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Archive for June 2012

Loraine Lawson
Loraine Lawson
Filed Under
06.292012

Estonia’s Ground-Breaking — and Inexpensive — Electronic Health Records System

Estonia is one of the smallest nations in Europe, and its government one of the newest. Yet it’s one of the most advanced nations in terms of technology and e-government.

For example, it’s the only nation where citizens can cast their votes online in every election, even the local ones. Also, 75 percent of its population is connected to the Internet, compared to 61.3 percent penetration for Europe as a whole. Drop the age to 35 and under, and the internet penetration spikes to 100 percent, according to a recent McKinsey Quarterly report.

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Loraine Lawson
Loraine Lawson
Filed Under
06.292012

Connecting Electronically With Technology Laggards in Supply Chain

Not every company can invest a B2B (business-to-business) system to automate exchanging documents, such as shipping notices and order statuses in procurement and the supply chain. The problem is, when a B2B partner isn’t automated, it creates additional work for buyers, who must deal with more paperwork and more manual processes.

Smaller manufacturers and businesses may be hesitant to spend money on technology for a variety of reasons. The organization may not want to incur the initial start up costs for hardware and software, it may not have the IT staff to support these robust systems, or it may simply be a company is technology-averse or doesn’t understand the value proposition for automating transactions.

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Loraine Lawson
Loraine Lawson
Filed Under
06.272012

Better Alignment Between Supply Chain, Sales & Operations Can Cut Costs

While most companies have a formal sales and operations program for improving collaboration with the supply chain, a recent study raises questions about how effective and disciplined these programs actually are.

The APQC, a nonprofit group with more than 500 member organizations, recently released it’s Open Standards Benchmarking in supply chain management report. It found that 82 percent of its members do have a formal S&OP program, but raises series that asked survey respondents to rank the tactics they used for aligning sales, operations and the supply chain by most to least used.

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Sean Riley
Sean Riley
Filed Under
06.222012

Supercharging Your Supply Chain (Part 5) — The End Game: Retail

Discussions about the supply chain tend to start with the supplier and end with the logistics of delivery. But forward-thinking chief procurement officers (CPOs) know today’s supply chains don’t stop at the unloading dock.

The retail store is becoming a vital part of the modern supply chain, thanks in no small part to the ability to monitor product levels in either  real-time or near-real time. By tying the supply chain to front-end sales, retailers can create new strategies for supporting multi-channel integration and faster B2B (business-to-business) delivery.

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