What do supply chain technology buyers care about? As a product marketing manager, Jennifer is on a mission to find out. What keeps supply chain software buyers awake at night? Which Websites do they visit? Which leg of their pants do they put on first? Okay, maybe not that last one. But learning these finer points makes everything HighJump posts, reports on and plans more useful to our potential customers. Jennifer shares observations, insights and interesting industry news from a product marketing – and a developing student of supply chain industry knowledge – point of view.
Outside of work, there’s a good chance you’ll find Jennifer outdoors soaking up that fresh north woods air, spending time with her husband and son or watching NHL hockey.
Recently I read a blog post by Adrian Gonzales of ARC Advisory Group which included examples of how social media tools are being put to practical supply chain use in businesses such as Con-way, where Twitter feeds are helping match carriers with available freight. This combined with the fact that mobile internet use / wireless connectivity is growing faster than most people expected clearly demonstrates the practicality of two entirely different types of technology coming together to create an amazing hybrid supply chain solution. This leads me to wonder: is supply chain management ready to cross paths with social media?
On second thought, maybe we need to differentiate between operational supply chain management and supply chain management research and networking. Could it be that some supply chain management professionals are ready to acquiesce when it comes to testing and adopting some “bleeding edge” Twitter and mobile execution solutions if it leads to pragmatic business benefits, but that they aren’t ready to whole-heartedly make the jump into using Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter as trusted sources for evaluating new technology purchases? What about giving feedback and collaborating about the solutions they already have?
Cisco recently won a “Best Use of Facebook” award for their Facebook fan page (http://www.facebook.com/Cisco). The page was originally created to aggregate all of Cisco’s social networks and content into one channel and create a unique experience for their fans, and now it’s grown to almost 80,000 members strong.
Seems my writing has led me to more questions than answers. What do all of you think? How to supply chain technology buyers like to collect peer group feedback on purchases and vendor experience? Are you ready for supply chain software vendors to jump in wholeheartedly with social media efforts beyond the popular blogs?
It’s the point of decision: the consumer is reaching through the convenience store cooler door to grab her chosen brand. What affected her decision? What if you see each DSD technology touch point involved in getting the product to the store, and understand how it affected the consumer’s decision?
HighJump’s new video makes it easy to understand how a modern DSD suite works together, including route accounting system (RAS), mobile presell and delivery, surveys and data collection, load optimization, GPS tracking and more.
What’s so difficult? If you’re a third-party logistics provider (3PL)/logistics services provider (LSP), all you need to do is provide efficient warehouse management, exceptional inventory visibility, seamless freight management and timely and accurate 3PL billing. Oh, and you need to do it all more cheaply – and just plain better – than your customers can do it themselves. Bit of a tall order, especially when you’re trying to post your own profit too!
I imagine trying to stand out among other 3PLs is similar to any other more commoditized service. You’ve got to: (1) Find a way to attract new customers and (2) Keep the customers you already have so happy that they’ll gladly tell their peers about how fantastic your services are.
One of the advantages of being in the fast-growing logistics services space is that technology providers have their development teams working overtime to create tools to make things easier for you. With modern supply chain management software, you have the means to achieve those two huge tasks. Here are a few examples.
·Facilitated on-boarding new customers – the quicker you can do it, the sooner you can get paid, right?
·Getting the billing right – new automated 3PL billing technology is making it simpler make sure you are getting paid for each service you provide, and that you can easily account for those charges. You can also preset billing rules at a very granular level – a detail which might help your sales team seal a few deals?
·Tracking inventory attributes – it’s the nature of your business – every customer wants to track different attributes, even if the items are exactly the same as another customer. Now you can set up detailed – and different – rules for each customer.
·Offering more value-added services – the best way to set your business apart from 3PLs that just provide shelf space. These value-added services can be anything from repackaging to relabeling, kitting and light manufacturing. Adaptable supply chain technology can support the adding of new services that your customers are waiting for.
Guess it’s just perspective…it’s a challenging, cost-conscious industry, but you’ve got access to the technology to let you go grab your share of new business.
I suspect, although it wouldn’t be admitted to in mixed company, that the presumption has oft been made that having any sort of route accounting software in place puts that direct store delivery business ahead of most. Quite a stretch, considering the increasing complexity of food and beverage distribution processes and requirements, and the extreme range of RASs out there (think old pick-up vs. shiny new SUV).
Now, that old pick-up was, in its day, the envy of many. It could even drive through some bumpy terrain. But now, although it [usually] starts, and can [almost] reach highway speeds, it’s not too reliable, and you need to visit salvage yards to find replacement parts. Not exactly the chariot you want your precious cargo riding in, and not exactly cost-effective. Not the most inspired metaphor, but not too far off?
So how do you know if you’ve got a route accounting system akin to that old pick-up?
Your processing times seem to be getting slower and slower.
You spend days trying to extract data for reports you need to run your business.
It’s tough to get applications to work together and you’re spending a lot of time and money making integrations work.
There’s only one person there who understands the necessary workarounds of your RAS – and he’s retiring next fall.
No, we haven’t been shadowing you. The fact is: the symptoms you’re experiencing are quite common to DSD businesses running on dated technology. While your system may still work at a basic functional level (the pick-up still starts and runs, remember?), modern technology can provide new features, better access to company performance and smoother integration with other systems.
You may even be interested in the “full maintenance plan” (to extend the vehicle metaphor painfully further) for a modern route accounting system – otherwise known as an on-demand, or hosted system. This option removes the maintenance headache completely by having your supply chain management software vendor host your system for you. There is no hardware to purchase or maintain and patches and upgrades are done automatically.
This year may be the best yet for your direct store delivery business – do you have a swift, reliable and easy-to-maintain “vehicle” to get you there?
One of the top reasons people buy HighJump systems is because HighJump applications are designed to easily adapt to the way you do business - not force you to twist your business processes to fit the software. The adaptability promise continues with HighJump's new business intelligence application - HighJump Performance Advantage.
In a nutshell, HighJump Performance Advantage allows supply chain customers to view summary-level operational data in the form of graphical dashboards, and then drill down to root cause in order to correct any problems. Over time, this ability can lead to significant process improvement in a warehouse/DC or manufacturing shop floor.
It's easy to create personalized dashboards to suit your own operation. And you can set up dashboards for every user persona in your operation. Ex: an outbound dashboard for your shipping manager, an inbound dashboard for your receiving manager, and a capacity and utilization dashboard for an exec or warehouse manager.
Pretty cool stuff, but also very practical usage for HighJump customers interested in supply chain improvement and a way to give access to business performance metrics - and a route to operational improvement - to all members of the team.
I’m enjoying my second cup of coffee while learning about HighJump’s product strategy in our second day’s opening session at Innovation 2009. Sitting at my table with me are HighJump customers from the consumer goods, manufacturing and wine and spirits industries. Quite a representation!
HighJump’s Vice President of Product Strategy, Chad Collins, explains that HighJump plans to continue with the expansion of direct store delivery footprint into other geographies (HighJump is already the largest provider of DSD technology in North America), and deepen manufacturing execution and transportation capabilities.
As we get deeper into the presentation, we’re getting live demonstrations of some of HighJump’s most impressive new product offerings, including:
HighJump Performance Advantage – HighJump’s new business intelligence dashboarding solution for supply chain products that provides quick visual representation of key operational data/metrics
HighJump RouteCenter – HighJump’s go-forward route accounting system for the beverage industry has some pretty sophisticated drilldown, search and adaptability capabilities and many customers are already converting from older systems onto this modern platform.
GPS – HighJump’s DSD customers get more than just dots moving around a screen. This new real-time tool is great for any companies operating in a dynamic sales environment and creates staff coaching opptys and helps with fuel consumption – it’s already being used in the rendering and dairy DSD industries
HighJump Supply Chain Advantage 11.0 – our newest release is coming later this year and includes some pretty cool cloud computing and interoperability capabilities. Stay tuned!
Unique upgrade process - HighJump's upgrades stand apart from our competitors in that our customers can choose to include only the workflows they need when they upgrade, and keep existing configurations! See how it works at www.highjump.com/easy_upgrade
I'm highly caffeinated and ready to hit my first product session!
Thought leadership is on the menu today at HighJump Innovation 2009. HighJump partner TranSystems delivered a session on the changing supply chain technology strategies of supply chain giants, precipitated by the end of the era of “cheap” oil. Talk about giant…I just learned that Wal-mart has 88,000 logistics associates and their annual income represents about three percent of the U.S. economy! Here are some other tidbits taken from this supply chain management best-practices session.
Wal-mart is actually growing square-shaped watermelons in order to facilitate packing/shipping (they stack better than oval watermelons!)
Home Depot is moving toward "self-distribution" - a logistics model favoring direct store delivery from suppliers to a model that moves most products first through Home Depot distribution centers
Kimberly-Clark is consolidating distribution operations into regional mega-distribution / mixing centers positioned close to key customer markets
One of the common threads? Supply chain leaders are thinking outside the box and calling the shots with suppliers in order to help ensure their distribution operations are viable after the cheap oil era.
It’s good day in Orlando! Today marks the official start of HighJump’s annual user conference, Innovation 2009. Highlights of the morning so far? An excellent breakfast (I think the orange juice is actually fresh-squeezed!) followed by a rousing opening session delivered by HighJump’s President and CEO, Timothy Campbell. A year ago at Innovation 2008 HighJump unveiled a new business vision built on both strategic acquisitions and leveraging current solutions. What a year it’s been! Over the past 12 months HighJump has:
Added 196 new customers
Made two strategic acquisitions in the DSD market – in aggregate, HighJump is now the largest provider of direct store delivery (DSD) technology in North America
Introduced several new supply chain products, including a business intelligence module
Made available on-demand route accounting system; unveiled plans for more cloud computing
Looks like it’s going to be a great week of networking and learning. Looking forward to some great customer testimonials coming up next from Wisconsin Distributing and Provide Commerce (ProFlowers.com, RedEnvelope, etc.)!
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Jennifer is on a mission to find out. What keeps supply chain software buyers awake at night? Which Websites do they visit? Which leg of their pants do they put on first? Okay, maybe not that last one. But learning these finer points makes everything HighJump posts, reports on and plans more useful to our potential customers. Jennifer shares observations, insights and interesting industry news from a product marketing – and a developing student of supply chain industry knowledge – point of view.
sumption has oft been made that having any sort of route accounting software in place puts that direct store delivery business ahead of most. Quite a stretch, considering the increasing complexity of food and beverage distribution processes and requirements, and the extreme range of RASs out there (think old pick-up vs. shiny new SUV). 
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