Conversational Commerce

Conversational Commerce

The retail omni market, along with the entire retail supply chain collaborative network, is being driven by consumer demand towards a significant disruption that will transform the legacy consumer focus into a social commerce, or conversational commerce, marketplace. I think the conversational commerce name is highly descriptive of the transformation and provides a highly descriptive name to the next transformation wave. The next transformation wave will be focused on the two-way interaction between customer and retailer or customer and service provided or retailer and service provider, I’m sure you get the drift, creating an eComerce network market. The next transformation will eliminate the hierarchy across the retail marketplace and replace the hierarchy with a network of direct connections to the appropriate partner at the appropriate time in the retail transaction. The benefits of this model are dramatic for all parties involved and provide the framework for interaction through the next transformation wave.

Conversational commerce is the next logical step in the transformation of the social commerce marketplace network and provides a great way to frame the transformation. The focus of conversational commerce is a network of two-way interaction between consumers and partners to support shopping and purchasing in the omni market. This is a further clarification and more importantly an enhancement to shopping and purchasing in the marketplace. This creates a virtual shopping capability that incorporates virtually the interaction that normally occurs in the physical retail shopping trip. It provides the ability to interact across all of the parties involved in the shopping experience to provide the value-added services and products during the shopping experience that would be difficult in the current standard eCommerce or omni market shopping experience. The two-way interaction is a very powerful tool that will improve the shopping experience and increase the opportunities for additional sales and add-on services.

The transformation definitely requires a means to coordinate and direct the communications across the involved parties and this is where the control tower concept and technology comes into play. A control tower framework is required to provide a plug-and-play framework for communication and collaboration with external partners and even consumers that allows the partners to focus on the business benefits rather than the communication requirements. The control tower framework must be embraced and implemented across all of the partners to maintain the communication and realize the benefits. This framework provides the basis for integration from a message perspective to allow the partner to communicate with a partner in the most efficient manner for the partner while maintaining a clean and stable interface with their own internal systems. The framework provides an externally facing tool that is flexible and robust to simplify the addition and integration with other partners, it does not eliminate the work to external partners, it eliminates the work on the internal integration though to the business applications.

Conversational commerce focuses on the two-way communication between partners, including manufacturers, transport, service providers and consumers. This model will transform the omni channel retail marketplace again based on the consumer lifestyles and the consumer embrace of technology to support the social network. Conversational commerce is another term for what I have been calling social commerce which is the two-way direct communications with all players or partners involved in the retail marketplace. Consumers view retail shopping as a social experience which is why malls were so successful and now the consumers are using conversational commerce to create a virtual mall.

Artificial Intelligence Improving Logistics

Over the last few years there has been a great deal of interest and development in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) and the potential to improve the supply chain and logistics. There is an immense amount of data available across the supply chain from a combination of Internet of Things (IoT) devices connected directly to supply chain partners and then also a great deal information from your partners across the supply chain network. In addition to the data produced internally through process actions and functionality, there is now an immense amount of data available from external customers to the supply chain network via direct interaction within the extended network through partner portals and direct interactions and integration with supply chain external customers. The Internet and online interactions from eCommerce (B2B and B2C) provide a great deal of this data and supply chain partners would be foolish not to use this data to improve their logistics capabilities.

The challenge for the supply chain network has been two-fold;

• How to utilize the data
• What data to collect for both analysis and use

Artificial intelligence starts with the collection of data for analysis and this is an important starting point. There is no way early on in the collection of data to determine what will be important. This is because the analysis must be performed first to understand the potential use and value of the collected data. The intelligence part of the analysis also requires a great deal of information in order to validate the hypothesis and then to determine direction based on this intelligence. Starting with the data you can see why it is so important to collect everything because the intelligence part of the equation will generally require additional data from the same periods to confirm and validate direction.

It is important to collect all data then because you cannot tell what may be important for the analysis when determining direction. The good news here though is that storage is cheap and the technology to analyze vast amounts of data has been improved through game-changing improvements in technology. These two points have probably done more for the growth and development of artificial intelligence than any other developments over the last few years. These improvements in technology allow the supply chain to refine and redirect logistics activities and practices based on facts and data rather than hunches and hopes. Combine these two technologies with the growth of the Internet of Things capabilities and related technologies and the potential for improvements is almost overwhelming.

These increased capabilities bring improvements and opportunities in automation as well, including warehouse location and slotting, along with drones and robotics to improve efficiencies and especially accuracy while reducing costs. These are not the only areas of improvement than can be achieved through artificial intelligence. There will be improvements in volumes, inbound and outbound forecasts for instance, that will bring dramatic change to the supply chain as manufacturers and transportation providers revise their processes to incorporate the analytics into their plans and procedures. The warehouse operation though will also be dramatically impacted as artificial intelligence brings analytics to the equation that allows the operation to understand and immediately adjust labor forecasts to changes in the operation during the date based on near real time events. Artificial intelligence is just another factor bringing transformation to the supply chain and the supply chain must start with a baseline of continuous improvements in the flexibility and continuous change practices in order to meet the transformations.

Tom Brouillette
Contact: tom.brouillette.@gmail.com

Thank you for reading my post on LinkedIn in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'

Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers.

Next Wave For Retail

The next wave for the retail marketplace is the convergence of the internal business networks that include the supply chain partners and the external social network that includes consumers and the variety of social network sites and connections. The consumer is driving this convergence through their use of network services and connectivity as they are building their own network of connections for services and goods along with their connections. The objective for this consumer network services convergence is to connect in their own personal network both retailers and their extended supply chain partners such as transportations services and manufacturers to build a cohesive and service based network to support their own needs. This extended consumer network of services and computing capabilities, especially mobile capabilities, have given the consumer the tools to build their own social commerce network. Many service providers have recognized this and have developed new services that allow the consumer to create their own personalized shopping and purchasing capabilities. Considering the growth and value to the consumer of these social commerce network services I really do not see this trend slowing are expect quite the opposite.

There are two things bringing this together;
- The first is the computing and network capabilities,
- The second is new service providers taking advantage of these changes.

A big part of this next wave is how retailers and service providers utilize localized and personalized services in their practices. These services will provide the secret sauce that will fuel the next wave of retail. This has been growing for a while now through experimentation from both consumer experimentation and service providers. You can also see that some retailers have embraced the wave and are working towards developing the market in this direction.

I see the key aspect to the next wave as the localization of services and especially as it relates to interactions with consumers which in turn will drive the personalization that can grow as a result of the localization. Consumers have been using social networks and technologies for a while now to develop their own virtual shopping practices and even virtual shopping malls of their favorite retailers. They are using the services that are available from mobile app developers and now Google has jumped into the localization with both feet to provide consumer capabilities to search and shop based on their current location and even their destination location.

The Google developments and offerings they are providing through Maps alone will drive the localization of eCommerce to new levels. Retailers, restaurants and entertainment are offered and consumers are providing the personalized evaluations, ratings and recommendations on goods and services. Consumers are already tapping into these services in their shopping and travel decisions and retailers must recognize this and then take actions to incorporate the capabilities into their plans, services and offerings. Google is commercializing these services to expand their apps and services further into the lives of consumers and retailers and other service providers have a great reason to embrace these capabilities in their offerings to support their own sales and services.

Fortunately for retailers and service providers Google, for one, is providing the framework for localization that can be utilized by retailers and they are happy to provide this framework for others because it extends the Google brand and the data Google is able to obtain from this framework. This is an important benefit that should also push retailers into this next wave; the amount of customer data available as a result of this localization and personalization can be immensely valuable to retailers.

What are your observations and experience in this social commerce network? Are you seeing any impact or changes to consumer demands that can be related to these changes?

Tom Brouillette

Contact: Tom.brouillette@gmail.com

Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and -technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'

Digital Transformation As A Realization

 

Digital Transformation As A Realization

 

In reflection, we have been going through digital transformation since the 19th century and we have reached a point now where technology and technology tools have reached a point where we can begin to realize our dreams.  Science fiction writers have been discussing digital transformation forever and, in fact, we are now entering another significant time of digital realization because the technology has reached a point where the dreams of transformation can be realized.  These capabilities are now creating the next significant disruption that is driving new realization along with new waves of disruptions.  These new waves of disruption are being driven in large part by the dramatic increase in consumer acceptance, and embrace, of digital capabilities that has been driven by the necessary responses to the pandemic.

To paraphrase Arthur C. Clark - technology capabilities look very much like magic when initially introduced.  Consumers have embraced and are now weaving the technology ‘magic’ into their daily lives in ways and capabilities they would only have dreamed even 5 years ago!  These tools and capabilities are bringing new waves of disruption to the market as consumers and companies both experiment.  The greatest factor and force driving disruption now is not really the technology, it's the way that consumers use the technology combined with an impatience that will not wait for the market to catch up.  This is where the winners in the market will shine with a strategy of resilience and flexibility to allow them to sense and respond quickly to the continuing waves of disruption.

I see a key tool and capability that will allow companies to respond to the disruption is the tools and framework of process automation that will allow these companies to put together new processes across legacy applications to test the response.  This provides a significant value to these companies, the ability to ‘try before you buy’ the functionality in a pilot mode.  This strategy allows the company to iteratively develop and validate the process and functionality quickly without wholesale disruption in the legacy business applications.  The process automation concept, and especially the ability to automate across legacy applications, has been around for years. Now the tools and capabilities to meet the rapidly changing demands are coming together through a number of new and more robust RPA tool sets that allow organizations to react to the waves of disruption.

I would argue that legacy ERP applications do not require wholesale replacement and that the new crop of RPA tools can be utilized to modernize the legacy ERP through efficient integration with new tools. The enterprise financial requirements remain through the waves of disruptions and the legacy ERP implemented has been proven to support the financial business so this allows the enterprise to focus on response to the disruption rather than the herculean effort to replace the ERP.  These times of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) require tools that support the necessary flexibility and resilience to react effectively to the disruption and RPA tools provide the flexibility necessary to  

respond efficiently to the disruption.

Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners

Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition,  Here at my blog I regularly write about management and -technology trends.  To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'

Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Digital Transformation Starts With You and I

 

Digital transformation starts with your own personal commitment to digitize your personal and professional data to eliminate paper. This is important first to show your commitment to ‘walk-the-walk’ and second to help you to experience both the benefits and challenges from the digital transformation. I have personally committed to digital transformation for all of the reasons expressed for your business and market transformation, however the key reason for me is the ease of maintaining my personal records.  The first time that you quickly find an electronic receipt or a reference to a business question that was discussed in a meeting a month ago will turn you into a convert! 

Look at one example; the My Lowes customer account.  This is not a typical rewards card, or account,  because you do not receive discounts or accumulate points for rewards.  What it does provide though is a digital record of all your purchases and most importantly purchase details for future ease of reference.  A couple of examples of the benefits I've realized are elimination for a need to maintain receipts for returns and ability to purchase the same paint tint for a repair after I've disposed of any physical record and the most valuable example for me is the ability to return products without receipt.  Don’t get me wrong, rewards are an important feature of store loyalty programs, I think that these features provided by the Lowe’s program provide a pretty compelling encouragement to join.

A major challenge to any digital transformation initiative is the start-up effort to build out the framework and foundation of infrastructure to support the transformation.  Any transformation is difficult and the initial start-up must provide a reason and incentive to commit to starting the journey.  Digital transformation, whether personal or professional, is no different and requires the commitment to work through the initial challenges in order to benefit from the improved capabilities.  A personal commitment to digital transformation provides the basis and background for you to evangelize a professional business transformation.   

Fortunately for this movement, the tools currently available, along with the personal experience and acceptance of the digital age delivered by personal computing tools make the commitment a little more palatable.  This is a good thing for business digital transformation because it encourages people to question ‘why not’ and push for business digital transformation.  Every major successful transformation in my memory was driven in large part by the consumer interest and pushing business to change.  It really comes down to expanding and providing the average consumer the encouragement and incentive to embrace the change, once this initial hurdle is overcome the next step is business transformation.

We are at a crossroad now in the digital transformation journey.  Consumers are now embracing the tools and technology provided for personal use and opportunity.  I know that my own personal use of these new tools has dramatically increased as new capabilities have increased to the point where I too am pushing to extend transformation in my business activities.  The pandemic lock-down has also added to my push as I increased digital and video interactions in my work. 

The decision and action points are all converging into an increasing wave of disruption in the market.  The opportunity now is for us in business to embrace and encourage the embrace of these capabilities.  It is important now to review and revise your business strategy to support and implement a resilient and flexible framework that can respond quickly to the changes.  Do not make the mistake in thinking that you have time to respond to these changes!

Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners

Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition,  Here at my blog I regularly write about management and -technology trends.  To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'

Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Digital Enablement

  

We have reached a tipping point in the market relating to digital enablement and transformation that is fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery efforts. This has been a long time coming and the market was moving in this direction very slowly prior to the pandemic, in large part I believe because of market infrastructure (especially brick and mortar real estate), retailer culture (waiting for widespread acceptance to work out the bugs) and the consumers using shopping as a physical social exercise engaged in malls. Consumers quickly recognized and embraced the benefits of digital enablement in large part as a result of the necessity to adjust to the pandemic and these same consumers are now dragging retailers and the market to deliver on digital enablement.

The market is currently fragmented in both priority and direction of this enablement while at the same time struggling to react and recover from the pandemic. This disruption has produced a multi-prong disruption that has been extremely difficult for some retailers to react to and their reactions to these disruptions in many ways are spawning new disruptions. These disruptions are driven by the legacy retail market culture that has never really reconciled their practices with the increasing consumer embrace of digital enablement and the resulting market demands. In the past, large retailers have been very hesitant of the ‘bleeding edge’ technology and practices. This ingrained culture of the legacy retail leadership has now impeded their ability to respond effectively and efficiently to the mounting demands of the pandemic recovery, consumer demands and most importantly the resulting disruption and re-making of the retail market.

The change and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed digital enablement past the tipping point though and this has now suddenly become a key to survival rather than a progressive transition process. Now that this genie is out of the bottle there is no going back. It is now a matter of great urgency to define and implement a digital enablement strategy. Retailers must now take a multi-prong approach to their digital enablement activities in order to react to the multi-prong market disruptions. They must focus on a strategy that first defines and then delivers the digital enablement while also focusing on immediate responses to the waves of disruption driven in many cases from the COVID-19 transition support requirements. This is difficult for all businesses and especially difficult for the legacy retailer that was already struggling with digital enablement before the pandemic.

There are tools that can be utilized to support the digital enablement and transition strategy that support the necessary transition from legacy retail applications and processes. This is where retailers should focus first and foremost on defining the objectives and deliverables. The next step then requires defining the ‘how’ to deliver the objectives and deliverables. The tools should be incorporated to support the two pronged delivery to enable the transition to the new objectives and requirements while also responding to the continuous disruptions that are buffeting the market.

One tool in particular can and should be utilized to support these transition efforts to digital enablement This tool can also help in responding to the significant disruption and unanticipated impact and reaction still occurring in reaction to the pandemic. I believe a key to digital enablement and disruption response is a robust RPA tool that supports automation of test data and test execution. It is very common to hear testing horror stories regarding costs, labor and schedule requirements in the range of 40% of the implementation. These challenges are a huge impediment to the ability to respond and recover from disruptions and critical business improvements concurrently. RPA can deliver dramatic testing automation improvements in both data generation and test scenario execution that will reduce time and effort to deliver.

RPA is by no means a ‘silver bullet’ solution to your business demands. RPA does however provide a significant tool that can enhance and enable current process improvements and optimization as a first step to your digital enablement strategy. The first step now is to develop your RPA strategy based on demands and opportunities - this will guide you through your second step which is tool implementation. One more important point to take into account, is the benefits of working with an experienced partner to help and guide you in your strategy development and tool selection process to quickly recover costs.

Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners

Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'
Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Manage Disruption Through Process Automation

  

In order to manage disruption it is important to focus, focus is the key to success for all strategic initiatives and programs. The challenge then becomes overcoming the day-to-day priorities and challenges that seem to continually interrupt your focus and energy. It seems to me the challenge is to define a process and incorporate tools that allow you to reduce distractions from interruptions and I see the perfect tool for this challenge to be Robotic Process Automation. Process automation capabilities has reached broad acceptance and usage to support mundane tasks in the operation and customer facing activities. This same capability and utilization can also be extremely important in the leadership suite to help maintain focus is a robust Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program.

A key responsibility of senior leadership in any organization is the development and execution of business strategy. Business strategy is the single most valued role of leadership and two things are continuously fighting to distract leadership from this responsibility:

Most significant is disruption in the business or the market. This year has provided not just several major disruptions but waves of ‘complimentary’ disruptions adding to the impact that are being driven by events from the impact of COVID-19, to environmental disruptions such as fires and now hurricane season.

Distractions to the day to day operation that in many cases are driven by aftershocks from major disruptions. Distractions can be just as impactful to the development and execution of strategies.

We are in times of VUCA and this requires focus and determination to sense and respond to disruption in a cohesive manner that enhances business strategy rather than disrupting the business strategy. The goal of senior leadership during these times must focus on limiting distractions so that leadership can remain focused on the business strategy rather than day to day operation and continuous reaction to distractions. The challenge now is to define and understand the distractions so that a response can be quickly. This is where RPA can help leadership to identify and understand the distraction so that it can be addressed with a predetermined response.

Senior leadership can be overwhelmed by the waves of day-to-day challenges and tasks and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic the related recovery plans and activities. This focus on day-to-day becomes a drain on focus that quickly slows the strategy activities and plans that effect the long term success and survival of companies. Many of these challenges and tasks may drive change into strategic plans and because of this they cannot be ignored, however RPA provides a means to identify events and disruption that may impact strategy and warrant analysis.

RPA would allow the monitoring of these many day-to-day challenges and interruptions using process and analytics for an early warning system to define and even identify potential responses to the daily challenges and priorities. This would allow leadership to maintain a greater focus on the higher value objectives of your Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program. 

 Additional benefits to a robust RPA plan include:

1. Utilization of a robust RPA program shows senior leadership commitment and support to a program that adds value at all levels
2. Provides the senior leadership team the opportunity to understand, first hand, the potential of RPA
3. Encourage senior leadership team to evangelize RPA initiatives providing personal experience as examples
4. Expansion of business dashboards that support alerts and views based on current events and defined alert levels
5. Promotes ability to focus on value add objectives and strategy

Focus may be one of the most significant benefits of RPA from a business and market perspective. I am beginning to think that one of the best and most efficient ways to demonstrate value is to increase the focus on automating repetitive tasks and activities performed by senior leadership. We see hundreds of examples and discussions on the benefit of automating repetitive processes and tasks from an operational and customer support perspective and I suggest adding senior leadership tasks and activities to this list.

Senior leadership can be overwhelmed by the waves of day-to-day challenges and tasks and especially during the COVID-19 recovery plans and activities. This focus on day-to-day challenges becomes a drain on focus that quickly slows the strategy activities and plans that effect the long term success and survival of companies, or worse lack of focus and review on current strategies risks implementing an incorrect or ineffective strategy. It seems to me that in order for the process automation trends and especially RPA trends to really push to the tipping point requires a commitment at all levels to the capabilities and the benefits of the RPA capabilities. What better way to display understanding and commitment than to incorporate and expand RPA into the executive suite. This is an important capability that could truly change the focus to allow and encourage more forward view.

A successful RPA strategy must focus on the process and must be viewed as a journey in this example of distraction management. This is because it is difficult to define potential distractions and the response automation in many cases requires refinement in order to truly complete the automation. This continuous refinement process however is one of the RPA 'super powers', RPA allows for quick iterative refinement that supports the necessary enhancements to refine response to the challenge and the distractions.

What does this mean and how can it be delivered? As with all initiatives we must start with the 'what' before we determine the 'how'.

This process automation initiative must start with a clear strategy that defines the first most critical deliverables and then as part of the continuous improvement process that is integral to the success of the process automation initiative the next step is to validate the success of the deliverables and second to confirm and refine the process automation strategy for the next steps. The key to the executive suite adoption is to define the business critical success factors and meaningful alerts that will support the business management at the senior executive level.

It is important to follow this process with the executive suite in order to demonstrate the value and the inherent importance of the process automation movement. It is also important from another perspective - to demonstrate the level of commitment from the executive suite to the organization. It seems to me that in order for the process automation trends and especially RPA trends to really push over the tipping point requires a commitment at all levels to the capabilities and the benefits of the RPA capabilities. What better way to display understanding and commitment than to incorporate and expand RPA into the executive suite.

This is an important capability that could truly change the focus to allow and encourage more forward view.


Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners


Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'


Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Disruption Without Interuption

  

Disruption Without Interruption should be the mantra for all business strategies because it describes perfectly the objective for all strategies. What we are seeing in the business world is a period of continuous waves of disruption that I believe have been triggered by the COVID-19 recovery demands and requirements. The world is not slowing down and disruption begets disruption which then begets more disruption. While the tipping point may have been the COVID-19 pandemic, the difficulty in responding has been related to the waves of disruption triggered by continually developing events and even disasters. These are not black swan events, instead we seem to have entered into a black swan time period or era.

Based on the above, I believe the business response must focus on a strategy that is informed and guided by a robust Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program. This strategy and program is based on a solid foundational process of continuous improvement practices that have been proven and reinforced over time that incorporates a robust risk management process. It is important to develop a program to manage and maintain the strategy through quickly changing demands and new disruptions that is both flexible and focused on moving forward. This can only be done by understanding the demands and cause and impact of the current disruption and most importantly the potential for pending future disruption. This Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program is the foundation that supports your business success through these turbulent times.

Dirruptions and competition are probably two of the key influencers for every business. The interesting thing is that competitors and market competition plays the greater role in business strategy. Looking back over the last nine months shows that disruptions in business, whether supply, demand, or the ability to recover from disruption through an efficient supply chain produced a tremendous impact on business, the market and consumers. It is very clear that a Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program is an extremely important, if not critical, aspect to any business continuity planning. What's more, it is also very clear that the cycle of disruption is quickening rather than slowing and the importance of these capabilities is critical to the survival of any business in this environment. I also believe that the importance of taking the long term view and developing a plan and process for sensing and then responding to these disruptions is also of the highest importance especially to the long term success of the business.

In order to manage disruption and implement, and most importantly maintain, Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program and strategy it is important to focus. Focus is required for all strategic initiatives and the challenge is overcoming the day-to-day interruptions, disruptions and challenges that seem to continually interrupt your focus and energy. The challenge it seems is to define a process or incorporate tools that allow you to reduce the need to focus on these interruptions and the perfect tool for this challenge is robotic process automation.

There are many tools, expertise and capabilities available now that can help in developing a robust Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program to help your business, and the market, to react to disruptions and eliminate or reduce the resulting interruption and impact. Artificial Intelligence and Automation, such as process automation and RPA, are important tools to first sense and then respond to disruption. Other factors in developing a robust program frankly is imagination and consistency in applying imagination. This practice is produced through a commitment and encouragement from leadership that would come from elevating the role to a 'C' level responsibility. I also think audit controls and procedures must be modified to place increased importance on a Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program to limit the impact of the business.

RPA would allow the monitoring and even automated response to many of the daily interruptions and challenges and this would allow leadership to maintain a greater focus on the higher value objectives of your Dynamic Risk Sense and Respond program. In addition benefits this demonstrates:

1. Commitment to RPA by implementing daily leadership tasks
2. First hand leadership experience demonstrating RPA allows automation of routine tasks to allow focus on value add tasks
3. Roles change to focus on higher value activities rather than job elimination

This ability to automate the routine to allow focus on high value activities may be one of the most significant benefits of RPA from a business and market perspective. I am beginning to think that one of the best and most efficient ways to demonstrate value is to increase the focus on senior leadership implementation. We see hundreds of examples and discussions on the benefit of automating repetitive processes and tasks from an operational and customer support perspective and I suggest adding senior leadership tasks and activities to this list.

The challenge to the program is complacency! Business must fight complacency and the tendency to slowly allow these types of programs to whither.


Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners


Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'


Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Supply Chain Strategy For COVID-19 VUCA

While the COVID-19 pandemic is certainly the most significant disruption that the world is facing, it is by no means the only disruption the world and especially the supply chain is facing.  In fact, the level of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) has increased over the last 5 - 8 years through a series of natural disasters, political unrest and most recently of course the pandemic.  What we must learn is not how to address specific disruption events, we must instead develop a strategic plan that identifies potential disruption events that may or may not occur and then identify potential responses that can be selected singly or grouped to respond to the disruption.  

This VUCA response strategy is simply a more robust business continuity plan.  This is dramatically over-simplified, I understand, however what I am focused on is the definition of continuity which has been an established practice for a long time.  This VUCA response strategy requires a more robust process that defines every type of response for every type of disruption that would then be reviewed on a regular basis to validate and update.  This enhanced response strategy must be incorporated as part of the regular continuous improvement process to analyze not only potential process improvement but also potential disruption.  The risk analysis must become part of the regular process for the business and especially the supply chain to allow for a well thought out response that will reduce the impact of the disruption.

I know that many think - how can you evaluate potential risk of a disruption such as a pandemic?  The evaluation is not based on any specific type of risk, it is based on potential impact if and when any service, supplier (especially raw materials or parts suppliers in manufacturing), transportation partner or customer is suddenly shut down.  Another very critical aspect to the risk analysis is the impact sudden changes in package quantity when specific areas of demand are impacted.  For instance, when institutional demand dried up as a result fo COVID-19 and dairy farmers were forced to discard milk.  The risk analysis and continuity planning must focus on the areas of impact and not the impact event in order to be effective and support the needs of your business. 

The continuity analysis and planning must be planned and executed as a continuous process that is reviewed on a quarterly basis and the events that can impact the business must then be reviewed to confirm that the potential impacts are still valid and also review and the response is still valid and most importantly, the triggering events analysis and review process is still valid.  With the increase in business threatening disruptions it is critical to get ahead of the events as much as possible so that the reaction to the event can be triggered in a time frame that will control and limit the impact of the disruption.  The best time to plan for the response to a disruption is before the disruption occurs!

We have entered into a time of VUCA that will continue to impact professional practices and capabilities and then this will carry over into the personal side as well.  Everything is connected and there is a ripple effect across industries that must be anticipated.  It is no longer acceptable to say - who would have expected this type of disruption?  We all must be prepared for disruption of any kind that may occur and then have a response planned and ready to implement.

COVID-19 Disruption Demands Supply Chain Elasticity

The time to react to an extreme disruption such as the COVID-19 pandemic is not when the pandemic is imminent, or in the midst of the pandemic. The time to react is before the pandemic, or the disruption event, to prepare reactions based on the potential. This enables your organization to identify and evaluate potential reactions prior to the event and this dramatically reduces reaction and also ensures appropriate and effective reaction. Reaction to a disruption requires elasticity in the process and the organization in order to bend and stretch rather than break. Reaction to disruption also requires the ability to sense the disruption in time to react.

Recently there is a great deal of bluster focused on the dangers of the global supply chain that suggests the only way to eliminate the risk is to move manufacturing back to the US. This sounds great in a sound bite but is really not feasible and would never move forward. There are a few significant challenges to moving manufacturing back to the US starting with the challenge of an increased cost resulting from

products manufactured in the US. The US has been addicted to the cost savings delivered by global manufacturing and it will be next to impossible to wean off that drug. The other challenge is the people and manufacturing capacity that would be required to meet the consumer demand.

The appropriate solution involves a flexible and nimble global supply chain that incorporates backup and alternative options for both raw materials, manufacturing plants and even transport options to reduce the risk of disruption. The issue is not a global supply chain, the issue is the deficient risk identification and mitigation to react and address disruption. This requires a focus on analysis and reaction to respond and resolve the disruption. The supply chain must be able to react to difficult situations and conditions best described as VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) that requires the continuous ability to sense and react to disruption as it materializes.

As an industry we have implemented the process and the tools to respond to disruptions to ensure business continuity and now the use of these tools must be extended in order to react to the VUCA earlier in order to limit the business disruption. The challenge for the industry is the early planning and preparation for VUCA events so the reaction can be predetermined and practiced so the disruption can be limited. This requires robust tools and capabilities to sense the disruption earlier to allow time to implement the business continuity procedures.

The business continuity procedures must be predefined and practiced regularly so that they can be executed quickly and efficiently in response when the disruption is identified. This is standard operating procedures for businesses in the supply chain. One of the new factors to this continuing challenge is the types of disruption and the ‘surprise’ of the disruption. I think sensing and responding to VUCA must be the key starting point to business continuity. The definition of business disruption must be expanded to focus on VUCA and the analytics must be improved. The business continuity is not all or nothing and should be viewed as modules that should be engaged depending on the situation.

We must accept the fact that we have entered a time of extreme disruption and must focus on the ability to sense the disruption and quickly implement the response to the disruption. This means the business continuity procedures must be extended to be utilized in response more efficiently to the disruption. The first step though is focus on sensing the disruption! This is where tools and technology will play a key role, including advanced analytics and artificial intelligence and even process automation.

Business Continuity In Extreme Disruption

The coronavirus pandemic is another Black Swan event that highlights the importance of a robust and flexible business continuity plan that utilizes big data analytics technology and artificial intelligence to support a reactive and flexible framework rather than a structured process of recovery. We see a discontinuous river of disruptive events that are impacting the supply chain along with businesses and customers and the reactions to these events must be swift in order to limit the impact. The world will not slow down and in fact will only speed up in the types of disruptive events that must be addressed in creative and flexible ways.

The seemingly continuous stream of Black Swan events speaks to the need to sense and respond to these events to limit or even eliminate the impact. Early detection and response to the pending event dramatically reduces the impact of the event and this should be the goal going forward! It makes no sense at all to develop a quick response system that leaps into action when the impact is upon us. This goal of early detection requires a focus on risk analysis and that allows early detection in order to act before the crisis. I suggest that a key to the rise and frequency in Black Swan events is due in large part to a lack of focus on detection.

This is the reason I have been focused on the continuous improvement practice of sense and response. The supply chain is in the position of canary in the coal mine and the continuous improvement practice including and focused on robust identification, or sensing, analytics to sense the coming disruption early in order to respond early. The goal should be in risk identification and then analysis of the pending impact and most importantly the likelihood of the risk manifesting itself. After the 5th ‘500 year flood’ it's time to understand and take action to focus on risk analysis and early detection!

This increased importance of sensing the disruption requires an increased focus on risk management and especially risk identification as a key area of identification in the continuous improvement process. This is a big change in focus from short term cost control to risk and disruption control. Focus on risk and disruption control will increase supply chain costs however will reduce disruption impact. This reduction in impact will in the long term reduce costs of the impact on the supply chain and the economy.

The challenge for risk management is incorporating the lessons in day-to-day supply chain management and especially the extended supply chain. The correct answer to the global disruption is not eliminating global manufacturing and the global market, the correct answer to global disruption is early detection and risk management plans to address the disruption. This means alternative supply chain capabilities for materials, manufacturing plants and delivery. These all would produce different effects on the success of reaction to the disruption and each of these require focus on risk and cost analysis to identify when it makes sense, financially and production-wise to make the change.

Unfortunately we are in an age of quick and easy answers and this does not work well in a global economy and supply chain. This requires a level of continuous effort to monitor and analyze the risks and likelihood of occurrence. This process of risk mitigation must be incorporated in the regular review and analysis process of the continuous improvement practice. The good news, in my opinion, is that this risk mitigation can be supported more accurately and quickly by embracing data analytics improvements brought about through artificial intelligence technologies. This is a baseline requirement to the effective analysis of the amounts of data available!

Disruptive Forces In The Supply Chain

There are so many factors driving transformation and disruption in the supply chain that we have moved from a model of discontinuous change to a model of discontinuous disruption.

The disruptions in the supply chain now are driven by the developments and incorporation of new capabilities that are more and more identified and developed utilizing the information and capabilities delivered by data analytics and artificial intelligence technologies. The pieces of technologies are being brought together through the immense amount of data and abilities to fully utilize the data that themselves have been made possible by technology. In the same way that technologies have allowed consumers to mold their professional interactions to meet their lifestyle needs, technology is also supporting the supply chain and extended partners to meet the supply chain business interaction and operational needs.

In a very real way consumers are driving the disruption through their embrace of technology combined with increased network capabilities that are blending their interactions across every corner of their professional interactions. Supply chain leaders and partners have embraced growth in data analytics that is made possible by technology improvements in data storage, network improvements to move the data and then most importantly the computing power improvements to drive the data analytics capabilities to analyze the data to understand and define direction and capabilities required to improve the supply chain to meet the demands. The supply chain supports the consumer demands across all industries and the computing power along with the network capabilities available to every individual across the supply chain is driving the discontinuous disruption.

The pieces of discontinuous disruption have been developed and also been growing in their use in the supply chain starting with the growth of the Internet of Things technologies and tools and naturally expanding in the supply chain arena into automation of processes and then add to this the robotic movement that is growing now, especially in the third party logistics industry and you can see that these pieces required a technology and capability to coordinate and connect the dots. All of these technologies are collecting immense amounts of data for the supply chain to utilize to improve the services and increase their capabilities without necessarily increasing the long term costs.

Supply chain leaders are using these technologies and really driven by their own imagination and questioning ‘why not’ to drive this growth and expansion of supply chain processes and operational improvements and most importantly efficiencies. These technologies are disrupting through the implementation and growth of automated operational and process improvements that are driving efficiencies into the supply chain. The true disruption innovation in the supply chain is the imagination that has been released through the implementation of these technologies that are driven in large part by the improvements in analytics and computing power to release and encourage this imaginative approach to disruption.

This is the amazing thing in my opinion, that the consumer is at the center driving the disruption into the supply chain industry based on their demonstrated imagination and use of technologies to put together their own solutions. These strong outside influences are driving the basic need for the supply chain to understand and maintain the velocity of disruption in processes operations and especially functionality in order to meet the consumer and market demands. Most importantly, though is the continuous improvement process and data analytics capabilities that must be implemented to allow the supply chain to sense and respond to the disruption that is now impacting the supply chain marketplace.

Disruption Driving Transformation Of The Supply Chain

 

Disruption displaces an existing market or industry to produce something new and more efficient and worthwhile. It is at once destructive and creative. Disruption in the marketplace is driving a transformation of the supply chain into a more efficient and flexible framework that can support the continuous disrupting forces. This transformation of the supply chain is driven not only by reaction to disrupting forces in the marketplace but also from the enabling technologies developing at a breakneck pace.

Historically, supply chain disruption has been described as a major breakdown in production or distribution nodes that comprise a supply chain. This definition of disruption implies an event within the supply chain that interrupts the normal process and flow that must be overcome to return to the pre-event state. However, technologies, especially eCommerce technology, coupled with improvements in network capabilities that are driven by consumer lifestyle demands have redefined disruption into a break that will never return to the pre-disruption normal, the disruption creates a new normal.

NOTE: The COVID-19 disruption is another example of disruption driven by consumer demands, in this case though there are additional disrupting factors that add to the equation. These factors include disruption in the manufacturing capabilities and also, more importantly, business continuity disruption that has highlighted the brittle nature of the pre-COVID-19 extended supply chain.

This process of recovery into a new normal is what makes up innovation and new capabilities for the market. Rather than a recovery to the pre-disruption state, the disruption produces a recognition of a need for innovation and change based on the market demands for innovation in the process. Disruptive innovations tend to be produced by outsiders and entrepreneurs in startups, rather than existing companies. This innovation cycle is now driven by consumer lifestyle demands colliding with the existing market practices creating an innovation cycle. This innovation cycle disrupted the continuous improvement cycled to a continuous innovation cycle and the market leaders recognized and adjusted to the change.

Currently, the waves of innovation in the market are driven by supply chain participants recognizing and developing features and functionality designed to meet customer expectations, partner needs and financial requirements. Supply chain disruption is the repurposing and realigning of existing capabilities to support changing consumer lifestyle demands. Then, just for good measure, the great disruptors add new supply chain capabilities to enhance the innovation.

The best change agents in the extended supply chain implement these features and functionality before the consumer recognizes the need. This drive to experiment based on sensing a market shift that creates the demand for goods and services is the actual driving force of disruptive innovation in the market. Disruptive innovation in the supply chain is a leading influence in remaking the market to meet consumer demands. Consumer demands are being driven at an enormous speed and this velocity of change requires robust tools and practices to react. I believe the supply chain is particularly ready and capable to develop these required tools and capabilities because of the history of disruption within the supply chain.

Shifting demands from all corners of the market—ranging from product and consumer services to supply chain partners—contribute to supply chain disruption and in turn are driving innovation in the supply chain as a reaction. Consumers as the ‘Great Disruptor’ in the marketplace and are driving the supply chain to innovate in capabilities and flexibility in order to react to the disruption. The supply chain innovators are driven by a spirit of experimentation that in turn allows them to innovate in the face of the discontinuous disruption. The best of the innovators incorporate the continuous improvement (PDCA - Plan, Do, Check, Act) practice to support the innovation cycles driven by the disruption.

This transformation will only increase in speed as disruption drives new disruption. We have entered an age of disruptive transformation driven by the demands of the market that is no longer accepting the status quo. In order to survive in the age of disruptive transformation the market partners must also embrace a practice of experimentation based on flexibility.

Supply Chain Reshaped By COVID-19 Disruption

There is no question that the Coronavirus has disrupted the world and in the face of all this disruption, the supply chain is being reshaped in reaction to the waves of disruption started by this pandemic. It is safe to say that the world social and economic order has been turned upside down during this time in reaction to the speed and the range of disruption driven by this virus. There has been no area left untouched at this point and the focus is on reaction and adjustments in reaction to the disruption. This requires more than ever extreme flexibility and robust collaboration and communication to sense and respond to the disruption.

I firmly believe that one of the key strengths developed over the years on the extended supply chain is the ability to sense and respond to disruption in a manner that efficiently identifies disrupting factors and resolves through a robust process of continuous improvement. The baseline tools, practices and procedures are in place to respond to the disruption and these have really been the foundation framework that has helped the supply chain to respond and continue to support the market.

The question now is - What process and procedures should be incorporated to allow the extended supply chain to support the multi-faceted waves of disruption that will continue?


These are some key factors that will support the velocity and impact of disruption:

First and foremost is robust, open and holistic collaboration practices. This is key to the ‘sense’ process in sense and response to the disruptions. This requires open sharing of information collected from all quarters in order to better understand relationships and impact of the disruption. Without the collaborative practices the response portion of sense and respond runs a great risk of reaction to the wrong cause of the disruption.

Data collection and analysis provides the information and identifies the relationships that are driving the disruption. There is really nothing new to the level of importance of data in the ability to first sense the disruption and then determine the cause and identify a reaction to the disruption.

Define and implement actions and change based on the data analysis in response to the disruption. One key to the implementation of change is the realization and acceptance that there is no silver bullet that will address the disruption. The disruption is fluid and the changes and reaction must be fluid as well!

The reaction in the system to the change must be reviewed and validated to confirm the response to the change provided a positive impact. This is starting the process over again.

Finally, the most important factor now is speed of reaction! This means multithreading reactions and actions with the analysis of the data. There are two key tool in this time to analyze reactions; the use of Artificial Intelligence and robust collaborative practices.

The guiding factor in this time of disruption must be ‘Don’t Panic and Respond to Data’! This will be the most difficult and greatest time of disruption and when you add the cultural and health disruption to this business disruption the impact can initially seem overwhelming. In order to overcome this feeling we must identify a program that includes a process of actions to address the disruption. We should be using the experience gained over the recent years driven by business and consumer disruption in order to meet the demands of the current disruption.

Robotic Process Automation And You

Robotic process automation is a capability segment that is growing quickly in large part because of the speed in which it can be delivered with limited risk. This is a natural progression to the growing autonomous automation capabilities including robotics. This next logical step of business process improvements combines business process analysis and improvements with software robots identified and driven by artificial intelligence tools and workers. Combine the potential benefits with the limited risk and the robotic process automation provides a very alluring opportunity to quickly add benefits and efficiencies to processes in the operation.



The challenge in the operation is continuous pressure on improvements in efficiencies; to do more work with less human interaction. Unfortunately for the operation, and logistics in the supply chain, robotic implementation can be very disruptive because of the dramatic change to the operation. This is where robotic process automation can bring value to automate the existing process without dramatic disruption. This will provide the opportunity to improve efficiencies while the disruptive projects can be implemented. In fact, I would suggest that robotic process automation be viewed as the first step in a robotic strategy because it provides the first step to proving the automation.



Within the operation the greatest disruption is brought about by the dramatic and sudden change that is demonstrated by physical robotic implementation in the warehouse operations. Robotics not only disrupt the operation and the process and flow of people and operations, it also disrupts the physical layout of the warehouse resulting from the robotics implementation. While there have been dramatic increases in efficiencies, volume and accuracy this must be tempered, initially at least, with the disruption in the warehouse. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong advocate of automation to improve the operation, I am only saying you must go into this with eyes wide open to understand and plan for the holistic impact to the operations.



Robotic process automation allows for a trial at increased automation to improve the efficiencies of the operation without dramatic change. This is a benefit not only to the operation, it is also a benefits strategic planning by providing a point of validation for the automation. This is a critical benefit because of the investment required for increased automation with autonomous robotics. The resulting increased efficiencies delivered by robotic process automation allow for a refocus by the operation to more complicated processes that may be more difficult to automate or require autonomous robotic automation.



Automation is a multi-faceted opportunity for improvement and must be viewed as such in strategic planning and strategic initiatives. The organization and operation especially must evaluate options based on the process and automation opportunity, all processes will not achieve improvement from the same automation tool. This is why it is so important to implement a robust and forward thinking strategic planning process to help identify the improvements.



Automation is another flavor of process evaluation and improvement that brings a new set of tools to the toolbox. It must be remembered that these tools excel in different scenarios and situations and the strategic planning process must be a focus to incorporate these new tools as appropriate. This incorporation of new tools is critical to the long term success of an organization and especially now considering the velocity of disruption. There is no time to wait and see how others use the tools. The key to success is embracing a strategic process that experiments and looks toward incremental change to stay ahead of disruption. Disruption is the tipping point of incremental change, unfortunately it is tool late to react to disruption and best case scenario is creating your own disruption.

Generation AI Influence On The Market

Artificial Intelligence has greatly impacted the supply chain and ‘you ain’t seen nothin yet’ as they say. The market disruption is driven by the combination of consumer embrace of technology and the growing embrace from technology savvy, older generations in the market and the workforce. These converging influences are driving the supply chain now to incorporate these same new technologies in combination with artificial intelligence in order to sense and respond to the disruption. Disruption in the market will only increase because of technology capability improvements and the imagination of the consumer. This imagination and experimentation will increase the disruption as the new generations increase their involvement in the market.

We are seeing now a dramatic increase in market participation by millennials and gen-x and in turn the market must be prepared to incorporate their reactions and demands. As for sensing the demands, there is so much information available now in the market based on the online habits that there is really no way to sift through this vast amount of data to succeed in reacting and meeting the demands without Artificial Intelligence. We are seeing now the results of poor the poor sense and respond capabilities in the marketplace with legacy brick and mortar retailers struggling with the disruption and lurching from one attempt to react to another. The market itself and the consumers have moved on before these retailers can react. This is essentially a real time demonstration of the disruption in action and this will only increase in velocity.

The key disrupting factor now is mobile technology and how the younger generations are using this technology to support their lifestyle demands. This disruption has increased in velocity as the concepts are proven by early adopters and then spread through other consumer groups. Based on the embrace of mobile technology, what was once a strategic weapon is now almost a strategic albatross, I’m speaking of the number of brick and mortar stores. This embrace of mobile technology requires an equal embrace of the omni channel shopping experience by the large retailers. The current major disruption rolling through the retail market is related to the demands of consumers for a true omni channel experience. The retailers struggling are the larger retailers that have been slow to invest in technology to develop the experience.

Now we are seeing the results of this shopping disruption, especially in the large department store sector, where the early adapters are succeeding and the late adaptors are struggling! The struggling retailers are seeing the results of previous strategic practices to hold off on investment until the market settles and the winning technology has been selected by the market. As a result of the velocity of change in technology and use of the technology the winning technology is not selected by the market, instead the technology is embraced and usage of the technology modified and enhanced based on the users of the technology.

I see that the most significant disrupting factor in the market now is not related to technology use by the marketplace but related to the technology use by consumers within the market. Consumers have now turned the table on the market by developing methods that must be adopted by the market and retailers rather than the market pushing capabilities to the consumer. This is really where consumers are driving the market and this is also the most significant opportunity for a retailer such as Amazon or now Wal Mart to really reshape the relationship with the consumer and in doing this reshaping the market itself.

Data Analytics And Artificial Intelligence Driving Disruption

One of the most critical capabilities to responding to change and disruption in the marketplace is the ability to sense the change in a manner and, most importantly, timeframe that allows a response to be identified and executed. The frequency and discontinuous nature of change rocking the market requires a robust process that takes into account as many factors as possible to identify the change. This process then must describe factors and relationships to allow them to be analyzed to develop the response. The difficulty lies in the volume of data, both new and old, that must be taken into account to first identify the change and second to guide in determining a response. This is where data analytics practices utilizing artificial intelligence comes into the equation to support the business.

The two challenges; data for analytics and the actual analytics require a thoughtful strategy and approach that will allow you to sense the demands from the market in both a manner and a timeframe that will meet the velocity of change requirements. These challenges go hand-in-hand as two sides of the same coin; you cannot sense the change without a great deal of data to analyze and you cannot analyze the amount of data without the artificial intelligence to process large amounts of data.

From the data perspective it is very fortunate that the big data tools and storage technology has advanced to the stage were the collection and maintenance of the data is no longer an issue. This allows the collection of vast amounts of data available from all points of the supply chain and especially from the eCommerce channels. This data along the supply chain can now easily be captured for detailed analysis and because of the volume of data available the results of the analytics can be more accurate and more informative of trends. The important point here is the collection of data from the viewpoint that the more data the better because you never know where the analysis will take you and in order to come to a conclusion you must have the data to analyze and also prove the concept.

Ten years ago, in the early growth stages of big data, the challenge was the ability to collect and store the amounts of data for analysis and the analytic query tools to quickly perform the analysis. This required careful review of the data available to select the appropriate elements that you believed were necessary to produce the analytic results. Then the data collection required over night collection and the analytics were run to produce large reports in a daily schedule. Everything took time and you had to be careful to analyze the expected outcome. Now though because of the dramatic improvements in the technology the process and results are much more robust and immediate. Now there is no concern about the amount of data and the queries themselves are also much more interactive.

The analytics of the data presents the challenge in this equation and this is where the focus should be placed now. Artificial intelligence tools really come into play from this perspective to provide a value add to the equation. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be a baseline requirement to allow the market to sense and then determine how to respond to the changing demands. These tools will are necessary to first sense and understand the demands of the market and then these same tools will provide the means to analyze the potential solutions and even forecast the impact to the market of change.

The key benefit of these tools is the speed of analytical results and then combine that with the delivery speed of a solution. Speed of sensing the demand and then speed of response are the objectives that must be front and center for the market and the participants in the market. All indicators based on technology lead to increased speed of demands and resulting disruption in the market and market participants will not have the time required for any manual analysis of these trends. In addition, only failure will come from participants that wait for the market to deliver a solution that they can adopt.

The participants that embrace artificial intelligence combined with machine learning will be the players that succeed and prosper in the market. The rate of failure that we have seen in the market will only increase as the velocity of changing demands increase. The good news is the building block tools to quickly and efficiently sense and respond to the increased velocity of changing demands are already available. The bad news is that the market participants must embrace the tools to develop their own practices to use the tools.

Discontinuous Demands Of The Market

Consumers are driving waves of discontinuous demands that are disrupting the market and all of the partners in the market. The cycles and the velocity of changing demands has increased as a result of the consumer embrace of technologies that allow the consumer to shape their demands based on their changing lifestyle requirements. Just as the market reacts to a set of demands it seems that the consumers shift and change the demands again. This cycle is complicated by the combinations of generational, technology and lifestyle priorities. The market must implement the process and tools to sense and respond to the demands in a manner that allows them to maintain the pace of the discontinuous demands.

Millennials and Gen X’ers are entering and as a result of their entrance are impacting the market in a big way as a result of their comfort with technology and their imagination in supporting and even creating their lifestyle demands. These millennial and Gen X’er generations are the ‘tip of the spear’ in utilizing technology to create new ways to meet their demands. They are also a significant reason for the decline of department stores, large retailers and brick and mortar stores that is especially demonstrated in reductions in mall and store traffic.

The largest impact though is from the baby boomers embrace of technology and capabilities. This generation is a quick learner and perhaps most importantly from a market impact perspective they are also quick to embrace new trends and capabilities. Technology provides the opportunity to explore and rebuild a market and a very large number of baby boomers are searching for ways to support their lifestyle demands. In addition, baby boomers are not afraid of technology and as a result are quick adaptors to new technologies and capabilities that can address their demands.

Technology is the great equalizer in the market from both the consumer and the partners supplying the consumer. The combination of generations and their propensity to new demands and quick adaptation of new capabilities has dramatically shortened the change cycles. This, in turn, has left the market struggling to maintain and react. This cycle and resulting impact is quickening and bringing with it a faster disruption to the market that must be addressed in order to survive.

The change cycle has reached the point now where there is really no time for the market to adjust and extend the new capabilities across partners. The cycle has reached the point where the market must react quickly or fall behind. Falling behind can be the beginning of the end though because of the difficulty in catching up with the market.

This is where the importance of the collaborative social network practices come into play for the market to allow the partners to collaborate in reaction to meet the market demands. In other words, a strong collaborative network allows the partners to react and adjust to changing demands more efficiently and quickly. This is where the social networking technologies and practices make a big impact on the market reaction.

Social network technologies combined with big data and artificial intelligence analytics provide the capabilities to sense change in market demands more efficiently and earlier to allow for reaction time by the partners. Collaborative practices and tools allow partners to react in a manner that does not require each partner to develop a reaction to the demand. Instead the collaborative practices allow partners to take advantage of the specialties of each partner in reaction to the changing demands. The strength of the collaborative network allows market reaction to demands at the speed of the changing demands.

The greatest difficulty though is overcoming cultural practices that historically have viewed the changes in meeting demands as a trade secret to create a competitive demand. The culture needs to change to increase sharing and collaboration to sense and react to the changing demands. The competitive advantage is in the sharing and collaboration to allow the partner to more quickly react to the demands.

The measures especially utilizing collaborative practices to respond to the changing market demands are not overwhelming. These collaborative practices have been utilized for years in the extended supply chain as a means to react and respond to changing demands. The difficult actions from the market reaction perspective have been related to cultural practices both in the market and in the responses to the market demands. This has shown that overcoming cultural challenges in market leadership will be the number one challenge and delays or continuing in the same cultural practices will only cause the continual decline for these current leaders in the market.