Andrea Atwell, vice president of L'Oreal, is passionate about the value that a successful demand planning team can bring to an organization. She talks about recruitment, retention and the impact demand planners have on an organization.
The technology surrounding point-of-sale data has improved tremendously in recent years and companies are making much better use of this information, says Tina Lalor, senior business consultant with John Galt Solutions.
The overall shortage of supply chain talent is particularly critical in demand management, says Jason Breault of LifeWork Search. He explains reasons and remedies.
In a multi-year, multi-phase project covering people, processes and technology, Red Wing Shoes streamlined and improved its S&OP process, cutting planning time from six weeks to three and reducing inventory by 27 percent.
Segmenting customers and products to lower costs and improve profit margins also results in higher customer satisfaction, says Wade McDaniel, vice president of solutions development at Avnet Velocity.
Susan Golicic, associate professor at Colorado State University, discusses recent CSCMP sponsored research on the state of supply chain innovation. While there have been no game changers in the last decade, steady incremental innovation has led to significant performance improvements, she says.
The shift toward omnichannel distribution has both positive and negative unintended impacts. On the positive side are opportunities to blend and leverage channels; on the downside are organizational and operational gaps. Steven DeFazio, executive vice president at Fortna, offers insights on both.
Lora Cecere, CEO of Supply Chain Insights, discusses new research from her company designed to identify the top 15 supply chains as measured against their peers, including capabilities and strategies that these companies share.
The goal of intelligent transportation planning is to enable decisions based on what is happening across the entire supply chain, from upstream demand to downstream constraints, in order to create both value and resiliency, says Fabrizio Brasca, vice president of solutions strategy at JDA Software.
Having a visual map that overlays a company's key facilities, suppliers and lanes with actual or potential risks helps enable faster reaction to supply chain disruptions, says Chris Kushmaul, director of supply chain solutions at IDV Solutions.