There’s an article over at EDN here asking what impact the holiday season will have on the electronics supply chain. The article starts by saying that “consumers still hold the keys to the kingdom” - which is precisely why this will be such a challenging season from a demand management and supply chain management perspective.

** My comment **

I think the only constant this year is going to be change. The reality is, as you stated, that nobody fully knows. My expectation is that sales will be strong because consumer appetite for electronics continues to grow across a variety of products.

For manufacturers, the key will be flexibility and responsiveness. The holiday season represents a huge demand management and supply chain management challenge for all manufacturers. It’s become a reality that nobody can accurately plan out these events.

Manufacturers can’t afford to miss out on the sales this season represents. With the challenges associated with trying to accurately forecast true demand, the key will be those that can respond quickest and most effectively to demand volatility and supply hiccups.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 10:20 am and is filed under Demand management, General News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.