{"id":410,"date":"2012-03-15T17:10:53","date_gmt":"2012-03-15T21:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/?p=410"},"modified":"2012-03-15T17:10:54","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T21:10:54","slug":"predictions-from-supply-chain-gurus-2012-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/2012\/03\/15\/supply-chain-management\/predictions-from-supply-chain-gurus-2012-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Predictions from Supply Chain Gurus 2012 – Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

As promised, here is my take on the Predictions from Supply Chain Gurus for 2012. You can read the article at SC Digest :  Predictions from Supply Chain Gurus for 2012<\/a><\/p>\n

First up the Gartner Boyz:<\/p>\n

\n

Like others, Gartner is projecting a movement of manufactured goods overseas back nearer to US soil, if not within the country itself. It projects that "By 2014, 20% of Asia-sourced finished goods and assemblies consumed in the US will shift to the Americas," which of course can mean Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rico and other nearby sourcing locations.<\/p>\n

The drivers? First,they says that many companies initially underestimated the true total costs of long supply chains offshored to Asia, miscalculating inventory costs, greater issues with product quality, lost sales or discounted prices due to long lead times, IP theft, and more.<\/p>\n

They also note that some of those issues may soon be exacerbated in some countries (meaning China) as more and more production will be consumed in Asian markets, not Western ones.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sorry, guys but I predicted this way back in 2006-07. Don\u2019t believe me, you can read it for yourself here: Surviving the China Rup Tide \u2013 How to profit from the Supply Chain Bottleneck<\/a> and The Intimate Supply Chain \u2013 Part 1<\/a> amongst other posts. The simple point is that none of these supply chain moves (no matter who the guru predicting it is \u2013 not even me) are holy writ but they\u2019re very much context writ. <\/p>\n

And what explains this shift?<\/p>\n

\n

"Customer demand for service excellence and increased product choice at competitive prices is
driving brand owners to reassess the value delivered by their supply networks," the analysts say. "Sacrificing lead time for reduced unit cost will be insufficient to satisfy this customer requirement."<\/p>\n

For certain segments of the supply chain, a "nearshore" strategy will make a lot more sense, they believe.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Come on, does this hypothesis pass muster? Isn\u2019t there a recession on still \u2013 unofficially but have you taken a look at the purchasing power of the middle class lately?<\/p>\n

Production to scale is a great idea when demand is always pointing upwards on a growth chart but it\u2019s a sorry idea if your demand falls off a cliff or in this case becomes as volatile as fickle fig leaf.<\/p>\n

Further,<\/p>\n

\n

Gartner says that "After billions of dollars spent on ERP, many companies still lack the timely, accurate and network-based data that can guide fact-based, timely supply chain decisions." It also notes that companies are collecting in one way or another vast amounts of information, much if not most of which is not being used effectively for improved decision making. "Big data" is the term associated with the opportunity to better mine this information and extract more value out of it, to the great delight of data warehouse. analytics, and storage vendors.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now, remember what I said just a few posts back about the inevitable entrance of Big Data into the enterprise world \u2013 this is no big secret and my advice to you is to get on the bandwagon now. That\u2019s also the reason why I started my Big Data blog because there\u2019s no escaping this elephant in the room. <\/font><\/p>\n

This provides a perfect segue into a curious coincidence wherein this firm came into my crosshairs \u2013 Lokad<\/a>. Now, I\u2019m not very familiar with the technology but that will be the focus of my  next blog post as I investigate what they do. The gist of it is that they\u2019re trying to get better forecasts by digging through Big Data.<\/font><\/p>\n

Stay tuned for that update\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n

Technorati Tags: Supply Chain Gurus 2012 Predictions<\/a>,Supply Chain Gurus<\/a>,2012 Predictions for Supply Chain<\/a>,Lokad<\/a>,Big Data Forecasting<\/a>,Gartner Analysts<\/a>,Supply Chain Trends<\/a>,SC Digest<\/a><\/div>\n

 <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As promised, here is my take on the Predictions from Supply Chain Gurus for 2012. You can read the article at SC Digest :  Predictions from Supply Chain Gurus for 2012 First up the Gartner Boyz: Like others, Gartner is projecting a movement of manufactured goods overseas back nearer to US soil, if not within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,3,4,11],"tags":[283,293,237,290,102,296,291,295,289,294,284,282,288,292,68],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-observations","category-supply-chain-management","category-supply-chain-news","category-supply-chain-software","tag-2012-predictions-for-supply-chain","tag-americas","tag-asia","tag-big-data-forecasting","tag-china","tag-data-warehouse","tag-gartner-analysts","tag-honduras","tag-lokad","tag-mexico","tag-sc-digest","tag-supply-chain-gurus","tag-supply-chain-gurus-2012-predictions","tag-supply-chain-trends","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/at-scm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}