Once again, ChainLink Research and SupplyChainBrain are conducting research into the business challenges companies are confronting and what strategies and solutions they plan to use to address those issues.
Item-level intelligence requirements spur the growth of RFID across sectors such as industrial, manufacturing, retail, transportation, security, healthcare and consumer applications. RFID has quietly crossed the chasm exhibiting a stable - yet still innovative - market. So what will drive the market in 2015?
RFID retail inventory management can deliver benefits for most apparel retailers now. The basic handheld solution is not hard to understand, delivers real ROI and has a relatively low investment hurdle. Yes, employee training and compliance is a headache, but this is true for many jobs in retail, and it does not change the fact that significant sales uplift is not only possible, but typical.
The focus of RFID in the supply chain has shifted from case tagging to item tagging, says Ann Grackin, CEO of ChainLink Research. Grackin explains why this is so and details other areas of the supply chain where RFID is being embraced.
A key component of supplier risk management for many companies is monitoring the supplier's financial health and viability to try and obtain early warning of potential supplier issues that could impact the continuity of supply. However, by itself, supplier monitoring misses opportunities to actually bolster and improve the supplier's financial health, which is particularly important for those suppliers that are highly leveraged and/or have cash flow challenges.
The Internet of Things has intelligence distributed throughout many integrated layers. Algorithms and analytics are needed to make sense of the raw data. Often this intelligence needs to reside on the edge of the network close to the source of the data near the "things" comprising the IoT.
Just as the use of the word "cloud" exploded in the late 2000s, we have seen the term "Internet of Things" (IoT) appearing everywhere during the past couple of years. It seems as though everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Can one make sense of this phenomenon?
In most companies, supply chain finance is seen as a narrow and limited tool rather than a strategic enabler of success. As a result, a lot of unrealized value is left on the table. Whether you are in finance, supply chain, or procurement, supply chain finance has the potential to help you provide more strategic value.
Infor, Epicor, Aptean, QAD, UNIT4, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle and others all have the challenge of owning many solutions built over 20 years ago or more. In fact, many enterprises are still running twenty-year-old software. Still, many firms have yet to buy their first ERP, and they will certainly not purchase the old ERPs written in RPG, BASIC and ABAP or with Progress databases and so on.
Some authors have suggested that strategic sourcing is often done in a win-lose style, without true collaboration between buyer and seller. Nothing could be further from the truth, as a win-lose relationship is the antithesis to strategic sourcing done the right way. Strategic sourcing, done right, can become a real competitive advantage.
