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Thankfully, the learned analysts, writers and soothsayers I follow aren’t quite as depressing. Let’s take a look at what some of the modern day prophets have been saying and the common themes that appear.

In the tradition of David Letterman, (in no particular order) let’s hit the Top 10 Supply Chain Predictions for 2012.

10. Supply chain risk will not go away

At the start of 2011, I wrote a blog (Supply Chain Risk and Charles Darwin) that highlighted 2010 as the worst on record for supply chain disruptions. Little did we know that 2011 would bring earthquakes in New Zealand, a tsunami in Japan and record floods in Thailand which, looking back made 2010 look like a cake walk.

Therefore it is not surprising that focusing on managing and mitigating risk across global supply chains appear on most lists. As Gartner predicts “Supplier risk will continue to be a major focus, and companies will look to technology for a scalable risk assessment and management solution” (Predicts 2012: Supply Chain Predictions: Talent, Risk and Analytics Dominate: Published: 18 November 2011).

IDC (Worldwide manufacturing supply chain 2012 top 10 predictions) agrees, saying “Risk Management will mature as a focus area for supply chain segmentation”. I think Adrian Gonzalez (in his Logistics Viewpoint blog) summarized the situation very well when he commented “risk is supply chain’s middle name. Companies that manage supply chain risks effectively will outperform those that ignore or are blindsided by them”.

9. Entering the “era of big data”

With the availability of data (both structured and unstructured) at an all-time high from all areas of the supply chain (demand signal repositories, RFID tags, GPS tracking, Smart Meters, etc.) the focus will migrate to leveraging data as a competitive advantage . This was well described by Lora Cecere of Altimeter Group (Supply Chain Shaman blog) who stated that “the concept of the big data supply chain is the evolution of technologies to harness the explosion of data and new data sources to drive a near real-time response”. However, IDC warns “Big data will create an even bigger data quality problem for manufacturing supply chains”.

8. Supply Chain “clock speed”

It’s no secret the pace of business is accelerating and 2012 will not see this changing. The reality is that today’s supply chains are expected to be more responsive to change. Changes in supply, demand, or changing economic factors, the old adage still applies to supply chains: “only constant is change itself”. In the IDC Manufacturing Insights Predictions 2012, Simon Ellis of IDC explains the importance of finding ways to better align the clock speed of supply with the clock speed of demand in an effort to become more responsive. Ellis said this defining comment came from a Heinz executive (SAP Influencer Summit: The Need for Speed!) who observed that his company thinks about speed on two dimensions: the speed of the initial IT implementation and the decision-making to support the ongoing business.

7. In-Memory technology enters supply chain space

When (clock) speed meets big data, the need to analyze massive amounts of data for instant business insights is required to transform organizations into a real-time business. As Bob Ferrari (Supply Chain Matters blog) predicts “Wider scale leveraging and adoption of in-memory computing technologies among enterprise and specialty supply chain vendors, coupled with broader leveraging of data mining, have the potential to be game changing influences on supply chain business planning and response management”.

6. Supply chain visibility and analytics

The old adage of “you can’t manage what you can’t measure” certainly holds true when it comes to predictions. Bob Ferrari talks about the concept of a “supply chain control tower’ coupled with more leveraged use of predictive analytics coming to the forefront. Gartner also predicts that by 2016, “50% of Gartner’s Top 25 will rely on predictive analytics to further exploit low-latency, network-based data” (Predicts 2012: Supply Chain Predictions: Talent, Risk and Analytics Dominate: Published: 18 November 2011).

5. Social supply chains

I recently posed the question “Are you ready for the social supply chain?”According to most pundits, the answer is “YES”. With an estimated 1.2bn people (20 per cent of the world’s population) on social networks, we are at a point where social software capabilities need to be prevalent throughout enterprise systems. And increasingly, we are accessing this social network through mobile devices. As Adrian Gonzalez (Logistics Viewpoint) stated “Companies will continue to adopt social media tools in supply chain and logistics processes.” He pointed to a proof point that “it was standing room only at the social media in supply chain management session I moderated at the CSCMP Annual Global Conference this past October”.

4. Supply chains in the cloud

In another blog I joked that Santa was the 1st supply chain “in the cloud”. However I believe that we will start seeing more applications and deployments leveraging this approach moving forward. In Supply Chain Matters, Bob Ferrari predicts that “Cloud computing and managed services options directed at enabling supply chain business processes will continue to gain more traction”. IDC agrees that “Cloud applications for supply chain will move from a total-cost-of-ownership focus to a total-value-in-ownership Focus.” Adrian Gonzalez of Logistics Viewpoint concurs: “Traditional enterprise and supply chain software vendors will accelerate their investments in cloud computing and software-as-a-service”. He references two proof points from SAP, namely the acquisition of SuccessFactors, and the investments in B2B connectivity with its acquisition of Crossgate.

3. Collaboration is key

As supply networks become more global and more organizations turn to outsourcing, networked business environments are becoming the norm (see Collaboration – The new battle cry of supply chains). To improve performance, businesses will continue to strategically partner with suppliers and other supply chain participants to collaborate and share information. As Adrian Gonzalez of Logistics Viewpoint said, “When it comes to collaboration, more companies will start to ‘walk the talk’.” He believes companies know they’re leaving money on the table by not collaborating more effectively with suppliers, customers and industry peers. Over the past two years, however, sparked to action by the economic downturn, companies are revisiting collaboration.

2. The customer is (still) king!

With the world population now past seven billion – with 20% of those having access to the internet and social networks – the global end consumer is now more connected, informed and demanding than ever. Gartner (and formerly AMR) have long bestowed the virtues of a Demand Driven Supply Network and most, if not all the other analyst firms are in agreement. For example, IDC predicts the “factory of the future will be driven by capabilities to fulfill customer demand rather than pure production capacity”.

1. Sustainable and compliant supply chains

As cross boarder trading rises (a necessary evil of Globalization) so does the incidents of counterfeit products, cargo theft and other scurrilous. Bob Ferrari claims this “will finally motivate government and industry to step-up process standards and corrective mitigation efforts” in 2012. This was also a talking point for Lora Cecere (Altimeter Group) who is predicting a focus on “safe and secure supply chains” due to changing legislation for serialization in pharmaceuticals and food safety in global supply chains.

A famous Chinese proverb says “May we live in interesting times.” Like it or not, we do live in interesting times. If possible, I’d make this my 11th prediction. If the past few years are anything to go by, a new challenge will arise in 2012 to make the life of a supply chain practitioner “interesting.” Let’s just hope it is not as “interesting” as Nostradamus or the Mayans predicted!

Richard Howells

“We have seen that disruptions to supply chains caused by natural disasters — earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions — and from criminal and terrorist networks seeking to exploit the system or use it as a means of attack can adversely impact global economic growth and productivity,” Obama said in a letter dated Jan. 23 and released by the White House today.

“As a nation, we must address the challenges posed by these threats and strengthen our national and international policies accordingly.” See Bloomberg for full story

For healthcare procurement executives looking to bring in costs and improve compliance, a new trend is arising. GPO executives are deploying spends analysis more regularly to gain better visibility into areas of savings leakage and improve compliance tracking but they are also tapping the strategy for a new care quality purpose by aligning physician supply preferences with patient outcomes.

Procurement executives in hospitals and healthcare networks and GPOs are charged with, trimming the bottom line, but also face an even greater challenge – maintaining tight relationships with doctors to understand their product preferences and the connection to a much greater goal – the improvement of patient outcomes.
Cutting-edge GPOs are beginning to experiment with care results. By analyzing spend and tying products purchased back to positive patient outcomes, as well as cost, GPOs can decide what products make the most sense for the patients, as well as the bottom line.
With GPOs purchasing 100k plus categories on a monthly basis, advanced spend analysis is needed for this type of endeavor.

A Win-Win

Using spend analysis, GPOs can monitor contract compliance and improve patient outcomes with existing agreements to find missed opportunities for saving and to identify opportunities to improve patient outcomes with less costly product alternatives.

GPOs have a mountain of information at their fingertips – contracts, commitments, purchase history, invoices, vendor data and most importantly, supply, physician and procedure level patient outcome data. Spend analysis allows GPOs to enrich their spend data with outside information (market data, physician preferences, patient outcome data, etc.) to confirm that a contract is still providing value and to identify less expensive, more effective supply alternatives.
The high costs of healthcare dominate headlines and for good reason – purchasing a single pacemaker off-contract may be as much as $700 more than buying one from a vendor under contract. Physician preference items can be expensive. But if the cost can be justified by a better outcome, there is a greater value that is provided by the GPO beyond cost savings.

What’s the benefit for the GPO, why would they want to invest in areas that aren’t instrumental to savings – how can they measure success? By working with a company that is improving health, ultimately there is benefit which ties back to spend. Healthcare organizations want their patients to be healthy – but also on the economic front, they need to responsibly source their goods.

Spend analysis and patient outcomes seem like unlikely partners, but with 80% of overall healthcare spend controlled by the top GPOs, they are implementing spend analysis to find ways to make much needed cost reductions while upholding the same standard of care – deciding what products make the most sense for the patients, as well as the bottom line.

Paul Martyn

Paul Martyn is VP of Supply Strategy at BravoSolution, the spend analysis company.

Bryan Q. Eshelman has been promoted to Executive Vice President – Chief Supply Chain Officer, effective immediately. Eshelman joined Charming Shoppes in 2010 as Senior Vice President – Operations, with responsibility for technology, logistics, technical design and quality assurance.

As Chief Supply Chain Officer, he will retain responsibility for the aforementioned functions and assume the additional responsibility for the Company’s global direct sourcing operations, including, its buying offices in Hong Kong, China, and India, strategic sourcing across all product categories and brands, vendor compliance, and international trade and customs compliance.

In his expanded role, Eshelman is charged with accelerating the expansion and penetration of the Company’s vertical model and leveraging its supply chain to its fullest across all brands. Since joining Charming Shoppes, he has led a number of key initiatives relating to Charming Shoppes’ IT systems transformation and multi-faceted supply chain strategies. Eshelman continues to report directly to Anthony M. Romano, President and Chief Executive Officer of Charming Shoppes, Inc.

The Company also announced that Donna Isralsky has joined Charming Shoppes as Senior Vice President – Strategic Sourcing, reporting to Eshelman. Isralsky will be responsible for numerous strategic initiatives, supporting the expansion and penetration of the Company’s vertical model, and managing relationships with key suppliers. She has extensive experience in retail sourcing across all product categories, having spent her career as a senior sourcing executive and business leader at Williams-Sonoma, Reebok, and Target/Mervyns.

Commenting on Eshelman’s promotion, Anthony M. Romano, President and Chief Executive Officer of Charming Shoppes, Inc. stated, “I am very pleased to announce Bryan’s well-deserved promotion. During his tenure at Charming Shoppes, he has driven dramatic improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of our operations and is working on a number of strategic initiatives that will help us maximize results and drive profitability.”

On Isralsky’s appointment, Eshelman said, “We are very happy that Donna has chosen to join Charming Shoppes. She brings a wealth of experience in retail sourcing and will help us to maximize our sourcing capabilities in a number of strategic growth areas.”

Charming Shoppes Inc

“As a leading provider of transportation and logistics solutions, our stakeholders expect us to be stewards of real-world efficiency and sustainability,” stated Ryder Chairman and CEO Greg Swienton. “We take this expectation seriously and will continue our commitment to achieving results the right way, and delivering on our promises with character and accountability.”

Ryder’s Corporate Sustainability Report is available online at www.ryder.com in the “About Us” section. Highlights in the report include:

Governance, Ethics & Compliance:

– Achieving recognition from GovernanceMetrics International as one of The 20 Most Responsible Companies.

– Completing more than 12,000 online compliance training lessons with employees around the world.

Environment:

– Implementing a first-of-its-kind heavy duty natural gas vehicle project for commercial rental and lease fleets in Southern California.

– Reducing energy and water consumption across U.S. and Canada operations.

Safety & Security:

– Launching a Sleep Apnea Wellness program to reduce the effects of fatigue among affected professional truck drivers at Ryder.

– Completing certification as a Third Party Logistics Provider (3PL) in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) program for logistics operations in Asia.

People & Community:

– Making a $1 million commitment to become a member of the American Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program.

– Redesigning the Company’s Leadership Competency Model and linking hiring, performance management, and professional development to four key leadership behaviors: character, judgment, relationships, and results.

About Ryder

Ryder is a FORTUNE 500(R) commercial transportation, logistics and supply chain management solutions company. Ryder’s stock R +0.02% is a component of the Dow Jones Transportation Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Inbound Logistics magazine has recognized Ryder as a top third party logistics provider and included Ryder in its 2011 and 2010 “Green Partners” listing. Ryder has also been ranked two years in a row as one of the top 250 U.S. companies in the Newsweek Green Rankings. In addition, Security Magazine has named Ryder one of the top companies for security practices in the transportation, logistics, supply chain, and warehousing sector. Ryder is a proud member of the American Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program, supporting national and local disaster preparedness and response efforts. For more information, visit www.ryder.com and follow us on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements and information included in this news release are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Federal Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on our current plans and expectations and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Accordingly, these forward-looking statements should be evaluated with consideration given to the many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements including those risks set forth in our periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. New risks emerge from time to time. It is not possible for management to predict all such risk factors or to assess the impact of such risks on our business. Accordingly, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE: Ryder System, Inc.

Ryder System, Inc.
Cindy Haas, 305-500-4526
Cindy_Haas@Ryder.com
or
Marilu Del Toro, 305-500-3161
Marilu_DelToro@Ryder.com

Hicks’ unparalleled expertise in sales and marketing strategy and supply chain management has been honed through a breadth of strategic positions. Recently, Hicks was the Vice President of Worldwide Services Sales and Marketing for Lenovo Computers and was responsible for long-term growth strategies and overall sales performance of the division. Prior to Lenovo, Hicks was a Vice President at Capgemini Consulting and led the West Supply Chain Practice, where he advised clients on how to optimize and virtualize their supply chains. He has also held key roles with Deloitte, Dell, Frito Lay and UPS.

Jay Bhatt, president and chief executive officer, Progress Software said: “Business leaders need real visibility to mitigate risks and take quick, decisive actions, and the supply chain presents an enormous opportunity to realize these benefits. Hicks’ expertise and leadership will help Progress customers deploy supply chain technologies that enable them to become more operationally responsive and build market share.”

Hicks earned his bachelor’s degree in Operations Management from Auburn University and his master’s of business administration from Emory University.

About Progress Software Corporation

Progress Software Corporation PRGS +1.42% is an independent enterprise software company that enables businesses to be operationally responsive to changing conditions and customer interactions as they occur — to capitalize on new opportunities, drive greater efficiencies and reduce risk. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of best-in-class enterprise software spanning event-driven visibility and real-time response, open integration, data access and integration, and application development and deployment — all supporting on-premises and SaaS/Cloud deployments. Progress maximizes the benefits of operational responsiveness while minimizing IT complexity and total cost of ownership. Progress can be reached at www.progress.com or +1-781-280-4000 .

Progress and Progress Software are trademarks or registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation and/or its subsidiaries or affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Any other names contained herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE: Progress Software Corporation

Progress Software
Colleen Sheehan, +1 781-280-4362
csheehanatprogress.com
or
LEWIS PR
Kim Karelis, +1 617-226-8844
progresssoftware@lewispr.com
@ProgressSW

Copyright Business Wire 2011

To help clients with this challenge, IBM is leading the industry again in supply chain analytics with its latest release of the IBM ILOG LogicNet Plus supply chain design solution. This solution provides powerful optimization and scenario analytics to determine optimal supply chain configurations, sourcing strategies and production plans. It takes into account all cost and constraint variables, whether manufacturing, transportation or warehousing, across multiple tiers of even the most complex networks.

The new release introduces the industry’s first multi-objective optimization technology; enabling companies to gain a much deeper understanding of the trade-offs between conflicting objectives within their supply chain. This breakthrough in network modeling capabilities is achieved through complex mathematical capabilities. The new solution can move from single to two-dimensional analysis allowing companies to gain more insight and develop better business plans by directly balancing critical objectives.

The software creates a graphical curve that helps companies visualize the tradeoffs between different objectives in any model. Without this capability, users would have to run hundreds of ‘what if scenarios’ to gain just a small amount of insight into this trade-off or blindly run scenarios without guidance as to what limits to set around the key objectives. For example, a company deciding on an optimal number of distribution centers can evaluate the optimal risk point between cost and service levels to understand the exact point of diminishing returns.

This new capability will benefit companies in many industries, including manufacturers, consumer products companies, food and beverage, retail and transportation companies. It will bring companies more insight than ever before into the key drivers of their supply chain by quickly and transparently being able to see the interaction of supply chain objectives. Popular examples that exploit the multi-objective optimization include these comparisons:

– Total Costs vs. Sourcing Costs – This helps companies achieve the best balance between developing products themselves or sourcing them by comparing optimized sourcing costs from outside suppliers with transportation and internal manufacturing costs.
– Total Costs vs. Number of Storage Locations – This helps companies understand the diminishing returns on the total cost of its supply chain network when considering adding new storage locations closer to demand markets.
– Service to Top Customers vs. Overall Service – This helps companies understand how much its service levels to its standard customers suffer when it tailors service for its top customers.

The latest release of this already-robust network design solution continues IBM’s efforts to give companies full insight into the optimized results being recommended. For example, it’s added additional depth into landed cost and lane analysis reporting. In addition, IBM also continues to enhance the tool’s ‘ease of use’ by including features such as lane visualization capabilities that make model building more efficient and visually appealing to line of business executives trying to understand and take part in the modeling effort from a higher level.

Change is constant. These new capabilities from IBM are providing the next generation of analytics capabilities that will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s dynamic, agile supply chains optimized to support smarter commerce. For more information on these capabilities, visit these sites:

See this blogpost from Michael Watson describing the latest update and here’s a link to the IBM Logicnet Plus product page with further details.

A $1 million RFP for coal has been posted to Ariba Discovery®, the premier service for matching business buyers and sellers globally offered by Ariba, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARBA), the leading provider of collaborative business commerce solutions. Is it a coincidence? Or is the Indian manufacturing company behind the posting performing the work of elves?

“If the number of folks on his naughty list has grown, Santa may need to beef up his coal supply,” said Rob Mihalko, Vice President, Ariba Discovery. “And with Christmas just five days away, he’ll need to do it fast.”

As companies around the world have found, Ariba Discovery is the fastest, most efficient way to find new suppliers and lock in deals.

Delivered via the Ariba Network, Ariba Discovery is a unique cloud-based service that automatically matches buyer requirements with seller capabilities. Buyers using Discovery get access to a high-quality supply base and can reduce the time and cost of seller qualification by up to 90 percent, and overall project spend by 15 percent on average. Sellers can build relationships with real decision-makers in the world’s leading buying organizations and deliver valid buying opportunities faster than other marketing methods, boosting overall sales and marketing success.
In the past 12 months, more than 15,000 matches between buyers and sellers for more than $3 billion in business have been made through Ariba Discovery.

To learn more about the service and how your organization can benefit from it, visit http://discovery.ariba.com.

About Ariba, Inc.

Ariba, Inc. is the leading provider of collaborative business commerce solutions. Ariba combines industry-leading technology with the world’s largest web-based trading community to help companies discover, connect and collaborate with a global network of partners – all in a cloud-based environment. Using the Ariba® Commerce Cloud, businesses of all sizes can buy, sell and manage cash more efficiently and effectively. Over 700,000 around the globe use the Ariba Commerce Cloud to simplify inter-enterprise commerce and enhance results. Why not join them? To get on the path to Better Commerce visit: www.ariba.com/commercecloud/

OTHER RECENT QUIRKY POSTINGS ON ARIBA DISCOVERY:
• $100,000-$500,000 worth of gearbox housings
• $100,000 worth of towels
• $1 million to $5 million worth of fresh meat or poultry
• $10,000 worth of straw
• $1 million to $5 million of boilers
• $10,000 worth of genetics research services
• $10,000 worth of dolls
• $50,000 to $100,000 worth of gates
• $500,000 to $1 million worth of treats for cats or dogs
• $50,000 worth of hydrological surveys
• $10,000 to $50,000 worth of costumes
• $5 million worth of price tags
• $100,000 to $500,000 worth of energy conservation

“We urge Congress to exercise their power to step in to keep the flow of goods moving and avert an avoidable economic catastrophe. Such a significant interruption of supply chains at this critical time would have a broad and dramatic effect, while interfering with retailers’ ability to provide customers with the items they seek during the holidays and beyond,” said RILA President Sandy Kennedy.

Retailers rely on an efficient rail transportation system to move products to distribution facilities and stores every day of the year. Freight rail is a crucial to the movement of retail goods and any disruptions in that link would be destructive to the retail industry’s ability to deliver their goods in a “just in time” fashion.

“A national railroad shutdown would force retailers to shift the delivery of their goods to trucks, increasing costs, time of delivery and congestion on our nations already crowded roadways,” added Kennedy.

In letters to House and Senate Leaders, RILA urged “we strongly encourage Congress to preemptively impose the terms recommended by the Obama Administration Presidential Emergency Board to avoid the potential disastrous negative impact.”

RILA is the trade association of the world’s largest and most innovative retail companies. RILA members include more than 200 retailers, product manufacturers, and service suppliers, which together account for more than $1.5 trillion in annual sales, millions of American jobs and more than 100,000 stores, manufacturing facilities and distribution centers domestically and abroad.
###

> iTunes has revolutionized the way we buy and consume music
> Amazon has reinvented the way we read books
> Groupon have inject hysteria into the process of bargain hunting on the Web.
> Go to www.reebok.com/Customize , www.nike.com/iD, or www.miadidas.com, to design a pair of sneakers.
> Shirts My Way asks users to submit their exact body measurements for a shirt tailored to fit.
> MixMyGranola lets you choose all the fixings that go into your granola mix.
> Chocri lets you create your own chocolate bar.
> Heinz will let you add custom labels to ketchup bottles.
> Personalized M&Ms are now available with your face, or a company logo on them.
> SAP has even found an orchard that lets you customize apples (see picture)

So, how will social networking affect businesses and supply chains? We are seeing a lot of marketing to end consumers, and thus new channels to drive demand, but how can we improve our supply processes? Can we leverage social networks to drive benefits across our end-to-end supply chain processes?

Enter the social and mobile network

With an estimated 1.2bn people (20 per cent of the world’s population) on social networks, we are at a point where social software capabilities need to be prevalent throughout enterprise systems. And increasingly, we are accessing this social network through mobile devices.

In 2010, the installed base of mobile PCs and smart phones exceeded that of desktop PCs and about 20m tablet devices (e.g. iPads, ) were sold. By 2016 this number is estimated to rise to 900 million, or one for every eight people on eartth.

Is your supply network ready for the Social Network?

At the recent CSCMP Annual Global Conference there was a session on Social Media in Supply Chain Management where the question was posed “Is Social Media in Supply Chain Management a Waste of Time?” The moderator, Adrian Gonzalez wrote a great summary of the event in his logistics viewpoint article.

As the examples above show, to this point social media has been used mostly by business-to-consumer (B2C) to enable companies to promote their brands and market their products to consumers. From a business perspective, the “early adopters” are young professionals who already use these tools (such as facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and blogs) in their personal lives, and the focus has been largely on enhancing external communication, awareness and thought leadership.

Now we are starting to see leaders leveraging social networks for more business-to-business (B2B) processes. Collaborating with customers, suppliers, outsourced manufacturers, LSP’s and other partners. www.socialtimes.com reported that the “Use of social networks by the Fortune 500 companies has seen explosive growth in 2010, with 83% of the companies using at least one of the social media sites.”

A recent report by Buddy Media and Booz & Company identified Facebook (with 850 million users, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that 94% of respondents regard it #1), Twitter(77%) and YouTube (42%) as the top three preferred social media platforms for brands to utilize. This information does not mean that the functionality of other social media platforms, including blogs, and enterprise systems like Moxie Software and Yammer are not valuable to enhance external communication and collaboration (See 11 Predictions for B2B Social Media in 2011).

SAP recently announced the acquisition of Crossgate to instantly connect SAP customers and their business partners to networking at the enterprise level. Crossgate helps companies connect with any trading partner by joining the network once and linking with prebuilt business partner profiles. This is a full-service alternative, which eliminates the need for costly point-to-point integration. It lowers costs and enables further partner participation in B2B initiatives.

There is also a huge opportunity to improve internal communication and collaboration between co-workers and across functional groups and departments. We at SAP leverage SAP StreamWork to bring together people from different locations, regions and departments to “get everyone on the same page”. We use this collaboration tool to share documents and data, and collaborate with a structured approach with tools for brainstorming and decision-making.

It is not a case of IF social networks will have an effect on your business and associated supply networks. It is a case of WHEN.

As one of the executives on the CSCMP Panel commented “Five years from now we won’t be talking about social media in supply chain management–it will just be supply chain management”.

The advent of social networks is offering a whole new wave of opportunities. As ever, it’s what you do with these opportunities and how you manage them that will make the difference.

Richard Howells

Originally posted on Forbes.com