Steelwedge Software

Steelwedge Software


How S&OP-Ready Are You?

Posted: 25 Oct 2012 06:00 AM PDT

This week, one of Steelwedge's flagship customers, Jack Lyon, the VP of Operations at Enterasys, led a thought-provoking webinar discussion on the benefits of S&OP for delivering long term growth. Enterasys has enjoyed an enviable streak of q/q growth for the past 3 years, and credits their S&OP foundation for powering better business agility to support that growth. Equally interesting was the participant engagement via live polling during the session. Test yourself on these S&OP readiness questions, then see how you fared vs. the replies from more than 300 registrants spanning from CIOs to VPs of Supply Chain, Sales and Marketing, and Demand Planners. What is your biggest planning challenge? Global volatility: 14% Demand visibility: 18% Supply excess: 3% Collaborative planning and engagement: 29% All of the above 35% At Steelwedge, we've seen a big evolution in this answer over the past 10 years alone. What started as a heavy focus on managing supply constraints, has morphed with the increasing dependency on trading partners and suppliers around the globe.  Today, there is a necessary focus on collaboration—not only within the "four walls" of the company, but also including partners and customers.  As business becomes more global, companies lose control and visibility of their supply chains due to outsourcing.  And they are increasingly realizing the need to trade out control for better alignment with their partners in exchange for better visibility.  Connecting the dots gives them what Enterasys has–agility to grow.… Read the rest

Steelwedge Software

Steelwedge Software


It’s Storm Season: Is Your Supply Chain Insurance in Place?

Posted: 03 Oct 2012 06:00 AM PDT

It took only minutes in 2011 for natural disasters to break apart supply chains that took global companies 30 years to build. As a result, companies worldwide moved supply chain insurance to the top of their corporate agendas.  Supply chain/business interruption losses are the largest unknown; but for context, already insured companies incurred more than $55 billion in losses in 2011. Today companies can insure carry up to $1 billion in supply chain insurance, ranging in cost from 2% to an undisclosed a la carte pricing determined by presented risk.  Supply Chain insurance went from a "nice to have" to a matter of national criticality, as evidenced by a Presidential directive in January this year, when President Barack Obama directed the Departments of State and Homeland Security to come up with a plan to protect the $14.6 trillion U.S. economy from interruptions in the supply chain. The White House released a National Strategy for Global Supply Chain Security to make recommendations on identifying risks and making commercial infrastructure more resilient. "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," President Obama said in a letter earlier this year.… Read the rest