Posts categorized as 'Gartner Supply Chain Managment'

Kinaxis once again positioned as a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning System of Record

MikeMcAllister

It’s important to be recognized, in life, and in business.

Gartner Magic Quadrant SCP SOR

That’s why we’re particularly excited to share the news of Gartner’s most recent research, the 2018 Magic Quadrant for Supply Chain Planning System of Record. In it, Gartner positions Kinaxis as a Leader for the third consecutive time, providing what we think is some pretty weighty validation for our vision of what a supply chain planning platform should be.

Gartner defines an SCP SOR as a planning platform that “enables a company to create, visualize, manage, link, align, collaborate and share its planning data across a supply chain. The platform encompasses demand plan creation, the supply-side response, and detailed operational and tactical-level planning.”1

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Takeaways from the 2018 Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference

Dr. MadhavDurbha

Dana Stiffler - Gartner Supply Chain Executive ConferenceSupply chain insights from leading industry experts

Supply chain skills in high demand, digital twins, disruptive technologies, and other takeaways from the 2018 Gartner supply chain conference

I just returned from the highly engaging and inspiring Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. With more than 2200 supply chain professionals in attendance, the event had a very good representation across practitioners, technology providers, and consultants.

Here are some key takeaways from the Gartner supply chain event:

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Digital supply chains, AI, Blockchain and the future of work – Insights from the Gartner supply chain executive conference

Dr. MadhavDurbha

Gartner 2017The 2017 Gartner supply chain executive conference took place at the O2-Intercontinental Hotel in London on September 20th and 21st. The theme of the conference was ACT (Aspire, Challenge, Transform), same as the Gartner supply chain summit in Phoenix during May of this year. A few of the presentations in London, such as a highly provocative key note by John Philips of PepsiCo are a repeat from this prior event. I covered my observations from the May event in a previous blog. To avoid repetition, I will focus on some net new messages that resonated well with me from this event. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Tailor your supply chain to cater to diverse businesses: In his keynote, Mourad Tamoud, EVP of Global Supply Chain Operations of Schneider Electric talked about how they are segmenting their supply network based on their customer personas and purchasing behaviors. Based on how Schneider plans, delivers and executes, the following five supply chain models were defined:

a. Collaborative
b. Lean supply chain (for customers who value the economic aspects of their purchases)
c. Agile model (for the customers who value reliability above all else)
d. Project model (for high level of configurability)
e. Fully flexible

Using these different supply chain models, Schneider was able to tailor the service and the overall experience for customers by different personas/groups. The crux of his message was that the overall design and the technological enablers are equally important in enabling “tailored supply chains”.

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The top 25 supply chains and Survivor

CJWehlage

Gartner top 25 supply chainA few years ago, Kevin O’Marah said Gartner’s Top 25 Supply Chains was getting increasingly boring. Apple and P&G were annually #1 and #2. So Gartner looked at the numbers and created the Masters category. The criteria in qualifying for the Masters category is any company who has been in the top five rankings for at least seven out of the past 10 years. This year, Amazon was voted off the regular list, and joins Apple and P&G in this Masters category. In 2019, it’s likely both Unilever and McDonald’s will also be voted off the island and move into the Masters category, as well.

Gartner’s Top 25 Supply Chains has become like watching Survivor, the reality TV show that places people on a remote location, where they outwit, outplay and outlast the others. I laugh when they vote out the Navy Seal or the Triathlete. Then, they have no food and lose the following week’s challenge. At tribal council, they wonder why they lost. Easy answer here – vote out the best and the tribe gets weaker. Or, as Nature Boy Ric Flair says, “If you want to be the man, you gotta beat the man.” Something needs to be done differently in the Masters category if Gartner wants to avoid simply having two lists.

Once again – Peer vs Gartner

Another change needed is the vast difference between how the 169 peers vs the 38 Gartner analysts rank the companies.

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Aspire, challenge and transform: Insights from the Gartner Supply Chain Executive conference

Dr. MadhavDurbha

Gartner Supply Chain Executive conferenceI enjoy attending conferences. They give me the opportunity to reflect, reconnect and recharge. One conference I recently attended is the Gartner Supply Chain Executive conference in Phoenix, Arizona. With a lineup of very inspiring speakers, provocative content and pragmatic use cases shared by practitioners, the event certainly lived up to the theme of ACT (aspire, challenge and transform). Here are my takeaways:

1. Digital disruption is here and now: John Phillips, SVP of Customer Supply Chain, PepsiCo, presented some fascinating examples of getting products into the hands of consumers in unique ways powered by robotics and artificial intelligence. Here are some of the examples he shared to highlight how the traditional linear supply chains are being disrupted:

  • Connected home sharing consumption signals (e.g. smart refrigerators and Amazon dash buttons)
  • Cashier-free stores powered by the Internet of Things (IoT) (e.g. Amazon Go)
  • In-store robotics (robots scanning shelves and delivering real-time signals)

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ACT now to take your supply chain into the future

AlexaCheater

One message came through loud and clear during Gartner’s recent Supply Chain Executive Conference; you must ACT (aspire, challenge, transform) now if you want to have any hope in taking your supply chain profitably into the future. The conference’s theme of Aspire, Challenge and Transform in a Disruptive World featured prominently in the opening keynote address by two of the research firm’s VPs, Debra Hofman and Michael Burkett, who urged attendees to re-imagine their roles and ask how they will meet the future.

The pair talked about how disruption is the new norm. I would argue it always has been, but agree the explosion of interconnectivity and digital disruptors is causing an immediate impact on supply chain—even if the supporting technology behind it has individually been around for years. I’d also agree that to be successful it’s time to re-define the very notion of supply chain.

Providing an experience, not just a product

With more than $16 trillion exports moving between countries annually, the new reality isn’t just focused on getting the right product to the right people at the right time. As Hofman and Burkett put it, it’s about creating an experience-focused supply chain, which will force you as supply chain managers and leaders to gain a better understanding of your customers than ever before.

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Kinaxis Positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Sales and Operations Planning System of Differentiation

MelissaClow

Gartner S&OP SOD Magic QuadrantIt is with great pride that we announce Kinaxis® has been placed in the Leaders quadrant of the recently published Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales and Operations Planning Systems of Differentiation.

Gartner defines a sales and operations planning (S&OP) System of Differentiation (SOD) as a software solution that supports a Stage 4 or higher maturity S&OP process. According to the report, “Leaders have a strong vision for their S&OP SOD capabilities. They recognize the role they will need to play in enabling the move toward multienterprise horizontal planning allied with vertical integration that links strategy to operations and execution. They are looking at developing analytics to support probability-focused end-to-end predictive and prescriptive analytics to support profitability trade-offs and supply chain design and configuration capability.”1

Because of our unique ability to provide concurrent planning, Kinaxis RapidResponse® is an ideal solution to take companies through the various stages of S&OP maturity. We believe the next revolution in supply chain performance can only be achieved by realizing the speed of cross-functional decision making. As today’s press release indicated, our goal is to advance our customers’ S&OP processes from early stages through to Stage 4, and beyond, over time by taking advantage of all full capabilities in our single product.

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And I thought last year’s Top 25 Supply Chain was a surprise

CJWehlage

On the bus ride back to the McDowell Marriott after the 2016 Gartner Top 25 Supply Chain event, I plugged my ear phones into my cell and listened to some Pearl Jam. Their classic hit, Last Kiss, the song summed up my thoughts about the 2016 rankings. So, the supply chain version of Last Kiss would go something like this…

“Oh where, oh where, can my supply chain be?

The trends took her away from me

She’s gone peripheral, so I’ve got to think Core

So I can get my supply chain back to reality”

The “Green Washing” of the Top 25

If you take out the new CSR ranking from 2016, your Top 25 rankings would be:

Actual 2016 Rank Without CSR Rank Wehlage Bold Predictions
1 Unilever Amazon Amazon
2 McDonald’s McDonald’s Unilever
3 Amazon Unilever Inditex
4 Intel Intel Intel
5 H&M Cisco Samsung
6 Inditex H&M Cisco
7 Cisco Inditex McDonald’s
8 Samsung Nike H&M
9 Coca Cola Starbucks Nike
10 Nestle Colgate Palmolive Starbucks

 

Three pieces of edgy insights from this:

a. My Bold Predictions were not far off. I did call the Nike and Starbucks entry into the Top 10. I am bolder on Samsung, simply because they had the highest 2016 Inventory Turns aside from McDonalds. As well, Samsung was 7th in Peer Voting rank, so the other “185” Peer voters agree with me.

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