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

I was invited to attend an SAP-Sybase executive briefing in downtown Boston today, and I’m glad I came.  Since SAP announced its intentions to acquire database technology provider Sybase at a price of $5.8 billion, there has been a lot of hallway speculation as to what value SAP gains from this acquisition.  Today’s briefing helped somewhat in filling-in the strategic intent and future joint development roadmap. It helped in providing a check-in to purpose and direction, and a lot of clarity has transpired since May.

I previously noted that I was especially interested in not only hearing the go-forward strategy, but more importantly the implications to business analytics or more enhanced supply chain business intelligence. To some extent, I now have a clearer sense on intent and direction for SAP’s direction in mobility applications and analytics, but this remains a work-in-progress.  The good news however is that eco-system partners may have more opportunities to collaborate on future mobile applications related to supply chain.

I finally heard an open acknowledgement that industrial or supply chain related mobile applications are far different in approach than the mobile user performing periodic inquiries or seeking ad-hoc analytical information.  I finally heard acknowledgement that you just can’t take a 20 screen SAP order entry application and send it to an iPhone or BlackBerry user and require them to navigate through all of these data inputs in a 3.5 inch screen.  I finally heard open acknowledgement that CIO’s have real issues in security of information on mobile devices, and that mobile applications remain uncharted territory. In my view, these open acknowledgements refreshing, since too many times I have witnessed briefings that completely gloss over realities or complexities of enterprise level systems.

During the broader briefing and more so in an intimate meeting among my fellow bloggers and Vishal Sikka, SAP Executive Board Member and CTO, there was a more refreshing sense of practicality and pragmatism.  When I attended the Sapphire conference in May, I noted that I felt a renewed sense of purpose and vision within SAP, and that again came forward today.  I specifically asked Vishal to articulate SAP’s approach in overcoming user reluctance of adopt supply chain mobile applications without some assurances of security and scalability.  His response was that SAP today more than ever, truly understands these realities, and that the management team has a renewed focus on internal and external innovation.

My sense is that the prior SAP that was driven purely by marketing and sales vision is attempting to change to one that is perhaps more customer driven.  A lot has transpired, and more actions will of course need to come forth in the coming months, but intent is certainly visible.  In the meantime, supply chain related users and IT professionals should keep a continuous eye toward the convergence of in-memory and mobile applications, since when it arrives mainstream, the benefits will be game-changing.

Bob Ferrari

I had the opportunity to provide a July guest commentary on the Infosys Supply Chain Management blog.  In my commentary, Should Firms be Focused on IT or Business Process Portfolio, or Both?, I share the observation that current Gartner and blogosphere commentary focused on a rethinking of a firm’s enterprise applications strategy can be misguided.  My argument is that the end goal should always be the business process architecture.  In the case of today’s more externally focused supply chain fulfillment processes, firms will quickly determine that business processes designed with a prior internal focus and expectation of business process metrics will have different context and supporting enterprise applications requirements when this externally focused reality is incorporated.  There are many companies that have achieved supply chain process integration and have done so because they elevated business process above organizational or systems needs.

Firms should be articulating supply chain process requirements first in business architecture context, followed by supporting enterprise architecture, and not the other way around. This approach, I might add, has many organizational implications. I suspect that this will spur a different context of commentary.

Bob Ferrari

Disclosure: Infosys is one of other featured sponsors to the Supply Chain Matters blog.

As a both a supply chain industry analyst and technology product marketing expert, I’ve seen my share of various software demonstrations that were designed to either be incorporated in the product marketing toolkit or help prospects and analysts understand the depth of functionality in a given software suite.  From my experience, these demo utilities can tend to be either too complex or detailed, to being too scripted and non-impressive.

As product marketing professionals, we can sometimes tend to concentrate too much time cycles in being impressed with the latest demo technology vs. spending time reflecting on the objective, cost and design needs of what a demo is suppose to accomplish.

When I occasionally come across a web-based demo that is impressive, I take notice.  That recently occurred when I viewed the latest demo featured on the MCA Solutions web site.

I was impressed with this demo because:

It is clear, concise and easy to understand and follow.

The length is just-right, between 4-5 minutes

It provided me an essence of the company, its capabilities, and the overall capabilities of the technology.

It included animated visuals which are pleasing to the eye.

It ended with a call to action and where to find additional information.

After viewing the MCA demo, I made it a point to speak with Tim Andreae, the very able Senior VP of Marketing of MCA.  Tim informed me that the demo itself was designed and implemented in less than four weeks, and the overall cost was rather reasonable, quite reasonable I might add.  Considerably less than the cost of designing, sponsoring and delivering a webcast to a broader audience.

The demo itself comes from Autodemo, and a visit to their website uncovers quite a list of technology-oriented customers.  If you need more specific information regarding the design and delivery of the demo, I’m sure Tim would be willing to share information.

Bob Ferrari

Disclosure: Neither MCA Solutions nor Autodemo have any financial association with this author, the Supply Chain Matters blog, or its parent company.

The following posting can also be viewed and commented upon on the Kinaxis Supply Chain Expert Community web site.

Supply chain professionals, like it or not, remain in an environment of high volatility.  Need some proof, consider the following…

A mere three months ago in December of 2009, I penned commentary on the Supply Chain Matters blog regarding the existence of euphoria among U.S. manufacturers.  At the time, a Washington Post article reported that the weak U.S. dollar was helping U.S. manufacturers to win back business previously lost to other global competitors.  This was certainly positive and uplifting news as these U.S. manufacturers approached 2010, but I stressed a cautionary note to the conclusions of this article.  While the economics of product cost, quality, inventory and logistics tradeoffs shifted more toward U.S. manufacturing sourcing, the political dynamics of today’s world economy must always be factored.

Last week, an article in the Financial Times (free sign-up preview account required) makes note that the recent fall in the value of the euro has given the eurozone economic recovery a new lease on life.  The article notes that German manufacturing output, thus far, in March has increased at the fastest pace since the mid-1990′s, and business confidence in Germany has jumped to its highest level in the past two years. Germany’s export orders are increasing at record speed, and the European composite purchasing manager index rose from 53.7 to 55.5 in February, its eighth consecutive monthly increase. The German global export manufacturing machine once again has been primed.

If you had read either of these press reports in isolation, or without context, the conclusions would in some cases influence senior managers to believe that a specific regional economy was on the road to post-recessionary recovery.  If both are placed in context of time, than perhaps the conclusion is that the geopolitical swings in currency rates are occurring at a much higher rate. The interplay of China, Germany and the U.S. economies are all swinging back and forth motion like a pendulum.

The reality for procurement sourcing and product planning teams is that global volatility is an unfortunate given in the current post-recessionary world of ongoing uncertainty. Reacting to current snapshots in time, driven by today’s rapid shifts in currency or energy markets will often change the economics of sourcing, and we need to be cautious about various options of response.   A sudden reaction to a currency or energy market shift in time may not prove to be prudent, since as we now can observe, today’s markets change rapidly. Conversely, not responding appropriately to a longer-tern structural economic shift could ultimately be financially costly.

In the long term, most manufacturers, large or small, are better off by being recognized for product and service innovation as opposed to being evaluated as the lowest-cost producer. Customers often want to establish long-term supplier relationship with innovative and value-added suppliers, suppliers that can be extensions of a long-term business relationship. These same customers, however, need to also navigate their business models to seek any means to drive more top line sales growth in 2010, and/or drive more procurement cost savings. Thus they will seek out an opportunistic relationship with this year’s lowest cost provider to exploit sales expansion plans or create product promotional opportunities in the market.

Given this commentary, you may well ask the obvious question; How will we sort out all of this uncertainty in our organization’s business planning?

My advice to is to invest in supply chain intelligence and advanced analytical capabilities, tools that focus on supporting more informed decisions that can have multiple alternatives or economic impacts. The new table stakes for firms is the need to quickly assess the impacts of rapid changes in markets and their implications to short and longer-term supply and demand plans. If a customer approaches your sales teams with an unplanned buy, how will your firm rapidly respond toward filling that requirement?  Conversely, if sudden changes in the economy cause a customer to cancel existing pipeline orders, what actions can be taken to buffer the financial impact of excess inventory or production capacity?

In an environment of volatility and rapid change, effective planning is more about the ability to quantify the impact of various changed business scenarios, rather than a summarization of what has occurred in the past.  Today, markets are changing very quickly and timely response capabilities are indeed what will differentiate the survivors.

Bob Ferrari