Sterling Customer Connection 2010 - Day1
I moved from there to meet up with Andrew Reese, Editor of Supply & Demand Chain Executive. Beyond talking of our long legacy with Sterling Commerce, the lack of a real downturn vis-à-vis core SCM projects and my big bets for next year (Multi-Channel Commerce & Enterprise Asset Management), I also managed to pick Andrew's brains on something that fascinates me quite a bit these days - the shelf life of long road map IT projects as against an extremely dynamic SCM landscape with changing equations around relative supply chain power. Andrew did agree to my viewpoint that its well next to impossible to do big bang business process transformation programs with a 4-5 year view on SCM. My take was that while roadmaps can be kept long term, projects need to be in the 3-9 month window to show real results every Q4 year-on-year. Also, met up with Bob Ferrari and shared views on supply chain as a function, Sterling's unique positioning there as well as our alliance relationship and what our manufacturing customers are seeking to transform in terms of direct access to their end customers.
Also did catch-up with a few customers and prospects. To name three, we had Nordstrom (a long term customer in fact) updating me around the next steps in their MCC journey having gone live with exposing stores inventory for online channel with stupendous success last year, an outdoors focused market leader explaining the importance of passionate sub-cultures, how it fuels customer loyalty and how they plan to use Sterling OMS to improve their delivery mechanisms and an online retailer trying to get their arms around multiple modes of order capture and associated fulfillment complexities.
Net-net, a good day, a little jet-lagged still, but looking forward to our sessions tomorrow. Guneet & I will talk on the fulfillment side of MCC while Chandradeep B (CD) will join Nordstrom client folks on a joint session around their OMS story. More updates post the sessions.
