Supply Chain Management

I recently blogged on SCDigest about how warehouse management systems can be transformed into sources of profit, if not profit centers. An excerpt about my view on the customer's evolution in the eyes of the companies:

Today’s companies can no longer get away by focusing on customers alone. They also need to focus on individuals, one at a time. The customer as a collective never really existed, and is rendered even more meaningless today when individuals/customers might tweet an order in and expect ship confirmation to go to their social accounts/wireless phones. [Read the entries here and here]

An overview of what I see a WMS do is also posted on my company's website here.

A few ideas that I think are (or should be) in the works and will be out there in this decade:

• Integration with social web sites - When I place an order and provide my networking site id (during registration), the networking site would say "I bought this". When it reaches me, it might say "I got this" and it would allow me to review it right then and there. My friends would not only be able to say that they "Like this", they would say "I want this too". And the moment they do that, it would ask for a confirmation and place an order. It would allow social sites like Orkut and Facebook to route orders to companies.
• The individual customer - Whether I walk into a store or shop online, I would have one identity, and would see all my order details irrespective of where I shopped. Today membership rewards allows me to get points across all channels for most retailers. In the next few years, I would be able to see my entire transaction history, across channels. 
• Automated price matching - Companies sometimes have disconnected price match and return policies. You can return unconditionally within 90 days but price matches are allowed till only 30 days! I would like them to match up and then be automated, so whenever the price reduces I get a refund automatically. Maybe, the company will send me a store gift card; should drive sales! 
• True multi-channel selling - Companies are doing BAFA (Buy Anywhere Fulfill Anywhere). Or so they say. It will become Buy everything everywhere and fulfill everything from everywhere. The store will become more of a marketing store front and a forward fulfillment location - specially in more commodity segments.