The Challenges that Remain for One Aspiring Global Sourcing Vendor

Given user companies' acquaintance of their charge for GTM solutions and the like, there is a deluge of point band-aid providers that specialize in attenuated areas of this growing yet burst market. Such areas ambit from landed bulk calculation, retail artefact lifecycle administration (PLM), afterimage and accident management, collaboration, consign compliance, trading certificate generation, chancy actual handling, accumulation alternation and assembly planning (see Assembly Planning and Scheduling Software for the Textile Industry: Unknown Frontiers), advance times, appraisement or annual optimization, and administration adjustment administration (DOM), to added complete busline administration capabilitiesjust abundant to ataxia the bulletin and crumb at the abeyant revenues of full-fledged retail sourcing players. For a bulk of abeyant competitors in the market, see Challenges and User Recommendations for a Global Trading Solutions Provider on a Roll.

Eqos would acceptable point confidently to its focus on supermarkets and hard-goods and soft-goods retailers, its blessed chump references, and the amplitude of its solution, complete with business action administration (BPM) and business intelligence (BI) enablement. However, even if not as accomplished and acknowledged as Eqos is in these areas, some of the above bazaar players will acceptable be able to edge into a bulk of enterprises and abate the allotment of the Eqos's annual dollars.

While generalist sourcing vendors like Ariba and Perfect Commerce ability not accept the retail ability per se, they ability still could cause the arrest or cessation of some controlling decisions. Additionally, accustomed SAP's contempo ecosystem advance to recruit the SAP Powered by NetWeaver and SAP Certified by NetWeaver ally (see Multipurpose SAP NetWeaver), it ability not yield continued afore the behemothic ally up (or eventually acquires) with some of the aloft providers, appropriately creating a barrier of access for Eqos and its aeon to its all-inclusive install base. The aforementioned could alone be accepted from Oracle accustomed its contempo appetence for acquisitions and for rolling them into the Oracle Fusion platform. And let's not overlook the retail industry bounden JDA Software of i2 Technologies.

Furthermore, accustomed Eqos's needs and its intentions to augment its approach away and to accouterment industries above retail (for example, customer packaged appurtenances [CPG], customer electronics, or biologic manufacturers), the bell-ringer ability end up with bifold the bulk of investment (expenses) and added antagonism from these markets' incumbents.

Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Eqos's strategy, based on its accepted accompaniment of affairs, is to aboriginal bear an broadcast band-aid brand (Eqos Global Sourcing & PLM) by leveraging its absolute assets and continuing with operational excellence. The bell-ringer is aswell exploring abeyant accord partners, and it is alive on announcement the on demand-software as a account (SaaS) business archetypal (for added information, amuse see Software as a Service's Functional Catch-up).

Partner Type	Example Categories	Reason for Partnering	Advantages for Eqos	Advantages for Partner
Technology	platform	market credibility	global reach	gap in the footprint
Sales and Implementation	global / regional / country-specific systems integrators (SIs)	scale	sales leads and global reach	consulting revenues
Sales	retail-specific consultancies and content providers	route to market	sales leads	new business streams
Application	retail enterprise resource planning (ERP) / supply chain management (SCM) / PLM / supplier relationship management (SRM) vendors and resellers	route to market	installed base	gap in the footprint
Service Provider	order / logistics / 3PLs / financial services	route to market	installed base	gap in the footprint

Table 1. Eqos's accord action and amount proposition

To that end, Eqos has been active afresh with devising a complete accord affairs and action in agreement of goals, revenues, markets, and channels. The action seems to be accomplishing able-bodied aural the antecedent appearance of anecdotic ambition geographic regions (the UK, the US, continental Europe, and the blow of the world) and channels as able-bodied as the types of ally (see Table 1). Alone time will acquaint how able-bodied Eqos will assassinate the consecutive phases of recruiting the partners, arresting the alternate charge (to the agreements with spelled-out roles and responsibilities, charge levels, business plans, etc.), and advancing the collective assurance developments and collective abutment programs (in agreement of education, training, Web-based support, incentives, advancing accord management, etc.).

How One Sourcing Vendor's Offerings Are Bolstered by a Wealth of Services

Managing Supplier Performance

Eqos Supplier Administering delivers a basic basement that ensures accord and banker ascendancy over trading partners. The band-aid achieves this via recruiting, auditing, administering business, and barometer performance. Well-managed supplier relationships can advice advance clandestine characterization strategies advanced by leveraging best sourcing practices, implementing aggregate scorecards, and adopting advancing accord a part of trading partners. This apartment enables clearer afterimage of supplier achievement advice accumulated with the administering of key achievement indicators (KPIs). Consequently, enterprises are able to proactively administer abeyant problems, advance college performance, abbreviate risk, and board bigger agreement with their suppliers.

The Eqos Supplier Administering apartment is comprised of four modules that acquiesce retailers to adviser and ascendancy their business on a supplier-by-supplier basis:

1. Eqos Supplier Hub Administering enables suppliers to self-register, manages supplier portals and absolute communications, and maintains a single, abreast athenaeum of information. Promoting best practices facilitates the onboarding of new suppliers and places albatross for advancement branch profiles assimilate the supplier community.

Supplier abstracts resides in a secure, high-availability ambiance with interfaces to after systems that crave supplier data, appropriately enabling the retailer's arch appointment to adviser suppliers' adherence to specific instructions. This improves afterimage into supplier advice actual aboriginal in the engagement, thereby blurred the risks associated with onboarding new suppliers, and abbreviation the all-inclusive authoritative accountability of managing a ample supplier community.

2. Eqos Auditing and Acquiescence helps retailers to advance best practices and to exercise due activity by breeding assay schedules and accouterment accoutrement that accredit auditors to admission allegation and amend basic artefact and assembly advice on a approved basis. It provides a added complete ascendancy of supplier superior and accident processes by systematically scheduling (although unscheduled contest can be accommodated too), executing, and recording quality-related activities, such as website visits, accumulated amusing albatross (CSR) checks, accident assessments, superior audits, and artefact tests.

Like the suite's added modules, Eqos Auditing and Acquiescence aswell leverages analytical aisle planning to accession alerts for accepted activities, and exceptions if predefined thresholds are breached, appropriately accouterment a added defended ambiance to bigger administer accident (that is, supplier acquiescence with banker and authoritative requirements).

3. Eqos Supplier Achievement leverages best convenance templates to always advance supplier achievement through scorecards-based reviews and appraisals. Today, acknowledged retailers abide focused on active the actual best achievement from anniversary and every cardinal supplier. Joint goal-setting and collaborative processes advice drive achievement improvements in areas such as on-time delivery, artefact quality, and authoritative compliance.

A appearance of both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of supplier achievement and congenital accoutrement and techniques are provided, which enables the development of shared, customized KPIs; agenda reporting; supplier allegory dashboards; and achievement ambition reviewall to animate both parties to assay advance on a appointed abject and to appoint suppliers in a connected advance process. This bore helps to ascertain abstracts by ecology achievement adjoin pre-established objectives, and advertisement after-effects either graphically or in affiliation with absolute abstracts repositories.

4. The Eqos KPI Administering bore collects and analyzes key achievement abstracts beyond the all-around supplier abject and delivers this abstracts to targeted accommodation makers via dashboards. Eqos is alive with the world's arch retailers to absorb best practices and industry-standard abstracts into its evolving KPI Administering module. Most retailers are consistently appetite to advance the achievement of anniversary and every one of their suppliers. Leaders are finer architectonics and managing supplier relationships and searching for means to advance the achievement of their all-embracing supplier networks.

This bore captures and publishes multidimensional KPIs on a abreast real-time basis, and delivers KPI letters with beginning breaches absolute to accommodation makers. Dashboards amalgamate top 10 and bottom 10 measures so that chief administering can yield the adapted proactive activity on a circadian basis. The actualization of industry standards, added able KPI programs, and analytic accoutrement are enabling companies to criterion alone suppliers adjoin added in-network ally as able-bodied as suppliers alfresco the retailer's network.

How Can All These Moving Parts Be Implemented?

The suite's ample anatomic brand aside, Eqos is abnormally appreciative of its commutual casework portfolio, which stems from a decade of absolute acquaintance in accouterment sourcing and supplier administering solutions to some of the world's arch retailers. Along with this portfolio of services, Eqos's able casework and chump acknowledgment teams are assured that barter will activate affair time-to-value objectives aural 60 to 90 days. From affairs and activity administering through to agreement and band-aid deployment, Eqos Express Accomplishing Casework ensures the availability of professionals with the industry and technology adeptness adapted to ample any gaps in the retailer-supplier association expertise, and appropriately get the user's all-around sourcing and supplier administering programs up and active added quickly.

The band-aid provides both retail sourcing and affairs administering adeptness (in agreement of the accomplishing affairs scoping, business case definition, accumulation appearance definition, activity account and assignment management, and accouterment the Eqos controlling sponsor). It aswell provides collaborative activity planning both locally and globally, band-aid agreement and systems integration, and the adeptness to appraise and board with the accepted IT infrastructure. Given these capabilities, Eqos claims to consistently bear a accelerated acknowledgment on investment (ROI) with minimized activity amount and risk.

The Eqos sourcing accomplishing alignment goes through several audible phases, starting with the activate phase, area the chump engages with Eqos's activity team. The abstraction is to brainwash the activity aggregation about the business issues, and again to ascertain the approach, plan, activity scope, and representatives; conduct affiliation discussions; actualize the development environment; and onboard stakeholdersall aural a time anatomy of two weeks.

Next comes the assay phase, which about takes four weeks. In this phase, the stakeholders have to accede on business processes; conduct activity simulation; ascertain configuration, functional, infrastructure, and affiliation requirements; and conduct the gap analysis. The best convenance sourcing appointment is provided actuality to jump start the alternation of business user requirements and ascertain accepted sourcing processes.

During this analytical phase, the focus is on administering requirements-gathering workshops and demonstrations with business assembly to analyze anatomic gaps. Sessions focus on business processes, details, and practical, hands-on training on the accepted and approaching system. The assembly cover business assembly from assorted departments (such as merchants, buyers, superior assurance, shipping, etc.), and they have to ascertain affiliation requirements and conduct the basement allocation abstraction via workshops with the absolute action applications providers and affiliation partners.

At the end of the assay phase, the aggregation has to acutely accept what needs to be done in adjustment to set up the accepted Eqos band-aid to accommodated the customer's needs, as able-bodied as area to admission the all-important adept abstracts to upload into the system, how to board or interface the Eqos band-aid to absolute bequest systems, and what accouterments is adapted if Eqos will host the solution.

The next footfall is the four-week implementation/configuration appearance to configure and apparatus the processes, configure the affiliation of systems (build the affiliation interfaces), annex and arrange any bare hardware, and conduct business activity validation workshops. The ambition actuality is to appropriately ascertain and configure business data, and to set up roles and permissions afore managing appliance testing and validation.

This footfall is followed by a four-week continued testing appearance that entails the users' validation of agreement (user accepting testing) and affiliation testing. The arrange and alternation and go-live and rollout phases can yield as abounding weeks as necessary, and they abide of the concrete accession and deployment of the solution, accelerated training to added accomplishment the users, abutment of the user association during go-live and pilot stages, and association development.

Eqos espouses the angled accomplishing approach, with the adaptability of either a tailored accomplishing or a straightforward, out-of-the box deployment. Regardless of which blazon of accomplishing is chosen, the aboriginal footfall is to accommodated with key stakeholders aural the business and IT organizations, and accumulate advice to actuate the key business drivers and to analyze affliction credibility and impediments, as able-bodied as opportunities for improvement.

The next appearance involves developing a ambit document. A ambit certificate articulates, at a top level, the key business opportunities (to quantify the abeyant ROI) for which high-level, as-is processes have to be specified. Should users opt for an out-of-the-box implementation, again logically, barter have to use accepted business processes and workflows, accepted awning interfaces, accepted reports, and accepted business anatomy layouts. Pilot accomplishing with bound ROI focuses alone on analytical business processes, bound supplier community, targeted training, accepted role-based configuration, affianced user community, accelerated implementation, bound allocation or ambit of the business, and best practices.

In the case of the added complex and tailored outside-the-box implementation, the aggregation have to architectonics added abundant business processes with associated business rules; custom interfaces, including the attending and feel of transactional screens; custom reports; and custom requirements for business forms (such as requests for angle [RFPs], bids, acquirement orders, invoices, etc.). The aggregation have to aswell advance custom training programs for administrators, cool or ability users, end users, etc., and advance customized affidavit and quick reference materials.

Other accessible deliverables of the Eqos sourcing accomplishing with a abounding ROI cover the deployment of all-around best practices, development of a business case, enactment of activity standards, conception of a all-around training program, analogue of end-to-end sourcing processes, and development of a accomplice community, as able-bodied as customer-specific artefact configuration, systems integration, and enactment of an IT assembly infrastructure.

Functionality Bolstered by a Wealth of Services

Eqos's barter about address a absolute amount of buying (TCO) in the seven-figure ambit (give or take), while a hosted account should board IT budgetconstrained customers. The charge to focus on amount bartering activities and to not be absent by non-core activities is arch retailers to admission solutions on demand, which is abnormally adapted for those retail companies focused on abbreviation basic spending and on convalescent time-to-value while acknowledging the accelerated deployment of clandestine characterization programs.

For retailers that would like to abbreviate upfront technology investments, abate amount and time to entry, and lower the accident of business disruption, or for those that artlessly wish to adjourn decisions and accompany the band-aid in abode at a after date, Eqos can accommodate ample band-aid hosting capabilities. This blazon of band-aid can administer all hardware, software, connectivity, and advancing technology-oriented operations on account of the retailer. Added specifically, Eqos provides hardware, abstracts centermost footprints, Internet bandwidth, concrete and cyberbanking security, advancing appliance management, and advancing systems management. The vendor's accomplished and absolutely able hosting aggregation uses a defended abstracts centermost with redundancy, and provides bounded abutment in the US, European, and Asian time zones, as able-bodied as Web-enabled change and botheration resolution systems.

Therefore, in accession to a ample and focused sourcing functionality that is backed up with a well-devised technology blueprint, the vendor's consultancy skill-set, knowledge, and area adeptness in the supplier accord administering (SRM) amphitheatre is added continued in the ambience of band-aid development and integration, hosting and association management, able training, and advancing chump support. The branch of systems affiliation and architectonics adapt entails analytical the user's architectural landscape, acceptance the stand-alone system's viability, defining affiliation requirements, implementing action integration, onboarding the supplier network, academic testing of affiliation points, and defining and allocation hosting requirements. Further, chump abutment includes first- and second-tier user support, third-tier software support, the administering of the user community, a concrete hosting of appliance environments, appliance management, server monitoring, and software deployment.

In agreement of a all-around rollout of articles and services, the afterward are all necessary: a analogue of the solution's deployment approach, identification of all-around user communities, administering of apprenticeship and communications, training of users, and onboarding of the user community. Specifically, the onboarding of and accord with trading ally is a new conduct for abounding organizations; traditionally, action systems kept retailers focused on centralized processes rather than on all-embracing suppliers and extending processes beyond the retail accumulation chain.

Built on a collaborative belvedere from the outset, Eqos's solutions are advised to bear association abutment beyond the all-around trading accomplice arrangement (the ecosystem of suppliers, 3PLs, auditors, testing specialists, etc.). The Eqos Chump Acknowledgment Centermost (Eqos CRC) is accomplished in agreeable and rolling out solutions to ample supplier communities beyond assorted time zones, thereby removing the authoritative accountability of advancement supplier connectivity. The centermost aims at accouterment faster admission to the all-around bazaar abode via self-registration and advancing administering of association members, with a rollout alignment for a accelerated affirmation and training of the absolute community.

The Secret of One Vendor's Success in the Retail Supply Chain

Eqos's Underlying Accord Platform

At the amount of Eqos's alms is a belvedere that provides the key apparatus for business to business (B2B) collaboration, including activity management, workflow management, aperture management, business rules, reporting, analytics, Web services, alerts and exceptions, and security. While these appearance are accessible out of the box, abandoned business processes can consistently be congenital to bigger bout the customer's accepted and approaching sourcing and supplier administration practices.

In added words, the technology enablers of the belvedere accommodate a basic framework that allows affairs and purchasing organizations to rejuvenate their anachronous sourcing and supplier administration processes. One archetype of such an enabler is a individual adaptable markup accent [XML]-based abstracts interface with a categorical activity and Web casework adhesive that can be leveraged for defended affiliation over the Web. Because Eqos's alms is congenital on the service-oriented architectonics (SOA) concepts of reusability and standards-based interoperability, and is based on the vendor's all-encompassing acquaintance with bequest systems and packaged applications integration, Eqos can bear pre-configured, cross-enterprise business processes that alloy both new and bequest functionality into a added articular process.

In tune with the account of business activity administration (BPM), Eqos equips barter to configure and reconfigure (or orchestrate) processes as they advance over time. As already mentioned, interoperability and connectivity are key credo of Eqos's collaborative platform, back businesses accept to await on their absolute IT assets to streamline, configure, and abutment business processes that amount enterprise, supplier, and accompanying account provider operations. The BPM accoutrement appropriately aswell acquiesce the appliance to be configured to abutment well-oiled business processes rather than it getting shoehorned (or forced). For added background, amuse see Business Activity Management: A Crash Course on What It Entails and Why to Use It.

The belvedere enables business analysts to archetypal the data, activity and interface requirements of the organization, and accomplish software to abutment the beheading of that model. This is facilitated by the architecture, which appearance assorted layers of casework and authentic interfaces, such as

* abstracts casework to archetypal business advice needs and map to databases;

* presentation casework to archetypal interactions amid humans and the software;

* appliance casework to archetypal business rules, processes, and workflow;

* aegis casework to ensure adapted allegory of duties and information; and

* alien Web casework to accommodate with limited systems in a defended manner.

As the bazaar becomes added acquainted of the allowances of an SOA architecture, companies' expectations accept added in agreement of the accomplishment of cross-enterprise, business activity support; a abatement in the accident associated with the affiliation of new systems; and bigger use and accomplished allowances from bequest IT assets. It is acute to accomplish chip afterimage beyond supplier networks (including the industry content), as bequest IT assets aswell bear amount to new business models, and there is an accustomed change of solutions as new technologies become available, after massive disruption to the absolute systems' footprint.

Enabling a Individual Adaptation of the Accuracy and Managing Analytical Paths

Some of the archetypal allowances of the aloft architectural concepts are the users' adeptness to advantage absolute IT investments through abstracts affiliation in adjustment to accredit quicker acknowledgment with real-time transaction processing, while removing constraints to advance capabilities as new technologies become available. It is important to agenda that the Eqos belvedere appearance a individual athenaeum of abstracts and activity advice for user enterprises and their accumulation chains. This is because today's retail ambiance requires added than the adeptness to artlessly clue a product's success, accustomed that the ample bunch retailers (channel masters) wish to administer aggregate from artefact launches through to the planning, execution, and post-event assay of retail events.

Accordingly, Eqos's centralized athenaeum of advice ensures that authentic and basic artefact advice is in abode to facilitate this assay for all the parties. To that end, an online annal and angel archive of every artefact can be retained in the arrangement calm with the advice pertaining to the packaging artwork and blueprint that are aggregate with packaging designers and manufacturers. This can ensure added absolute ascendancy during the architecture phase.

Additionally, accustomed the abounding parties circuitous and the endless interactions that yield abode beyond the retail accumulation alternation (where abounding things can go wrong), analytical aisle managementfrom abstraction to artefact deliveryis the cornerstone of Eqos's absolute offering. In the branch of activity management, the analytical aisle is the set of activities that defines the continuance of the absolute activity activities' network. Back these analytical activities accept absolute little float or baggy (usually zero), a adjournment in any analytical aisle activity will adjournment the absolute project. Abounding retailers are active beneath aeon turns beyond added seasons, which leads to both added aggregate and complexity. Managing such an ambiance is creating the charge for bigger ascendancy and added afterimage to ensure that appointed activities advance according to plan, and that stakeholders are appropriately notified of exceptions.

Thus, the abstraction of leveraging analytical aisle administration is to accredit buyers to automate and abridge circuitous sourcing processes, accepting them to administer added artefact curve added bound and with a lower accident of failure. By leveraging accepted activity assignment structures that cover responsibilities and due dates, Eqos's solution, somewhat agnate to Microsoft Project, enables users to specify an ideal analytical aisle and admeasurement adjoin it. It aswell helps them arrange best practices (provided templates accredit the accelerated conception of agnate new projects to be managed) beyond artefact curve and affairs and purchasing organizations.

In addition, the band-aid presents graphical representation and abetment of the analytical path, monitors accessible tasks and backward tasks, sends alerts as necessary, and automatically sends updates to alien systems that bear amount to above barter (such as Tesco, which manages tens of bags of tasks in the Eqos arrangement anniversary day).

Some accepted allowances from the solution's deployment cover a added proactive administration of bartering projects, added abreast and added accelerated accommodation making, and answer accord through a aggregate compassionate of the tasks at hand, area any articular baggy can be taken out of the artefact activity cycle.

Further, beheld advertisement accoutrement and analytics are aswell capital in allowance buyers, merchandisers, and added retail decision-makers barometer success or assay botheration areas quickly. As explained in Contemporary Business Intelligence Tools, dashboards can accredit admiral to adjudge the business, highlight called issues, and assignment down to assay the basis could cause of problems almost quickly. This adeptness comes from the astute beheld affectation of the cachet of artefact portfolios based on real-time data, while abandoned aggregated accordant abstracts are delivered via automatic architecture to executives.

Focused on carrying a graphical account of the business's health, Eqos Dashboards enables an aggregated beheld apperception of assorted artefact portfolios. In accession to appraisal success and anecdotic problems quickly, this dashboard aswell allows multiple-level, drill-down capabilities through to aboriginal antecedent documents. Users can save approved analyses as favorites and bear on a predefined schedule, while outputs to an activity abstracts barn are accessible too, if appropriate.

As for enabling cardinal trading ally to acquaint throughout the sourcing activity (the success of clandestine characterization programs is awful abased on retailer-supplier collaboration, from artefact architecture through to selection, production, and ultimate accumulation to the administration centermost [DC] and stores), Eqos Supplier Hub Administration enables suppliers to self-register and advance their branch contour advice (that is, the accelerated onboarding of new suppliers is fabricated possible). This aperture aswell provides suppliers with absolute Web admission to the retailers' systems, enabling them to accede with the arrangement terms, advance their response, and accommodated (or exceed) accomplishment objectives. The aperture aswell provides the foundation from which retailers can baddest -to-be trading partners.

In agreement of abeyant benefits, lower technology requirements for supplier accord acquiesce for added supplier involvement, which in about-face removes advice silos and barriers ahead preventing supplier execution; supports added constant interactions amid the banker and its suppliers; and drives up supplier accomplishment by creating a adeptness of information-sharing.

Integrated Eqos Sourcing Suite

Eqos's belvedere abandoned is not acceptable to accomplish the allowances claimed by the bell-ringer and its customers, neither at the top band (from the advance of the clandestine characterization business, faster time to market, bigger artefact availability and beneath stockouts, added aggressive offerings and bigger chump value, broader admission to all-around sources and advance of absolute imports), nor the basal band (from decreased costs of appurtenances awash [COGS], bigger margins, bigger efficiencies and bargain operating costs, bargain account and tied-up cash, bigger authoritative compliance, and bigger adeptness to administer risks).

Thus, to advice with the inconvenient truth of retailers' realitythat there is still a assembly of tasks that crave spreadsheets or added abecedarian claimed computer (PC)-based accoutrement (see The Anatomy of Retail Sourcing Processes)built aloft Eqos's collaborative belvedere are eight audible modules with anatomic capabilities aimed to abode retailers' affliction points.

These eight modules can be deployed as stand-alones, or they can collaborate with anniversary added in a many-to-many relationship. They can be aggregate aural the afterward two artefact suites: Eqos All-around Sourcing & PLM and Eqos Supplier Management. By amalgam all-around sourcing, supplier performance, artefact lifecycle administration (PLM) processes, and accumulation alternation afterimage into a cohesive, feature-rich solution, Eqos enables retailers to added finer administer trading relationships, advance their advantage for supplier negotiation, bear added margins, abate markdowns, and assay added all-around sourcing opportunities.

The Eqos All-around Sourcing & PLM Suite

Since retailers accomplish in a all-around market, befitting clue of sourced articles at all the stages of their activity cycles is a key concern. Eqos's All-around Sourcing & PLM band-aid supports the absolute sourcing process, from artefact abstraction analogue to abundance accumulation (which implies afterimage of all orders and their accomplishment in the accumulation chain), including PLM and ambit fulfillment, artefact sourcing, adjustment management, and acumen visibility. Comprised of the afterward four modules, the Eqos All-around Sourcing & PLM apartment allows barter to bigger acknowledge the accurate amount of the sourced product:

1. From aboriginal abstraction to artefact specification, the Eqos PLM & Ambit Fulfilment bore proactively manages the architecture and commercialization activity while enabling accord a part of buyers and suppliers. It added links the architecture process, the commodity plan, and sourcing functions together, accepting buyers to adviser the cachet of new and absolute articles to accommodated season-critical dates.

PLM initiates the new artefact development activity by capturing and autumn new artefact ideas, bazaar trends, and the added aboriginal architecture concepts. It supports the design, creation, and testing of prototypes. Once selected, a tech pack is created for administration and assay by the suppliers. Historical advice is captured for assay and advertisement purposes, and with a unified repository, the banker and its suppliers accept a individual chip appearance of artefact activity aeon information.

Ambit Fulfilment manages the beheading of the ambit or band plan. It allows the abduction of trends and concepts that admission the range, the products, both new and alternation curve that accomplish up the range, such key measures as stock-keeping assemblage (SKU) counts, and banking data, adjoin which the accomplishment of the plan is at accident of not affair the analytical division dates.

2. Eqos Artefact Sourcing provides the adeptness to carbon best sourcing processes from amount sourcing countries and into new sourcing locations. The bore supports the sourcing activity for clandestine characterization commodity from specification, through to alternative and bid management, to the antecedent acquirement adjustment date with the called supplier. It aswell proactively manages analytical aisle tasks for the banker beyond suppliers, affairs offices, and added trading partners.

The bore captures abundant artefact specifications, including packaging and amount requirements. It aswell issues requests for quotes to suppliers and receives structured quotes with abundant costs. The user is again able to assay quotes to actuate the best artefact appearance and costs adjoin requirements; baddest articles and acquaint the supplier to specify best artefact appearance and costs adjoin requirements; and ascertain and clue testing and sampling requirements. By accomplishing so, abeyant allowances appear from admission to all-around suppliers with lower amount goods, ensured accuracy of artefact data through accord with suppliers, bigger adeptness to assay and assay quotes, bell-ringer negotiations, and the bringing calm of commonly broken pre-SKU and post-SKU processes.

3. The Eqos Adjustment Administration bore manages the accepting of orders by the supplier and communicates any adjustment changes in abreast absolute time. It proactively manages purchasing-related advice flows, which encourages on-time shipments from factories and third affair acumen (3PL) providers, and supports capricious adjustment structures, a multi-drop DC, or absolute abundance delivery. The bore aswell provides retailers afterimage into shipments, with bright and accepted labels that can be scanned anon aloft cancellation to accumulate goods-handling activities and balance reconciliation.

By amalgam via XML messaging to address to or accept from added systems, and by automatically alerting trading ally to new and adapted adjustment information, the bore enables the supplier-buyer accord about to adjustment details, and appropriately provides a "glass pipeline" (visibility) of orders and their accomplishment in the accumulation alternation via suppliers, DCs, or stores.

In accession to ensuring a individual adaptation of the accuracy for all parties circuitous (as able-bodied as beneath miscommunications, misunderstandings, frustrations, etc.), its abeyant advantage can appear from bigger ascendancy through proactive active management, facilitated accelerated advice of adjustment status, and post-order decisions that can be fabricated adjoin added accepted information.

4. Finally, the Eqos Acumen Afterimage bore layers over absolute systems, and standardizes affiliation links to the enterprise, supplier, 3PL, and added systems, thereby accouterment a individual appearance of processes and advice after ripping and replacing absolute systems. As a afterimage layer, it manages the advice breeze from the time the appurtenances are accomplished from the supplier to the retailer, accepting all parties to apperceive whether the adjustment is accession on time in full, and to facilitate the order-receiving process.

Additionally, backed up by the analytical aisle administration capability, the bore advance SKU-level data of articles in alteration at anniversary point in the process, and ensures that activity is taken by adapted parties at the adapted time in the process. Eqos Acumen Afterimage can aswell detail absolute costs to accomplish the estimated against absolute amount analysis, and can accredit an assay of addition delays in affiliation to aboriginal sourcing requirements.

A Retail Sourcing Suite Built on Experience

Eqos's admired engagement-based adventures discussed in the antecedent allotment of this alternation (please see One Vendor's Quest to Garner a All-around Sourcing Ecosystem) were parlayed into the 2006 barrage of Eqos 3.0 and the added contempo barrage of Eqos 4.0 in May 2007. Eqos's Web-based applications advice retailers accumulate and calibration their sourcing operations by acceptance every affiliate in the accumulation chainwhether amid in Boston (US), Pretoria (South Africa), or Beijing (China)to coact online and admission the a lot of abreast advice on the sourcing action of chump goods.

Based on best practices abstruse through its plan with such retailers as Best Buy and Tesco, the adapted Eqos artefact enables retailers to administer the sourcing action of goods, from antecedent abstraction and architectonics through to artefact specification, bid administration and assessment, landed costs estimation, packaging, sampling, testing, and final adjustment confirmation.

Hosted by Eqos (www.eqos.com), the band-aid includes analytical aisle management, workflow management, advertisement analytics, and an alerts-and-exceptions function. Pertinent information, including artefact images, can be entered into a adept repository, which reduces duplication and errors, and provides a individual appearance of the accumulation pipelineaccessible to accustomed centralized or alien users. The solution, which aswell enables the ecology of suppliers from a superior acquiescence and accident administration perspective, has always bigger its intuitiveness. It now allows all levels of designers, technicians, and buyers, as able-bodied as supplier personnel, to calmly clue the sourcing process.

Another aloft advance for Eqos came mid-2006, if Edgars Consolidated Food Limited (Edcon), the arch retail accumulation in South Africa for clothing, footwear, and textiles, called the vendor's all-around sourcing band-aid to advance supplier collaboration, abutment the amplification of its retail accumulation chain, bear the latest fashions to consumers faster, and accession basal band profitability. The band-aid has back been implemented by a collective Eqos and Accenture aggregation alive carefully with the Edcon merchants.

Operating in Johannesburg as Edgars Administration Abundance back 1929, Edcon today offers ten retail brands: Edgars (offering clothing, footwear, kitchenware, domiciliary textiles, and housewares), Jet (clothing and footwear), C N A (books, stationery, and music), Red Square (cosmetics), Boardmans (housewares, domiciliary textiles, and kitchenware), Legit (young women's fashion), Jet Shoes (footwear), Temptations (intimate wear), Prato (footwear), and JetMart (general commodity such as clothing, kitchenware, music, do-it-yourself (DIY) items, baby electrical appliances, domiciliary textiles, bloom and adorableness products, and stationery). Grouped aural the Edcon administration food and abatement divisions, the aloft brands awning assorted categories throughout the almost 1,000 food amid beyond South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, and Lesotho.

Eqos Today

Consequently, Eqos is currently acknowledging some of the world's arch retailers by hosting their abreast 15,000 users (which cover retailers, agents, suppliers, and added trading partners) in over 55 countries. Eqos is a professionally managed and growing alignment of about 70 employees, and the bell-ringer has been consistently profitable, with division over division growth. It has afresh accomplished concrete expansion, aperture offices in Boston, Massachusetts (US) in aboriginal 2006, and in Hong Kong, China in aboriginal 2007. This latest investment has signaled the company's charge to acknowledging added absolutely customers' sourcing operations in Asia.

Eqos's all-around amplification comes as added retailers authorize sourcing offices and strengthen relationships with agents and cardinal suppliers throughout Asia. The company's Hong Kong appointment provides retailers and their trading ally with Mandarin, Chinese, and English accent abutment beyond abundant time zones and bounded regions. Eqos supports added than 4,000 users in China alone. On a all-around basis, the aggregation manages added than 5,000 affairs a day and 100,000 user logins per month, thereby acknowledging the administration of about 38 billion dollars (USD) account of account annually.

The a lot of contempo US chump win took abode in April 2007; banker H.E. Butt Grocery Aggregation (H-E-B) called Eqos's business solutions to abutment and aggrandize its all-around sourcing and supplier administration operations, as able-bodied as to enhance its clandestine characterization offerings by convalescent accumulation alternation accord and visibility. H-E-B opened its aboriginal abundance in 1905 in Kerrville, Texas (US), and today is one of the nation's bigger apart endemic retailers, confined a ample ambit of customers. With added than 300 food in Texas and Mexico, the bazaar alternation earns revenues in balance of 12 billion dollars (USD). Now based in San Antonio, Texas, H-E-B employs added than 60,000 ally and serves millions of barter in over 150 communities. Known as an IT innovator, the banker claims to accept consistently outpaced its competitors by alms differentiated articles and casework through a array of formats.

Another trend that has played a key role in Eqos's success is that retailers are added implementing clandestine characterization strategies to advice abound their revenues. As appear in The Promise (and Complexities) of Clandestine Labels (and accustomed the alternating clandestine characterization affair appropriately far in this article), there is acutely a growing trend a part of retailers against alms clandestine (or the retailer's own) labels and brands. Consequently, a axiological analysis of the anatomy of all-around sourcing has occurred; companies are now reconsidering whether they charge agents or added middlemen at all, back added and more, companies can now plan anon with manufacturers via Internet trading exchanges. Accustomed some appear success with lower-priced abode brands, retailers in several segments, including fast-moving chump appurtenances (FMCG), chump electronics, and apparel, are accretion their focus on clandestine characterization commodity (which is about imported) to yield advantage of allowance improvements, bigger superior consistency, and cast loyalty.

For instance, banker Best Buy accomplished that it could not attempt with the brand of Sony and Panasonic in high-end, exceptional electronics equipment, appliances, and computers because of these two brands' loyal chump bases. However, Best Buy aswell accomplished that no such chump adherence exists for accent items. Therefore, the banker has appear up with its own band of competitively priced cable products, as able-bodied as added peripherals, such as alien drives, USB ports, keyboards, etc. The banker has aswell begin a alcove bazaar acceptant to clandestine characterization TV sets and chump electronics, at the low and mid-range amount points.

Eqos's Accepted Mission Enabled by a Service-oriented Architectonics Platform

Eqos's accepted mission is to become the arch provider of all-around sourcing and supplier administration solutions for the retail accumulation alternation worldwide, allotment sourcing and accretion admiral and clerks to advance time to market, access chump value, advance margins, abatement operating costs, and calibration clandestine characterization business. In added words, the abstraction is to accredit barter to access their amount of ascendancy over their all-around accumulation bases, thereby active aggressive advantage and announcement collaborative artefact and supplier innovation. This is to be accomplished by simplifying, standardizing, and ascent the processes associated with the sourcing of clandestine characterization commodity beyond the absolute supplier network, by alive collaboratively with suppliers. These processes amount from the antecedent artefact abstraction through to assembly and accumulation to the retailer's administration centers (and in some cases, into the after-sale phases).

In accession to software and support, Eqos offers hosting support, user association management, and applications administration services. These offerings axis from Eqos's accepting that over time, companies accept invested in technology to abutment their business and accumulation alternation processes. The admiration of companies to assure their investments accept to be counterbalanced with the activity and acceleration that the bazaar is demanding. This agency that anew acquired capabilities accept to accompaniment absolute IT environments in a way that seamlessly integrates advice and processes beyond both old and new systems. The abstraction (if not an imperative) is to advantage retailers' bequest action ability planning (ERP) and accumulation alternation administration (SCM) applications to body forward-thinking cross-enterprise processes that advance accord amid retailers and their suppliers, affairs offices, and added trading partners.

Logically, all-around sourcing and supplier accord administration (SRM) appeal ascendancy of action processes and abutting accord with suppliers (all of which may accept actual altered systems or levels of IT expertise). Thus, managing the all-encompassing and assorted retail accumulation alternation requires a simple access to workflow and activity administration that is accurate by network-wide collaboration.

The Eqos Accord Belvedere is congenital on service-oriented architectonics (SOA) accustomed the accurateness of the peer-to-peer (P2P) and SOA concepts, and underpins the absolute Eqos band-aid apartment with a adjustable architectonics that can acclimate to rapidly alteration business needs and IT landscapes. The appliance addresses all-around sourcing, artefact lifecycle management, and supplier administration business flows. It not alone streamlines affiliation with trading partners, but aswell handles centralized affiliation appliance adjustable adaptable markup accent (XML)-based servers.

Early in 2006, Eqos appear the barrage of its new belvedere release, Eqos Belvedere 7, which was primarily an "architectural" absolution with the afterward three arch areas of avant-garde development:

1. A technology move to Microsoft.NET technologies and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database to accommodate bigger performance. Band-aid developers can use these acclaimed and boundless technologies to extend the amount capabilities of the Eqos solution.

2. Added achievement enhancements through a added adjustable abstracts schema. This new access has addressed the needs of barter that are embedding collaborative solutions added acutely into their business and accretion the cartage through them, by accouterment easier aeronautics and customization of abstracts and reports. To that end, the platform's latest absolution has decidedly bigger the scalability and has bargain demands on acknowledging accouterments by two-thirds, acceptance added abstracts and circumstantial users to be managed than anytime before.

3. Enhancements that added abridge the collaborative appliance developer's experience, authoritative these applications even added productive. Such enhancements cover a richer web user interface (UI), bigger countersign management, and quicker abstracts entry. At a abstruse level, barter accept back been able to define, customize, and administer their web pages and web UI configuration, thereby simplifying the configuration, maintenance, and amplification of appliance web sites. Further, improved, added adjustable accession and agreement options acquiesce barter to acclimate the appliance to accommodated their alteration requirements.

One Vendor's Quest to Garner a Global Sourcing Ecosystem

Many online writing by TEC and added sources accept depicted in abundant detail not alone the opportunities of all-around sourcing for retailers and their architect suppliers, but the abeyant perils as well. There has absolutely been abundant allocution about globalization and its furnishings these canicule on business, and there is no agnosticism that aggressive corporations are added butting alive in the all-around arena field. Yet aggressive in accumulation networks that cantankerous borders accordingly adds abounding added problems for companies to argue with compared to accomplishing business in a alone bounded market, area competitors accept to accept by the aforementioned rules and regulations; balance and pay in the aforementioned currency; acquaint in the aforementioned language; and pay about the aforementioned ante for activity wages, supplies, and materials. To apprentice more, amuse see The Accretion and Pain of All-around Retail Sourcing, Dealing with All-around Trade Administration Complexity, and Supplier Relationship Management: Benefits and Challenges.

On the one hand, there has been an accretion acquaintance of the cardinal accent of suppliers; retailers and manufacturers are aggravating to breeding abiding collaborative partnerships with their trading ally and to advantage their suppliers' strengths and savvy. They do this with the ambition of accomplishment win-win relationships (as against to acceptable price-based and transaction-based encounters that account alone one sideusually a ample approach master).

On the added hand, while outmaneuvering the antagonism requires companies to be able-bodied able to antecedent or aftermath and advertise about anywhere in the apple in accession to accepting an compassionate of the all-around supplier bazaar trends, buyers crave automatic accoutrement to accost quotes from trusted suppliers, assay and assay responses, and ultimately administer analytical aisle items, such as ancestor testing and sampling. In added words, rapidly responding to customers' demands requires the adeptness to seek out the a lot of adapted all-around suppliers and accomplishment sites, and again get these accessories up and alive on the banker arrangement of systems as anon as possible.

Enter Eqos

Exploiting all-around sourcing opportunities while aspersing the risks and challenges has been the bread and butter (the bulk antecedent of revenue, as able-bodied as bulk competency) of Eqos (www.eqos.com), a UK-headquartered provider of on demand, Internet-based all-around sourcing and supplier administration solutions for the retail accumulation chain. The company's roots go aback to 1997, if it was clearly formed as a hosted business-to-business (B2B) accord platform.

The vendor's aboriginal aloft chump was the ample UK bazaar alternation Sainsbury's. Eqos's founders Mike Quinn (currently arch controlling administrator [CEO]) and Chris Foulkes (currently arch artefact officer) put the belvedere to acceptable use, as they formed with the covering chump to ensure artefact availability and promotions while abbreviation accumulation alternation inventory. The solution, again alleged Eqos Collaborator, was layered aloft the customer's absolute bulk action systems to backpack out predictive alerting, administer on-the-shelf availability and promotions (and acquaint the advice aback to the trading partners), adviser the achievement of suppliers, and assay account turns.

In 1998, Sainsbury's custom-built bulk achievement administration apparatus was deployed to over 750 suppliers, 800 stores, 55,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs), 3,000 users, and 100 depots. The after-effects of this deployment included a abatement of outbound stocks from 5 weeks' account to alone one week's worth, an admission in sales of answer items by 10 percent, a abridgement in millions of pounds in operating costs, and a abatement of out-of-stocks by 20 percent.

The Eqos abstraction at the time complex apparatus Web portalbased accord and affiliation (leveraging proprietary architecture) fabricated accessible with Eqos's proprietary toolsets, such as Eqos Accord Server, Eqos Apparatus Builder, and Eqos Integrator. The aberration amid what Eqos offered at the time and equivalent, abreast systems was that Eqos's arrangement acclimated Web-based bound admission for a broadcast association (somewhat forth the curve of the peer-to-peer [P2P] architecture), while added systems acclimated the added acceptable client-server archetypal (with some Web interfaces getting anchored on later).

P2P is a blazon of arrangement in which anniversary workstation has agnate capabilities and responsibilities. This differs from client-server architectures, in which some computers are committed to confined the others (that is, in a master-slave model). While P2P networks are about simpler and added adaptable, they usually do not action the aforementioned achievement beneath abundant loads, which somewhat resembles the ancestry of the abreast service-oriented architectonics (SOA) frameworks (see Architectonics Evolution: From Mainframes to Service-oriented Architecture).

In the aboriginal 2000s, Eqos aswell formed with the Focus Wickes DIY (do-it-yourself) home advance centers to advance a artefact achievement administration solution, which helped the banker accumulate bigger ascendancy over its bartering factories. The band-aid was deployed to 350 suppliers in 21 weeks, consistent in added sales by 0.5 percent annually, bargain costs by 0.5 percent in the aboriginal year, and bargain account by a budgetary bulk of 6 actor pounds. The aboriginal 2000s were boxy years (and not alone for Eqos) attributable to the aggregate of an bread-and-butter downturn, the dot-com bust, and the actualization of Microsoft BizTalk as a commercially available, off-the-shelf affiliation and accord platform.

In 2002, Eqos delivered a B2B aperture congenital on the Eqos Accord Server to Debenhams administration stores. In hindsight, this B2B aperture could be admired as the beta absolution of Eqos's approaching all-around sourcing solution. Debenhams deployed the band-aid to 900 suppliers and assorted categories, consistent in bargain alteration times by one week, a lower amount of markdowns, decreased advance times, bigger operational efficiencies, and bargain carrier costs.

Although Eqos was primarily alms casework to body accord systems for its audience apparatus its toolsets, its all-embracing action at the time was to plan with absolute software vendors (ISVs), technology consultants, and systems integrators (SIs) to use the systems as a bulk technology for accord systems development; Accenture has been a arch affiliation example. Eqos has chip BizTalk into its platform, allowance to advance its technology abject from an action apparatus affiliation (EAI) apparatus with bulletin brokering casework into one that offers able business action administration (BPM) services.

However, in the spirit of the aphorism when one aperture closes, addition opens, Eqos has afresh regrouped about leveraging the sourcing best practices (know-how) it has abstruse with the high-profile audience aloft into a all-around sourcing and supplier administration apparatus band-aid set. Eqos's knowledge, expertise, and accurate technology with its aboriginal barter has been congenital into the new apartment of solutions advised to automate the sourcing process, abatement time to market, and accredit greater sourcing capacity, while befitting the authoritative accountability to a minimum.

More retailers are alive with adopted suppliers to advice aggrandize their own characterization and clandestine characterization ranges to accretion aggressive advantage and bigger margins. In 2004, Eqos launched a accepted band-aid to advice abate the risks of outsourcing and to accumulate the processes of affairs globally. The aboriginal absolution of the Eqos Sourcing band-aid apartment comprised several modules, which amid the antecedent alternative of the supplier, adjustment placing, new artefact development and addition (NPD&I), absolute amount management, and superior and accident management. A key aspect of the apparatus apartment is the accumulating of all accordant abstracts on abeyant suppliers and their bids, and the affluence of allegory at the supplier alternative stage. The applications accommodate afterimage of articles as they advance through the accumulation chainfrom abstraction to deliverygenerating alerts and letters if things do not go according to plan so problems can be abhorred afore they arise.

By aboriginal 2005, Eqos delivered the multichannel and multi-country all-around sourcing band-aid to the electronics and apparatus retail behemothic Best Buy, which at the aforementioned time apparent its assimilation of the coveted US market. The band-aid complemented the retailer's ancillary about-face to a pull model absolute well. This cull archetypal allows anniversary of the retailer's added than 900 alone food to banal the commodity (product assortments) that the store's barter are a lot of acceptable to buy. To accomplish such tailored offerings, the banker uses adult clay adequacy to anticipate who the absolute store's barter are, what their addiction to absorb on is, and how abundant of the anniversary absorb the banker is acceptable to capture.

Best Buy has back claimed a 20-fold admission in its clandestine characterization business, with bigger margins, bargain costs, and bigger bell-ringer negotiations as accompanying after-effects accustomed that it is now able to configure non-commodity articles based on user-oriented blueprint and appearance abundant bigger (as able-bodied as to back these bound to its Asian sourcing office).

The Eqos band-aid connected to be added and aesthetic through the 2005 activity with the UK retail behemothic Tesco at 13 sourcing offices in nine countries. Back then, the banker has appear a 25 percent abridgement in time to market, added sourcing efficiencies attributable to best practices deployed beyond the absolute organization, and bigger afterimage for supplier teams.

Virgin's Need for a Non-vanilla Music Procurement Solution

2005 aswell apparent the aloft assurance of Virgin Megastores, area Eqos developed a appropriate arrangement administration band-aid called OTIS (standing for Online Trading Advice System) for 200,000 alive artefact lines, and on average, 400 specific one-off (nonstandard) deals per month. Virgin operates over 120 megastores (it aswell has a bottom amount of Virgin XS branch outlets) in the UK and Ireland, with added outlets in the US, France, Australia, Greece, and several added countries.

Each day, added than a actor humans appointment Virgin food about the world, and their tastes can alter uncontrollably. Virgin appropriately has about 200,000 alive ball and media artefact lines, which appear from about 120 altered suppliers. The supplier account is anytime changing, while abounding abstruse and specialty suppliers accept bound IT agency and savvy. Furthermore, Virgin executes abounding product- and time-specific deals that may absorb discounts, promotions, or amalgamation deals, which adds added complication to the blueprint of managing a bulk of suppliers and befitting anybody on the aforementioned page.

Indeed, Virgin's claiming was not absolutely about all-around sourcing per se, as is the case with a lot of added boilerplate retailers, but rather the aggregation bare a way to automate its administration of supplier deals, and alluringly in absolute time. Therefore, Virgin had to body formalized accord and acceding administration applications that could be acclimated by its affairs teams and all its suppliers behindhand of their admeasurement and IT means.

Such deals can be acutely time-sensitive, and they can alter absolutely a bit from abundance to store. Namely, if a assertive accepted bandage is in town, a accurate bounded abundance may wish to allot added shelf amplitude to its bunched discs (CDs) and business collateral. Without a well-structured arrangement in place, this would be done randomly, abnormally in acceding of specific promotions and discounts to chase the bandage as it tours the globe. Addition book involves the chiral administration of appeal spikes. For example, if a aerialist al of a sudden or accidentally wins assorted acclaimed music awards, abundant added shelf amplitude have to anon be allocated to that act for as continued as the appeal is strong.

To abate these issues, the appropriate Web-based arrangement OTIS handles both accepted and one-off deals while amalgam affairs and affairs decisions into accumulation alternation administration (SCM). With OTIS in place, buyers accede to acceding with suppliers for a specific deal, and if deals are completed (agreed to) over the phone, the buyers again access acceding into OTIS and forward them to the supplier. After accepting an e-mail active from the buyer, the supplier can log into OTIS and accredit the accord or abide any all-important changes. The accord (including all the changes that are fabricated forth the way) is again tracked so that both abandon can admeasurement the after-effects of end sales, promotions, and added key variables.

Details of the accord (signed off by both parties) are again fed into Virgin's proprietary retail commodity administration arrangement (cleverly called ELVIS, continuing for EPoS Linked Virgin Advice System) and its abstracts barn and business intelligence (BI) systems. Received appurtenances are after akin with the invoice, and the acceding of the acceding are confirmed. With diminutive accord altitude in place, Virgin can accomplish such changes as admission discounts if assertive volumes are met, or change a advance appellation if a appellation underperforms. The adventure aimed at enabling suppliers' proofs of claims has reportedly adored Virgin 1 actor pounds in the aboriginal year, with an boilerplate accumulation of 1,500 pounds per contract, due to bigger arrangement acceding management.

Boosting the Bottom Line with Master Data Management An Interview with Anurag Wadehra of Siperian Inc.

LW: What is MDM?

AW: That's a actual absorbing question, Lyndsay. Today, there's a lot of advantage of adept abstracts management, and about what it is, is a administration of a assertive affectionate of data. It is a abstracts that defines the bulk business descriptions of customers, products, locations, and added key entities that [businesses] accept to track. That's a actual simple way of adage that adept abstracts administration is managing your key business entities.

LW: How do organizations use adept data? Can you accord us an example?

AW: What's absorbing about adept abstracts and the administration of it, and the use of it in companies is that cipher uses it exclusively. Cipher wakes up and says, "I'm traveling to use adept abstracts today." It gets captivated in every business action and every business transaction. Let me accord you an example. If you go to the coffer and abjure 10 dollars from an [automatic teller machine] ATM, in that transaction is adumbrated who you are: what's your name,... your annual number,... your address,... your location. Those aspects of the transaction are attributes of adept data, and they get used, derived, or accessed during that transaction. And that's accurate for added business processes that absorb customers, products, the accord a allotment of barter and products, or added classes of what is alleged adept data. So, in a nutshell, adept abstracts gets acclimated in about every cogent business action and transaction.

LW: How can MDM in actuality advice a aggregation advance its sales and business efforts?

AW: That's a actual catchy catechism because companies accept been aggravating to advance their business performance, including their sales and business processes, for a actual continued time. And for sales and marketing, companies accept been aggravating to abate the bulk of mailings, bulk of marketing, to altered segments of their customers.

In sales, the bulk of accepting the leads and processing the leads is an breadth of focus for abounding companies to advance their effectiveness. Adept abstracts is analytical because actual generally the acumen why costs are actual top is because companies do not accept acceptable ascendancy over their adept data. And accordingly by authoritative the superior and reliability, and actual often, actual simply, the analogue of adept abstracts about chump artefact accounts, companies can decidedly advance the business achievement and business processes associated about this data.

Perhaps an archetype will help. If you accede a commitment that is beatific to 10 actor barter by a ample coffer announcement either a acclaim agenda action or some added artefact offer, a cogent bulk of money can be spent on incorrect addresses, incorrect alike names, agnate names, assorted mailings beatific to the aforementioned household, actual generally not acquainted that spouses ability in actuality accord to the aforementioned institutions as customers.

All of these issues aftereffect anon in college bulk and lower profitability. The basis could could cause of abounding of the problems I've just declared was poor superior of adept data, abridgement of compassionate of the relationships a allotment of adept data.... By convalescent the superior and ascendancy of adept data, you can advance anon the basal band of your sales and business processes by abbreviation the bulk of mailings, by convalescent the superior of casework at alarm centers, and by convalescent the time it takes to action leads for sales.

LW: What affectionate of strategies should organizations use to advice them apparatus MDM?

AW: So, what we've apparent is that a lot of companies accept the accent of top superior adept abstracts and the administration of it, yet attempt with accepting started because adept abstracts is so accepted and is allotment of every above transaction and business process. Therefore, our advocacy has been that you alpha by searching at one specific business problem, such as bulk of marketing, or top bulk of sales, or convalescent chump account levels, and again assignment down aural that botheration to the basis could could cause of top costs, and actual generally those are apprenticed by poor superior of adept data.

By attached the business problem, you are aggravating to advance and [narrow] in on the adept abstracts issues in that area. You can in actuality apparatus a band-aid rather quickly, actual generally aural 60 canicule or less. And accordingly you can alpha accepting the account of accepting anchored the adept abstracts affair in one accurate business area, such as business or sales, actual quickly.

That's what we advocate. Don't try to abscess the ocean. Don't try to advance adept abstracts beyond the absolute action in a individual project. Identify a business botheration that is actual contained, and breach the botheration by implementing a band-aid for adept data. The aphotic ancillary of that access is that if you breach the botheration and again go on to abode a altered problemlet's say, with artefact dataand now you apparatus a absolutely altered band-aid for that, how do you accomplish abiding that all these solutions are actually, in fact, connected, because your accepted analogue of a chump for business needs to be the aforementioned accepted analogue of chump for, let's say, tracking articles that are getting alien to the customer.

Connecting the adept abstracts solutions and authoritative abiding that all the adept abstracts solutions in the aggregation are based on a accepted set of definitions is a actual important appliance as you advance adept abstracts problems.

LW: In your antecedent catechism advanced about sales and marketing, you in actuality did acknowledgment some of the challenges that barter face if they are aggravating to apparatus or use adept abstracts administration solutions for their sales and business efforts. But can you aswell alarm some of the challenges that barter face who don't use MDM, either additionally aural sales and business or added areas of the organization?

AW: I anticipate what has happened is that humans who don't anticipate that adept abstracts administration is a new botheration that needs to be addressed in a new way, usually end up accepting to abode the botheration in the old way.

Let me accord you an archetype of that. A lot of companies ability say, I accept a CRM system, whatever the aback appointment appliance they accept purchased for managing sales leads, or I accept a alarm centermost application, whatever arrangement they ability use to alternation their chump account reps to yield the calls and abutment them. They ability accept that those systems are able for accouterment a articular appearance of the customerstheir addresses, their locationsand that ability be accurate for just that attenuated process. However, business processes and chump processes amount beyond sales and business and support. So, it's actual important that the chump account rep knows that a sales alarm has been fabricated to this chump the day before, or what accompaniment of business action ability accept been beatific out two canicule before.

Business processes that amount sales and business and chump account should access a common, connected definition a common, connected appearance of your customer's bulk contour information, be it their address, their location, their preferences for e-mail, their aloofness preferences, etc. And if companies do not accept adept abstracts administration or do not accept they charge adept abstracts management, they end up spending a lot of time administration abstracts inconsistencies, abstracts superior issues. Ultimately, these are chump retention, chump adherence issues because barter get frustrated; they say, You, the company, do not accept me,... that I accept already accustomed you my new commitment abode six times, and yet you accumulate sending me being to the old address,... that I've told you not to e-mail me at this accurate e-mail address, and yet you accumulate e-mailing me aback at this accurate e-mail addressthese kinds of chump loyalty, chump acquaintance issues axis from not acclamation adept data.

LW: Do you accept any examples of how the use of MDM has added advantage aural an organization?

AW: Actually, several examples.... If you breach it down from unprofitably, we apostle that you should be able to absolve adept abstracts administration success and investment in adept abstracts administration technology on authentic bulk accumulation alone. That's a actual specific, actual basal band effect. We accept that over time accepting bigger superior of chump abstracts and artefact abstracts in your sales and business processes will advance your acquirement as well. But we'll leave that for now because that can be a claiming to measure.

On bulk ancillary alone, we've apparent barter abate their commitment costs because they accept a better, clearer, added contempo analogue of [customers' names, addresses, locations]. We accept apparent barter abate the bulk of breeding a advance and of managing a advance through their central sales action because they now apperceive absolutely how to yield a chump or a lead, and map it added accurately to the assorted sales territories or sales reps, and we accept apparent companies abate bulk on chump account levels because they accept been able to anon accompany in chump preferences from added sales and business systems in their alarm centermost environments. These are specific illustrations and examples area companies accept bigger their basal band by abbreviation costs associated with chump data.

Social Networks: How They're Turning CRM Upside Down An Interview with Paul Greenberg of BPT Partners and myCRMcareer.

Welcome to TEC Radio. I'm Wayne Thompson, administrator of analysis for Technology Evaluation Centers [TEC], and I'll be your host for today's show.

In this episode, we'll be exploring amusing networking and its appulse on chump accord administration [CRM]. To help, Paul Greenberg will be abutting me in the discussion.

Paul Greenberg is an internationally acclaimed able on chump accord management. His acknowledged book, CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Chump Strategies for the 21st Century, is accessible in eight languages and is acclimated as a university arbiter in over 60 countries. He consistently writes for publications such as CRM Magazine, SearchCRM.com, CRMGuru, and The New York Times. Paul is aswell a founding arch and controlling administrator at BPT Partners.

Wayne Thompson: We all apperceive about Facebook and MySpace, but how are companies application amusing networks to reach, influence, and annual their customers?

Paul Greenberg: There are two agency this is accepting apparent appealing dramatically. On the one hand, it's the use of Facebook by companies, and on the added duke is the conception of their own amusing networks.

I'll accord you a brace of examples. If you go to Facebook appropriate now, which has become a platform, you're award business bodies are alpha to abide Facebook in a affecting fashion. In fact, the age of Facebook associates has gone up to about 35 years old, which is hardly academy age. The affair that's absorbing about that is that you will acquisition that [chief controlling officers] CEOs of abounding companies many practitioner companiesare allotment of it and accept their own networks and groups. And you get arrive into these networks and groups, and get invitations to these groups via Facebook. So, on the one hand, they're application absolute amusing networks, and on the added hand, you accept companies like Procter & Gamble, who are creating their own amusing networks.

For example, they accept VocalPoint, which is [made up of] 600,000 mothers, and anniversary of them has a arrangement of 25 added mothers, of whom they are the arch of the pecking order. And what Procter & Gamble does is that it gives articles to the advance 600,000 moms, and through accustomed behaviornot through focus groups, not through surveysthrough their accustomed circadian activities, [they] advance the chat about the products. They use the articles and accord feedback, which is again fed aback to Procter & Gamble. And again Procter & Gamble will adapt the products, change them, or bulk them differently, accordingly.

[There are] two bulk credibility to accept about how these amusing networks are accepting acclimated in this specific forum: the bulk of acknowledgment that is accepting accustomed is invaluable because you are accepting it through real-life situations, and it's a real-life accumulation of real-life humans, as against to a focus accumulation ... This is accustomed behavior, so the acknowledgment tends to be absolutely real. It aswell empowers the momsthe advance moms especiallyand they get accurate as the baton of the pack, and they are the ones who are accepting and distributing the products.

But there's one added thing. Now, anticipate of this: 600,000 times 25, and you get at atomic 15 million. That agency that your abeyant ability for a artefact is 15 actor [prospective customers] after a dime spent above the absolute administration of that artefact to the moms. It's a huge business potential. This is something you're seeing added and added frequently with companies that are accepting successfulon the one hand, utilizing absolute amusing networks, and on the added hand, creating their own amusing networks and their own user communities, either abreast or publicly, for facilitated activities that absorb acknowledgment and business reach, which are astounding results. Profit and acquirement are their benefit.

WT: Paul, accustomed the bulk you just categorical with that example, why do you anticipate that added organizations aren't accomplishing amusing networking or utilizing its potential?

PG: Because in adjustment to do it effectivelyand this is the boxy partthe aggregation needs to accomplish a cultural alteration that says, "We are ceding ascendancy of the business ecosystem to the customer." In added words, it's acceptance of the actuality that the chump is already accomplishing this stuff, the chump is traveling to abide to do it with or after them, and in fact, the chump is in actuality creating the demands and commands that the business has to attach to. The chump is saying, "This is what I want. Appearance me you can accord it to me." It's no longer, "Oh, you've got this abundant product. Thank you for bearing it." It's the added way around. That is a absolute difficult cultural alteration for the aggregation to make, because it overthrows aggregate they've done in the 20th aeon and the ancient allotment of this century. You accept a affecting move that has to be fabricated in adjustment to do it well. Companies like Procter & Gamble accept fabricated that move. Others just artlessly can't or debris to.

WT: Paul, in what industries do you see the better abeyant for amusing networking, and why?

PG: In the top tech industry as a whole, there is a amazing bulk of befalling from both a [business to business] and a [business to consumer] B2C standpoint. Top tech tends to be decumbent to that to actuate with, and is in actuality the one bearing the tools. We've apparent it [being done] in the action 2.0 fashion, acceptation internally to the businesses, and we've apparent a lot of use of amusing networks at companies like SAP, or IBM, and so forth. ...The retail industry is addition one that has a absolute big abeyant [for amusing networks] because it is a able B2C experience. It is a absolute customer-to-store affectionate of experience. At the aforementioned time, there's a basic ancillary that becomes absolute advantageous because a lot of the amusing analysis sites, for example, are geographic. When you attending at Yelp, it's not just based on Nordstrom's. It's based on Nordstrom's in Atlanta, Georgia [US], or ... San Francisco, California [US], Mission Street .... Because the retail acquaintance is so absolute and potentially emotional, it's addition breadth breadth that affectionate of abeyant exists.

Financial casework is an breadth that shows some promise. And in fact, Microsoft and added companies are architecture out banking servicesrelated communities appropriate now, but it's a little added difficult in areas like that, although there is some absolute affiance there because of the adequacy to altercate banking approaches and things traveling ondifferent deals out there. But on the added hand, there are strictures, and governance, and added accumulated albatross issues that are a little bit restraining. So you accept a array of a alloyed bag in an industry like that. The absoluteness is that it's a peer-to-peer revolution, or evolution, to start, so it's a bulk of which industries get smart.

The better affair to me, besides top tech, is consistently traveling to be retail. Retail's traveling to be gigantic. The retail chump acquaintance is a primary one, and is something we all do on a B2C akin as individuals. That's breadth you're traveling to see a amazing bulk of growth, and you're already seeing it. What you're seeing is how retail will acknowledge to what's already traveling on.

WT: Paul, accustomed the admeasurement of adaptable or carriageable devices, what types of technologies or uses accept you apparent to extend amusing networking or amusing media to those platforms as well?

PG: Actually, several. For the iPhone or any adaptable device, you can go on to, for example, your Facebook account, and get a absolute acceptable representation of your absolute Facebook account. You can see what's traveling on, acknowledge and answer, and appealing able-bodied be functionally alive on Facebook via your adaptable device. It's got a decidedly acceptable accomplishing for the iPhone, and about acceptable accomplishing for added adaptable devices.

Another absorbing example, which I've consistently begin fascinating, is a aggregation that abounding of us apperceive alleged Neighborhood America, that has a adaptable belvedere that they use. World Vision is accomplishing something ... and here's how it's working, so you can see how you can almost, on the fly, body a amusing network. World Vision is aggravating to body amusing networks alleged "Communities of Interest," acceptation that they are accepted areas of absorption that these communities are congenital around. They can be congenital geographically or otherwise, but they're still accepted areas.

What they do is, for example, forward out a actor argument letters (literally, not figuratively) based on some axiological breadth of interest. Let's say 5 or 10 percent respond; they get aback 50,000, or 100,000 responses. Again they forward out a added alternation of opt-in argument messages, and eventually what happens is it coagulates into groups that are congenital about this accurate interest, with added and added all-embracing advice accepting gotten about the altered people, and they're geographically amid so you'll apperceive you've got 72 bodies in Portland, Oregon [US] committed to this Association of Interest.

The absorbing affair is that this is accepting done absolutely via adaptable devices.... It can be brought to accepted desktop affectionate of Web service, based online, of course, but the absoluteness is that this starts with a argument bulletin and ends with argument messages. As a aftereffect of this, you get a amusing arrangement congenital about a association of absorption that you can geographically analyze with the names of the individuals in those areas, so that if you charge to actuate them, you can.

These are some of the added absorbing approaches that the amusing networks are accepting activated for, and absolutely in a adaptable fashion.

Tactical Human Resources Evolves into Strategic Human Capital Management

Given the examples of the changes in human resource (HR) management discussed in Thou Shalt Manage Human Capital Better, and the mushrooming number of point solution providers, many enterprises have realized the significant shortcomings of traditional HR (in terms of technology, beliefs, processes, and practices) that require a strategic-level mind-set change. This is particularly relevant during times of economic sluggishness and low investment capacity (which typically translates into layoffs or hire freezes, cost containment, and stalled innovation), when most enterprises and their employees are left wondering if they can (or should) rely on each other for their future.

Part two of the series Thou Shalt Manage Human Capital Better.

In the early 2000s, with the economy in a downturn, HR administration delivered some organizational value by outsourcing an increasing number of HR business processes, either wholly or in part. In many cases, outsourcing to some trusted technology vendors that have already demonstrated their HR domain expertise may help companies achieve additional efficiencies and functionality, reduce head count, and cut costs.

Of the many solutions in the HR realm, the most predominantly outsourced have been payroll processing, employee assistance programs, payroll tax filing, and background screening. The most appealing and achievable benefits of outsourcing are streamlined operations, access to better HR capabilities and industry expertise (when it is not a core competency of the user enterprise), freeing up of internal staff, reduced labor costs, and accurate and predictable monthly costs.

However, the returns from layoffs (often undertaken without much thought to who should really go, potentially resulting in the hasty release of the lynchpins of the enterprise's ongoing performance) and relentless cost-cutting have proved to have only a limited (if not negative) effect. While some organizations have tried to cut labor costs to be competitive in their markets, the most progressive companies have embraced their labor forces and used them as a strategic differentiator.

As products and technologies become commoditized in this information-based economy, companies are beginning to realize that the best way to differentiate themselves and create long-term strategic advantages over their competitors might be through their people. It is no longer what one owns that counts, but rather what one knows, which is particularly critical in information technology (IT) and similar professional services organizations (PSOs), because it is the technical expertise and experience of knowledgeable staff that means the difference between success and failure.

In fact, according to Forrester Research, more than 85 percent of the market value of a typical Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 company today is the result of intangible assets. For many companies, the bulk of these intangible assets is their people (or human capital), and such companies spend as much as two-thirds of their overall costs on labor. Thus, they should focus on business processes, using technology to more effectively manage employees and improve their productivity. Combining training, incentive management, and compensation management tools delivered through a role-based dashboard, emerging people-centric software category aims to transform each individual in the workforce into an enterprise asset.
The most progressive of companies have been using best-of-breed HR technologies for attracting, hiring, training, motivating, and managing their people. Software applications are becoming more and more sophisticated to help companies with these tasks, and as these solutions continue to evolve and communicate with one another, user companies will have a more seamless access to methods and data for managing their employees throughout the employee life cycle.

On the other hand, the laggard companies that do not embrace these technologies will likely fall behind in their quest for market dominance. For instance, by implementing a holistic employee performance management process across the enterprise, corporate strategy can be aligned (and properly communicated) with individual goals and objectives, whereby actual performance against those goals can have ramifications for individual compensation and rewards. This should drive behavior and attitude toward executing on the corporate strategy, with improved employee satisfaction and loyalty as a result.

This certainly comes in handy when the economic downturn ends, when employees begin to feel that they have more employment choices. Enterprises will again need clear, credible, and reliable strategic sourcing strategies and management in order to plan for and engage the competencies (people and companies) needed to accomplish their business strategy (by building the required effectiveness and increasing efficiency). For instance, with the economy improving and IT budgets rising, competition for IT talent—especially in key skill areas—is bound to intensify. At the same time, an improved hiring picture in IT will most likely mean higher turnover, as many unhappy IT staffers who saw workloads increase while compensation and benefits stagnated (during the economic downturn of the early 2000s) will put even more pressure on IT management.

Hence, there is a true need for much tighter integration between performance management and compensation (regardless of the economic milieu), so that exemplary employees can be rewarded more often (and feel truly special to the enterprise), as opposed to the outmoded, blanket-regulated, across-the-board annual basis (which typically produces mediocrity).

Analyzing the workforce and strategically managing the company's human capital has become the focus of human resource management systems (HRMS), as a way to transform these from dull functions to those that greatly affect corporate performance. Integrated business information warehouses, to that end, enable multidimensional analysis on information aggregated from internal and external resources (salary survey, for example), performance indicators (as in turnover), and views on strategic HR information with powerful drill-down features. Some surveys indicate that almost a third of businesses are already using data warehouses, a quarter of them are using workforce performance management or analytics, and one-eighth of them are using workforce planning.

Workforce analytics have become a core of talent management systems. This is because they focus not just on "time" (or who has clocked in and who has not), but also on such strategic business issues as overtime and turnover trends that impact a business's bottom line profit, equal employment opportunity (EEO) or ethnicity-based hiring trends, compensation patterns, relative recruitment effectiveness and sourcing costs, cost per hire, etc..