of mild negative growth for the Eurozone and a gloomier outlook if EU leaders fail to restore market confidence or if financial contagion spreads to other advanced countries such as the U.S…  The gloom scenario suggests a financial deterioration of the magnitude experienced in 2008-09, which could lead to a drop in GDP levels of the major OECD economies of up to 5 percent by the first half of 2013. Unemployment is expected to remain high in many advanced countries.

These grim projections do not include any effects of further economic shocks that may come as a result of added natural disasters or political, social or unplanned events. Politicians and economists are very careful in avoiding the “R” word until it is obvious.  While we profess not to be trained economists, it feels like the global economy is at risk of slipping back into recession during 2012, and the question remains as to how severe. Many advanced countries remain reluctant to propose or sustain economic stimulus measures such as investments in transportation, new growth opportunities like alternative energy, or supply chain related infrastructure.

For these reasons, global supply chains in 2012 will be highly challenged to help in sustaining any top-line growth, while cost reduction pressures will unfortunately increase.  Uncertainty has already begun among industry supply chains as reflected in lower order volumes and cautious prospective. The challenge will be in where to cut costs, since previous cost cutting has taken on the most obvious areas, and now rather difficult decisions lie ahead. Similar to what occurred during the 2008-09 Wall Street financial crisis, emphasis will likely be placed on increased customer service and the retention of key customers.  Inventory investment will also be challenging, particularly in Europe where access to affordable credit may become problematic.

While many manufacturers have relied on emerging markets as the growth engine, that could change in 2012 as these economies will continue to adjust to the effects of rising prices, high inflation and the uncertainty of global export markets.  Protection of domestic producers may well increase in order to sustain any internal employment and economic growth. U.S. manufacturers could fare better than European producers if contagion does not spread.

Prediction Two: Commodity and component price increase levels experienced in 2011, with some exceptions, will moderate in 2012, but procurement teams need to maintain a keen eye on pricing, supplier health and performance, and supply network agility.

In the first-half of 2011, industry supply chains struggled with rather high levels of inbound material price increases that significantly impacted gross margins and profitability.  Many companies had to pass along these increased costs in higher prices to customers and consumers in the range of 5 to 10 percent. Transportation costs remained high in spite of some moderation in the cost of energy during the middle to late part of the year.

Moving into 2012, all indications point to continued moderation of inbound price hikes, especially if economic output activity begins to falter.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture has forecasted food inflation levels to moderate in the range of 2.5 to 3.5 percent in 2012 over the 3.5 to 4.5 rate increases experienced in 2011.  Similarly, metals prices are expected to moderate or decline, especially if world economic output takes a dramatic negative turn in 2012. The October 2011 Manufacturing ISM Report on Business reported the ISM Prices Index as 15 percentage points lower than September, with areas such as plastics, primary metals, electrical equipment, chemicals, papers, among others, all indicating lower prices.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts global crude oil consumption to grow from 88.2 million barrels per day in 2011 to 89.6 million bbl. /day in 2012. According to the EIA, China and other emerging economies will account for all projected 2012 consumption growth. Consumption in member OECD countries is projected to be relatively flat in 2012. OPEC crude oil production is expected to remain flat in 2012, with U.S. retail gasoline and diesel prices also expected to remain flat or slightly decline in 2012. As in the past, a large caveat is associated with these forecasts, namely that political unrest across the Middle East, terrorist incidents, or other shocks impacting supply do not occur during the year.  It will be interesting to observe how a moderation in energy prices will impact current transportation carrier surcharges and rate increases during 2012.

Our caveat in price increases applies to specific industries that will be influenced by the after-effects of the monsoon floods that impacted Thailand, specifically hard disk drives and other precision electronics. Current indications are that supply and capacity shortages may extend further into 2012.  Any other occurrence of a major supply disruption in 2012 should also be monitored. The U.S. west coast is long overdue for a major earthquake event, and further major seismic shocks surrounding Asia’s Fire Ring are always a concern.

Beyond price issues, procurement teams will need to once again keep a keen eye on supplier health and performance, especially if the Eurozone financial crisis spills over to other economies.  Overall, supply chains remain rather fragile with all of the shocks that occurred in 2011.  The need for agility in supply contracts is very important.  Rather than pressuring suppliers for added price reductions, it will be more important to maintain a reliable network of supply flexibility.

This concludes Part Two of our Supply Chain Matters 2012 Predictions.  In Part Three, we will explore our prediction that 2012 will bring a complete re-visit to supply chain outsourcing strategies, namely because of the new impact of supply risk and business continuity insurance coverage.

In the meantime, readers are encouraged to share observations and added predictions from your industry and functional lenses.

Bob Ferrari

© 2011 The Ferrari Consulting and Research Group LLC and the Supply Chain Matters, All rights reserved.

Once a year, just before the start of the new year, the Ferrari Consulting and Research Group and the Supply Chain Matters blog provide a series of predictions for the coming year. We have maintained this tradition since the founding of the blog in 2008. Over the next two weeks, the blog will feature a series of postings to provide detail around each of our predictions.

Predictions are provided in the spirit of advising supply chain organizations in setting management agenda for the year ahead, helping our readers and clients to prepare their supply chain management teams in establishing programs, initiatives and educational agendas for the new year.

Our process includes a re-look at all that occurred in 2011, a reflection of future implications and the soliciting of input from clients, thought leaders  and other supply chain and blogosphere observers. We incorporate a lot of thought into our predictions and will scorecard our annual predictions at the end of the year.  Throughout 2012, the blog will also be monitoring events related to each prediction, and will provide periodic updates.

We will kick-off this series with the full listing of our ten predictions for the upcoming year.  In upcoming postings, we will provide the detailed thoughts supporting each prediction. As in the past, the complete 2012 predictions report will also be made available in a free downloadable research report which can be accessed in our Research Center at the conclusion of this series.

This year’s effort was a bit challenging since the global business climate is in a period of high uncertainty and corresponding supply chains are in a fragile state. We probably could have come up with more than ten, and readers are encouraged to share their own predictions.

Here are the Supply Chain Matters Predictions for Global Supply Chains in 2012:

1. A continued spillover of high uncertainty of events related to the global economy will make business growth highly challenged, and thus provide another challenging year in global supply chain management.
2. Commodity and component price increase levels experienced in 2011, with some exceptions, will moderate in 2012, but procurement teams need to maintain a keen eye on both pricing and supplier health and performance and supply network agility.
3. As a result of the major supply chain disruption events that occurred throughout 2011, senior management among global manufacturing firms will call for a re-visit of supply chain component and finished goods outsourcing strategies, weighing overall risk as well as low cost parameters.
4. Three specific industry sectors, B2C, Pharmaceutical and High Tech, will be especially affected by significant supply chain challenges or turmoil in 2012.
5. The concept for “supply chain control tower’ coupled with more leveraged use of predictive analytics will come to the forefront, but in 2012 there will be a need for vendors and consultants to focus on market education and early adoption support.
6. Cloud computing and managed services options directed at enabling supply chain business processes will continue to gain more traction.
7. Expect additional M&A and partnership activity among supply chain technology and ERP providers as vendors shore up application areas with the best prospects for sustained future growth.
8. The challenges related to higher incidents of counterfeit products, cargo theft and other scurrilous activities within and across global supply chains will finally motivate government and industry to step-up process standards and corrective mitigation efforts.
9. Wider scale leveraging and adoption of in-memory computing technologies among enterprise and specialty supply chain vendors, coupled with broader leveraging of data mining, have the potential to be game changing influences on supply chain business planning and response management.
10.  The leveraged use of systems of engagement, namely mobility and social media applications within select supply chain, PLM and manufacturing process areas will gain additional momentum.

Keep your browser pointed to the blog as we take readers into each of the predictions.

Bob Ferrari

© 2011 The Ferrari Consulting and Research Group LLC and the Supply Chain Matters, All rights reserved.