Demand management - it’s the talk of the town
We just completed our Kinexions ‘06 conference and had in attendance some of the world’s leading brand owners and contract manufacturers. We talked about a wide variety of themes - challenges in dealing with new product introductions amidst ever shortening product lifecycles, the challenges of managing increasingly outsourced supply chains, etc. But the number one theme that we continued to hear from all parties were the challenges associated with demand management.
I can’t think of a single company I talked to that wasn’t dealing with challenges in this area. Companies are challenged by increasing competition, shorter product lifecycles, outsourced supply chain and broad geographic market reach that make the dynamic aligment of demand and supply an increasing difficult challenge. The concensus is that planning has become less successful and the key is how to empower people with the right information and tools to respond to these ever present changes.
Leaders are increasingly moving to tigher relationships across their supply networks that promote collaboration through shared information and user empowerment. There was a great deal of energy around this issue. While brand owners and contract manufacturers are clearly distinct businesses with varying challenges, they are also completely “tied at the hip” in terms of dealing with these challenges. And, the key to solving them requires collaboration at a personal level, enabled by the appropriate sharing of information.
