Blog Entries: Cost management

A fresh look at E&O inventory

Edward Toung, Vice President, Asia Pacific, E2open - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - 0 Comments

I recently spoke with a supply chain leader who said inventory was like fruit: if you have too much and have it too long, things get rotten. I’ve heard other metaphors for excess and obsolete (E&O) inventory, such as bad cholesterol in the supply chain. However you choose to think of it, E&O isn’t good for your company’s health, whatever business you’re in. More »
Re-thinking supply chain risk and resiliency

Rich Becks, General Manager, High Technology, E2open - Friday, March 02, 2012 - 0 Comments

In the last decade, supply chain visionaries have promoted outsourced manufacturing, vendor managed inventory (VMI), and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) to handle everything from procurement and materials handling to manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing. And while the projected cost savings were compelling, many businesses worried that sacrificing control of these critical operations would introduce a number of business risks—specifically, would outsourced vendors act in their own self interest, as opposed to supporting the needs of the end consumers? More »
Multi-tier cost management: Defying the uncertainty principle?

Sean Rollings, Vice President, Product Marketing, E2open - Wednesday, February 01, 2012 - 0 Comments

I had coffee a while back with a customer from a high-tech manufacturing company. He told me how incredibly challenging it is to try to keep up with all the moving parts in his trading network. He rattled off an impressive number of SKUs, assemblies per finished item, components in the assemblies, and so on. As my eyes glazed over trying to do the math, he said to me... More »
What’s really the cheapest shore? Why nearshore, and how do you decide?

Andrew Atkinson, Director, Product Marketing, E2open - Friday, January 27, 2012 - 0 Comments

In a recent report, Gartner projected that by 2014, "20 percent of Asia-produced and U.S.-consumed goods will be nearshored in the Americas." This nearshoring shift will be part of a more general move from low-cost country sourcing strategies to optimized-cost country strategies. What does this really mean? More »
Outsourcing: Are we ever going to stop?

Rich Becks, General Manager, High Technology, E2open - Friday, August 26, 2011 - 0 Comments

Last week I came across a fascinating column in the Economist that asked the very same question—can the outsourcing boom go on indefinitely? The article concluded that the business logic behind outsourcing remains compelling and that outsourcing will continue to grow. All around us we continue to see evidence of it, companies outsourcing more and more of their operations to specialized third parties: IT, Human Resources, clinical trials, accounting, training, promotions, manufacturing, distribution, warehousing…the list goes on. More »
Innovation and collaboration: The new normal in the Chinese supply chain landscape?

Edward Toung, Vice President, Asia Pacific, E2open - Thursday, June 09, 2011 - 0 Comments

In our work with customers in the Greater China region as well as interacting with leading supply chain practitioners at the recent SCM Logistics China Conference in Shenzhen, there is a definitive change, albeit a slow one, in tone and attitude towards current supply chain management practices More »
How many supply chains do I need? A quick Q&A on supply chain segmentation

Rich Becks, General Manager, High Technology, E2open - Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 0 Comments

Supply chain segmentation is a simple yet powerful idea. The basic concept is that an organization’s supply chain can be categorized (“segmented”) along various dimensions in order to create multiple distinct, more operationally efficient and profitable supply chains. Supply chains can be segmented by product, market, supply/distribution characteristics, variability, and more. More »
Intelligent logistics management: The missing link in SCM?

Rob Schoenthaler, Senior Vice President, Deployment, E2open - Tuesday, February 08, 2011 - 2 Comments

Cost cutting and customer service are about as “routine” as business drivers come, but it’s remarkable how few companies are able to accomplish both goals simultaneously. After all, ensuring that the right products arrive at the right locations at the right times costs money — right? More »
Do I really need to connect to my SMBs? In a word, yes.

Rob Schoenthaler, Senior Vice President, Deployment, E2open - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - 0 Comments

So it may not be the most scintillating of topics, but B2B seems to be top of mind at just about every customer site I visit, so here goes. After all, there are few processes more critical to supply chain success than B2B integration. And as companies are quickly learning, it’s no longer good enough to connect merely to your top one or two suppliers. More »
Price is what you pay, value is what you get*

Jane Paolucci, Vice President, Corporate Marketing, E2open - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - 1 Comments

I just returned home from a short trip to the east coast, and I must say, I’m actually thinking differently. The purpose of my trip was to attend Aberdeen Group’s Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) Summit in Boston, and while I’m not typically a “numbers girl,” I found the bulk of the presentations and discussions to be quite insightful. More »