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Tracking the condition and status of a company's assets just got easier with the new upgrade from RedPrairie Corp., an optimization company. The E2e Supply Chain Execution suite is now integrated with asset management capabilities of the company's standalone Mobile Resource Management solutuion.

"Integrated visibility and control over the movement of inventory and assets across today’s complex global supply networks can be slow, costly, and very challenging. In the past, inventory and the assets used to ship them were tracked in two separate systems, which made closed-loop tracking of assets very difficult. With the new release, customers can manage this combined movement through a single process, driving greater efficiency, improved visibility and stronger control over supply chain operations," said Tom Kozenski, vice president product strategy

The system supports the use of RFID, 2-D barcodes and other AIDC technologies to track inventory and assets within the distribution center, as well as outside of it, such as in trailer yards, in-transit, at customer sites, or even within a retailer’s store network. Both serialized and non-serialized assets can be tracked at each location.

The enhanced system also allows the ability to track asset movement to and from suppliers and repair depots.

Source-industryweek.com

Do the terms -- value added, superior customer value, or value chain -- make you want to throw something since you have heard the terms so much? Let's face it, you have been trying to improve revenue and profitability by creating superior value for your customers, improving effectiveness and efficiency and improving supplier relationships for years. You have spent countless hours getting managers trained in lean and six sigma processes, implementing enterprise and customer relationship management systems, and executing initiatives to improve innovation, capture voice of the customer data and integrate information systems. You have spent millions of dollars in cash, time and effort. Yet, the pressure from global competitors seems to be increasing rather than declining and you often find yourself still being beat up on price. What in the world is going on here? The problem is movement.

You probably thought that "moving value" was about how you can move value through the supply chain, managing its creation and delivery. But, it also means that value perceptions are moving throughout the supply chain; the target is constantly in flux. We will deal with both aspects of value movement in this article and leave you with five tips on how you might adapt your approach to managing them.

Value management begins with understanding that value is in the eye of the "customer" and not inherent in any product, service, or system. The "customer" is the next person in a work cell, the next process in the factory, the next business unit to whom you deliver, the immediate paying customer be it another business unit or an external firm and the subsequent downstream organizations and consumers through to the final end-user. In a true relationship mindset, world-class companies often think of their suppliers also as customers; how can I better service my suppliers and suppliers' suppliers? As such, every link in the "value stream" within your "four walls" and outside constitutes a supplier-customer relationship. Each decision maker is willing to make certain sacrifices in terms of monetary and non-monetary costs to obtain desired benefits. The more positive is that tradeoff between benefits and sacrifices, the more value both parties receive, driving customer satisfaction, commitment and recommendations to others.

A significant amount of research states that all customers value functional benefits, relational benefits, service benefits, and brand reputation (quality, consistency) -- and they evaluate each distinctly. Customers also evaluate both the monetary and non-monetary sacrifices (e.g., difficulty of doing business with a vendor, retailer, supplier) that they must make to obtain those benefits. As a result, we should exert effort on those activities that either improve the opportunity for an immediate or downstream customer to experience an improved, very specific, desired benefit and/or experience less of a sacrifice to obtain those benefits. Moving value means constantly improving the value perceptions immediate and downstream customers perceive they are getting. In exchange, customers "pay" suppliers more in terms of price, volume, share of business, and share of mind, improving the value that suppliers receive from customers all the way back through the supply chain.

Moving value recognizes the fact that most of what and how customers make value judgments is out of the control of marketers/suppliers/brand managers. Customers constantly are bombarded with buying-related information. As customers, regardless of definition, go about living their lives, they are constantly refining their interpretations about the value of specific products, services, and relationships. Since brand managers/suppliers have little influence on this valuing process, they are forced to be constantly vigilant to the changes in what specific customers value and why. It is nothing short of an entirely different way of looking at customers and supply chain relationships.

So your task is two-fold, to continuously improve the value equation at every stage of the value stream by improving benefits and reducing sacrifices while also recognizing that the target you are shooting at is constantly changing.

I have five tips to help you think about influencing and recognizing value movement throughout the supply chain.

1. Operate under the assumption that your competition knows at least 90% of what you know -- if not 10% more than you know. Dig deeper. Pat Summit, head coach of the six-time national champion Lady Vols women's basketball team at the University of Tennessee, simply outworks her competition. The team puts in more hours refining processes and skills and studying the competition and customers than do their competitors.
2. Assume that the most critical aspects of desired value propositions are changing 10% faster than your current nightmare. In the consumer electronics world of LG and Sony, constant change means rapidly increasing technological capabilities and customer expectations within a world of stomach-wrenching, pricing cascades. Vigilance for opportunities to influence changes in value perceptions anywhere along the supply chain and for changes to which they must respond is essential merely for survival. Make one wrong strategic move based on an inaccurate or incomplete evaluation of value movement, and a firm could be playing catch-up for years as witnessed by Dell's operations in China.
3. Focus on quality metrics but ignore emotional bonding through superior brand management at your own peril. Samsung has significantly improved its ability to increase value creation throughout its supply chain, both for business customers and consumers. However, it has yet to create the powerful emotion bonds that solidify customer relationships and facilitate higher margins that its tougher competitors have. Quality alone is never enough.
4. Develop relationships that enable significant and frequent information sharing through joint processes that involve multiple supply chain partners. Ikea has long been known for its ability to move value both up and down its supply chain by integrating demand and supply processes and designing supply chains that make it easier, more affordable, and in many cases, more enjoyable for customers to acquire the benefits they want. They not only execute superior supply chain management, they also win advertising awards for the creativity and effectiveness of their marketing communications. They have a laser-focus on specific target markets, know how to own their position within those markets, and stay at the forefront of changing value expectations -- some of which they drive themselves.
5. Learn by thinking out of the box. Don't benchmark and hire only from within your industry. Hire top talent from outside. Invest in processes that stimulate new ways of recognizing and approaching problems and opportunities. Eastman Chemical Co., for example, has hired a number of branding, product development, and advertising managers from consumer goods industries in order to stimulate out-of-the-box thinking about value-change possibilities.

Value must be experienced at each and every step of the supply chain within and outside of your organization. Your targets are moving too quickly in today's global business environment. You must constantly move the value bar higher at every link you can influence and keep up with changes that you cannot influence but to which you must respond -- all ahead of the competition.

Daniel J. Flint, Ph.D., is the Proffitt's, Inc. Professor of Marketing and director of the marketing Ph.D. program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has an engineering degree from Annapolis, an MSA from Central Michigan University, and a Ph.D. in marketing and logistics from the University of Tennessee. Flint's expertise is in customer value management, specifically helping firms gain deeper insights to their customers' changing value perceptions, and logistics innovation.

Source-industryweek.com

Today, the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) announced that University of Mississippi Health Care (UMHC), a 722-bed academic medical center (AMC) in Jackson, has been added to its growing list of group purchasing and supply chain participants.

CEVA Logistics (Thailand) Co is now handling all automotive logistics for Tri Petch Isuzu Sales Co under a new three-year outsourcing contract.

Tri Petch is responsible for the sales and distribution of Isuzu pickup trucks and heavy-duty trucks via a network of more than 300 dealers. CEVA will use its carrier fleet and IT systems to manage the distribution of Isuzu vehicles throughout the country.

"Since we are not professionals in logistics and it is not our core business, we decided to select a specialist global logistics company to handle our logistics operations," said Panadda Chennavasin, vice-president of Tri Petch.

As well, Tri Petch wants its supply chain to operate to global best-practice levels and to significantly improve sales operations to support the dealer network.

"We hope our operating costs will improve from efficient logistics performance, which will be assessed once a year," she said.

CEVA will manage Tri Petch's vehicle supply chain from Isuzu's plants through to final delivery to dealers. This includes transport of vehicles from plants in Samut Prakan and Chachoengsao to two motor pools, where vehicles are inspected, accessories installed and the vehicles made ready for final delivery to dealers.

A CEVA executive said the company recently began an operational process improvement and re-engineering programme to increase the quality of logistics operations to world-class standards.

The programme involve the establishment of a shared-user vehicle logistics network to be used by other automotive manufacturing and sales companies. This will improve overall efficiency of the supply chain and provide a highly cost-effective operation for Tri Petch and for CEVA's new customers.

CEVA will use more than 100 car carriers for transport, along with a management and operational team of more than 400 staff.

"This is one of the largest automotive logistics contracts in the Thai market," said Winfried Kiesbueye, CEVA's managing director. "Our key aim is to improve the efficiency of Tri Petch's vehicle handling operation by implementing CEVA's best-practice lean processes and increasing overall control."

Source-bangkokpost.com

Climate change, sustainability and corporate social responsibility have risen inexorably in the public and corporate minds over the last decade, says Ernst & Young. They go on to state that while businesses and consumers are vying to out do each other’s green claims, the scientific community is issuing increasingly stark warnings about the urgency and depth of cuts required to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

A survey carried out by Ernst & Young in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit among executives from US$ 1 billion plus corporations to see how organizations view the impact of sustainability on its supply chain and sourcing, indicates a high level of awareness of sustainability, with an appreciation of opportunities it offers within the supply chain. More than half of the respondents to the survey indicated reputation, cost reduction, and revenue growth as the top three opportunities that arise from sustainability. An increased cost base was highlighted as the greatest risk, inferring operational and energy savings will be offset by capital costs and increase in prices from suppliers.

The survey also indicates that a company’s approach to emissions and accountability for its supply chain activity could make or break corporate reputation. 71% of the respondents to the survey view the impact of sustainability on the supply chain as a brand / reputation opportunity allowing to secure competitive advantage. It is thought that supply chains are key to enhancing reputation, both through avoiding risks such as unfair labour practices and using unsustainable material, and in ensuring businesses live up to their carbon reduction promises.

The survey further states that in addition to corporate reputation, cost saving and revenue inducing factors contribute to the business case for sustainability. These include operational and energy efficiency, energy and carbon trading, and new product development and green marketing. The survey findings also indicate that operational and energy efficiency has become key factors in the review of sustainability, since soaring energy and raw material prices has become significant corporate issues. 50% of organizations in the survey see sustainability as a cost saving issue and significant opportunities exist for this throughout the supply chain.

Energy and carbon trading is a factor that strengthens the business case by creating revenue opportunities. 63% of the organizations in the survey clearly identify sustainability as opportunity for revenue growth with carbon trading schemes and investments in renewable energy generation. To combat rising energy prices and reduce in-house emissions, 40% of firms have invested in on-site renewable energy generation such as onshore wind on telecom sites and biomass combined heat and power at factories. This offers greater control over energy costs, enhances corporate reputations and promises profits from the sale of surplus renewable electricity. Similarly, an increasing number of firms are creating revenue from carbon trading. Under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, participating firms must operate within an annual emissions cap. Operating outside a designated carbon cap could mean paying for excess emissions. Developing countries that do not have emission caps provide finance for greenhouse gas reduction projects through Clean Development Mechanism in return for Certified Emissions Reduction permits which are sold on the open market to firms with emission caps. Multinational businesses could use this scheme to finance energy efficiency and renewable projects for their developing world sites and suppliers.

Revenue through new product development and green marketing is another opportunity. Energy efficiency legislation promises to phase out energy-intensive products replacing them with more ‘greener’ ones, while consumer campaigns and an abundance of product labels aim to increase demand for more sustainable products and services. Businesses are competing to launch sustainable products and services to increase their market share. While many firms limit innovation to certain products, enhancing their reputations as a result, the real challenge is to mainstream them across existing product ranges.

Further, 65% of the respondents to the survey have taken measures to implement labour standard improvements as action on corporate responsibility aspects of sustainability.

Despite indications that the impact of sustainability results in such a varied range of opportunity and threats, organizations seem to be taking a back-seat when it comes to dealing with it. Only 12% of firms rated sustainability among their top three supply chain priorities. This maybe an indication of the mixed messages businesses receive from governments, regulators and consumers – their three key stakeholders as indicated by the survey. Consumer pressure and PR spin has resulted in some very challenging public commitments resulting in businesses over-promising and under-delivering their commitments. Many large global companies have yet to realize the full potential of the savings and benefits that can be achieved by integrating sustainability issues into their supply chain management. With growing legislation, dwindling resources and increasingly vocal consumers, sustainability will continue to grow in importance as an opportunity for forward thinking firms and a threat to their competitors that fail to act.

Source-dailymirror.lk

MinuteMachine.com, one of the leading Internet marketplaces for used construction equipment, has just released it new website www.MinuteTruck.com to enlarge their previous offer.

The international market place for used construction machinery www.MinuteMachine.com, where dealers and final customers can publish second hand equipment for sale, is online since 2006 and had an astonishing pace of development during the last two years. Today the Internet Portal receives about 16.000 visitor’s every day and more than 20.000 used machines are advertised.

Because of this huge enthusiasm and demand, the company will open up their market to the transport and commercial vehicle sector.
The CEO Inga Gerstenberg said "During the last two years we put all our effort in the construction machinery. We achieved in a very short period of time being one of the leading market places worldwide. Now it is time to be concerned with a new strategy to expand our repertoire to other branches of the industry sector."

MinuteMachine and MinuteTruck would like to facilitate companies around the world to establish contacts with potential customers, a B2B concept especially for a niche markets like construction machinery business or transport business.

The company already received an important feedback of the new strategy, because yet there are advertised more than 6.000 used trucks and trailers at MinuteTruck within a few weeks.

MinuteTruck is a market place for used trucks, where dealers and final customers can publish their used trucks and contact with a worldwide audience.
Source-prleap.com

ForeignTRADEX, (http://www.ForeignTradeExchange.com) a US-European industrial trade portal and division of US-based Industrial Leaders Group (ILG), announced today it will provide open RFQs for members and users of its international industrial directories. According to Maria Santos, spokeswoman for the company, the trade leads provided through the site include offers to buy and sell all kinds of industrial tools, parts, machining services and other manufacturing solutions.

Santos said the RFQ's are mostly from engineers, manufacturing managers, technical professionals and other industrial buyers primarily based in but not limited to the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Germany, France, Finland, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Russia and other countries in Europe. Qualified U.S., European and Australian buyers registered on the site are able to submit RFQ's at no charge to multiple manufacturers and suppliers capable of meeting their requirements.

Suppliers of industrial products and contract manufacturing services can include their company on ForeignTRADEX at http://www.WorldwideIndustrialMarketplace.com/freelisting.html and qualify to receive instant RFQ's from buyers that contact them directly through the site. According to Santos, manufacturers can also sign up to access additional RFQ's provided by on-line partners of ForeignTRADEX serving the American and European industrial marketplaces.

The types of open RFQ's from buyers available through the site directly and indirectly, include offers to buy a broad variety of industrial products and manufacturing services such as cold forming, electronics, woodworking, textiles, fluid & gas flow control, hardware & fasteners, mechanical power transmission, molding, machining, grinding, tubing, extrusions, wire forming, casting, assembly, raw materials, metalworking, stamping, forging, die making and allied products and services.

"ForeignTRADEX offers a wide range of opportunities for qualified buyers and suppliers in the manufacturing community to connect, network and develop mutually fruitful trading partnerships with one another," says Santos. She added, "Manufacturers, engineers, plant maintenance mechanics, production managers, buying agents and other industrial suppliers and sourcing professionals all over the globe are welcome to participate."
Source-pr.com

My company is expanding into a new market area and we have been researching the use of a unique flash drive design for a large campaign. A month ago I contacted one of the leading developers of custom flash drive premiums and flash 'widget' software operating out of California, hoping to get detailed information on their customization capability and volume minimums. Since our proposed drive design and campaign are unique, I requested an NDA. Given that this company normally dealt in custom unit designs for national campaigns, this seemed a minor request. There was no objection to this at first, but then their sales representative fell silent, ignoring all email. After a long wait, I called the company to enquire as to what happened and was passed to their president. I could immediately tell something was wrong with this individual as he seemed rather distracted. I again asked about the NDA, to which there was no objection. But then I discovered the fellow had been Googling my company name while I was on the phone with him when he demanded to know why my email had no company domain name and why I had no web site -god forbid there should be such a thing as a company that works exclusively B2B and knows its small base of customers personally... The conversation immediately reverted into something akin to a police interrogation as to the legitimacy of my company. Over the next few days this escalated to the point where I actually had to submit a scan of my articles of incorporation to prove to this man's satisfaction that my company existed. I got an NDA at last -one drafted by them because my simple boilerplate one was unacceptable to their lawyers- but then after submitting my signed copy I was never able to get their signed copy in return. Another couple weeks later I was suddenly contacted again by the original marketing representative asking if I needed more assistance. I posed some more questions about their products and asked about this NDA. Again, silence.

It's now been a month and I'm still at square one. I've been trying to be very patient with these people because they obviously have quality products made in the US and I could find no other companies with comparable software capability. I would like to avoid spending 6 months and a lot of unnecessary expense on having such software custom-developed. But it's clear I've reached a cul-de-sac.

So I would like to pose the following questions to this community;

Is this common behavior for such companies, and if so, how can I tailor my communication to better cope with it and illicit more productive responses? I admit to having limited personal experience with such firms but do have enough business experience to know there are some regions of the country and some industries where the business culture is such that politeness engenders disdain. I've never been one to respond in kind -as much as I would like to sometimes...

Second, since I'm getting nowhere with this particular company, I would greatly appreciate any recommendations of companies that do custom flash drive production with widget software supporting such features as virtual paged catalogs, ROI use metrics tracking, background content updating and RSS content push and might be able to work with Flash platform development on more specialized applications.
Source-marketingprofs.com

Businesses familiar with the benefits of recycling (http://www.ecointernational.com/) can glean even more from ECO International, LLC's acquisition of inventory (http://auctiondrop.com/) retailer AuctionDrop™, effective June 16th 2008.

The acquisition allows AuctionDrop™ -- a leading online retailer for the liquidation of wholesale surplus and salvage inventory (http://auctiondrop.com/) and assets -- to grow and efficiently serve its customers with the necessary resources and technology. Customers receive the benefit of enhanced services, including expanded geographic coverage and additional services, including end-of-life recycling, to both the retailers and manufacturers.

ECO International, LLC, a world-wide electronics asset recovery and recycling company, will also be able to provide its clients who already recognize the benefit of recycling (http://www.ecointernational.com/) with even more innovative and expanded approaches for the disposition of e-Waste.

AuctionDrop™ is a leading online retailer for the liquidation of wholesale surplus and salvage inventory and assets. The Company's business-to-consumer model sources wholesale, surplus and excess inventory from big box national retailers, high-end luxury retailers and manufacturers selling merchandise through its own website portal (auctiondrop.com) as well as other online channels such as eBay. Operations include all aspects of the reverse supply chain from supplier pickup-up, merchandise auction listing, packing and shipping to tracking, and collections while providing superior customer service.

The AuctionDrop™ value proposition provides simplicity, consistency, and reliability for manufacturers and retailers to maximize yields on the disposition of excess inventories, customer returns, and damaged overstock goods. This is achieved by reducing the internal costs for the manufacturer or retailer while yielding the maximum value of the product by selling it directly to consumers and increasing the benefits of recycling.

Market performance: AuctionDrop™ consistently ranks among the top EBay sellers based on volume sold while maintaining a remarkable 98.2% positive buyer "feedback" rating for cumulative transactions to-date. Awards received; Є Always on Top 100 Є Silicon Valley Business Journal Fast 50 (Ranked #3) Є Deloitte & Touchй Technology Fast Rising Stars (Ranked #12).

Auction Drop was advised on this transaction by America's Growth Capital.

About ECO International: ECO services various electronics recycling market segments from local municipalities and state recycling programs to original equipment manufactures (OEM's), Business to Business (B2B), Business to Retailer (B2R) and direct to consumer (B2C) programs helping increase electronics asset utilization and assure recycling regulatory compliance during technology life cycles. ECO is a privately held company with sister companies serving high technology electronic manufacturing, research and development, international electronic component distribution, with annual revenues in excess of $700 million.

Corporate vision includes investing in new technology, organic growth, strategic acquisitions, and third party partnerships to achieve our goals and objectives as a market leader.

Source-ecointernational.com