Yowza: Excitement or approval Get a cup of coffee. This is a long post. <Bear with me….> Here I share a nine-step process in an attempt to help companies unravel the process for buying supply chain planning software. The genesis for this post stems from frustration. I get the same questions over-and-over again, and see companies making the same mistakes. Let’s face a hard fact: the supply chain planning market…
This month, I traveled the globe helping companies understand the potential impact of technology innovation on the future of supply chain processes, I find the term “digital innovation” is a bit like tulip mania. How so? It is a fad sweeping across supply chain leadership teams. I am trying to help teams manage the hype and drive value. CIOs are rebranding as Digital Innovation Officers, and consultants are knocking down…
New technologies abound. In supply chain, right now, the rate of change is exciting. On the horizon, innovation opportunities are limitless through the confluence of technologies like cognitive learning, blockchain, streaming data architectures/sensors (Internet of Things), and mobility. Yet, I see companies make the same mistake over and over. What is it? Using new technologies to automate yesterday’s processes. Most companies I work with try to make their current processes…
The sun is shining brightly through the conference room windows as I listen to the consultants talk. It’s buzzword bingo at its finest. The air is thick. It is comical. The term ‘big data’ is all the rage. The market has dried up for large Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations, and the large consultants are prowling the market staking their claim for their next gig. For me, buzzword bingo on big…
It is the week before Thanksgiving in the United States, and as a good Yank, I am reflective. I am giving thanks. This blog was started in 2010. Today, 270 posts and five years later, I am thankful for the opportunity to sit at my kitchen table and communicate to almost 20,000 supply chain professionals globally (directly through this blog and through connections on Linkedin). I am in awe of…
An antagonist (from Greek ἀνταγωνιστής – antagonistēs , “opponent, competitor, enemy, rival”, from anti- “against” + agonizesthai “to contend for a prize,”) is a character, group of characters, or institution that represents the opposition against which the protagonist , or main character, must contend. In other words, an antagonist is a person or a group of people who oppose the main character(s). Wikipedia The stage is set. We are now in the third…
I have never been an athlete. At the age of 58, I buried my mother in November 2012. She died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. It was a long hard eight-year struggle that was tough on my family. One of the sad outcomes of the disease is that you don’t know how to grieve. The victim of Alzheimer’s slowly slips away. The person that you bury has very few resemblances to…
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