Over the last month, venture capitalists evaluating the supply chain planning market called 3x/week. I know of five companies for sale. Sharks are in the water. The calls follow a predictable pattern. The first is to identify the potential available market. I identify the size followed by a disclaimer, “The current market is smaller than the potential. Today, companies are waiting for the next evolution of planning software. The biggest…
My phone rang. Consultants, technologists and ex-analysts called to challenge my position in my last post focused on control towers. I love this type of debate. As I discussed my views of “visibility” and “control” with my many callers, I discovered that I was not clear in my post. <Sigh. This is not my favorite topic, but there is confusion in the market. The focus of this post is to drive…
We finished dinner. I pressed my neatly folded napkin to my lips. As we waited for coffee, silence hung heavy in the air. My client writhed in her seat and hung her head as she asked, “I read your article on control towers, but I am confused. What is an easy definition? I am embarrassed to ask, but we were discussing the topic at our board meeting yesterday, and I…
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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