Presenters
John McGoun, Senior Director, Global Operations, Symantec
Mathew Moore, Director, Corporate Sourcing & Procurement, BlackBerry

The role of procurement today goes far beyond the traditional remit of transactional cost savings. Although financial effectiveness remains a key objective through increased engagement with suppliers, procurement has now become a critical facet of the journey towards agility and growth. This panel and interactive discussion will detail how far Symantec and Research In Motion are along their respective transformational journeys. They will invite attendees to share ideas on how a more centralised procurement process and a focus on cultural change can not only drive down costs but also ensure procurement’s role as innovation leader.

Ron Tarter, Senior Vice President, General Manager, Operations, Flextronics

Flextronics provides the expertise and muscle to manufacture and deliver products for hundreds of OEM brand owning companies worldwide. Increasingly American OEMs are finding the economics better when production is located in the United States, closer to customers and with lower transport and logistics costs. Mr. Tarter will describe how the equation is changing to favour “made in the USA” in many cases and how OEM’s can determine when and where this strategy makes business sense.

Heiner Murmann, President & Chief Executive Officer, DB Schenker

One of DB Schenker’s Key Global clients believes that by allowing their partners to play a strategic role in supply chain activities, they are able to maintain and grow their market share and enter into new markets with new products. Partner Segmentation is an engagement strategy that provided our customer the necessary framework to differentiate partners based on the tenets of Innovation and with a focus on identifying partners’ willingness to co-develop and co-invest in becoming part of the customers Partner Ecosystem – this is where the DB Schenker Innovation partnership in Logistics came to life. Discussion will be in coordination with DB Schenker’s Key Account partner.

Commodities volatility remains prevalent, materials are scarce, product lifecycles are shorter and new geographical markets are bringing new complexities. On top of all this, customers are becoming even more demanding. Where do businesses go from here? What will make supply chains agile and flexible enough to remain responsive to customer needs in a hyper-challenging market? Join this huddle to share ideas with peers.

Product and process complexity only serve as a silent killer for some businesses, while others proactively embrace such a challenge as a means of differentiation. However, what does complexity actually mean and what are its key sources? And how can businesses separate intended complexity from unintended complexity as a means of more effectively delivering value to the customer? This huddle will consider such key questions.

Today’s mobile-enabled environment is revolutionising the ways in which companies interact with, and deliver products to, customers. An eCommerce-enabled future also places new emphasis on the specific roles of the workforce, with new techniques and methods requiring different attributes in servicing customers. But where will the key changes be most felt? This huddle will debate how companies will have to redesign the skills set of the workforce to meet this challenge.

An effective Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process requires successful management of process, systems and, importantly, people. While many companies can effectively integrate the technology and processes, troubles remain across change management. How do organisations create the right culture of leadership and execution that supports S&OP implementation? This huddle will discuss such issues.

To maintain customer loyalty, businesses need to provide a constant flow of new, innovative products that meet evolving customer needs. To achieve this, businesses are increasingly tapping into the expertise of the supply base to leverage their design capabilities and develop a win-win product. This huddle will invite participants to share ideas on how to best structure relations with suppliers in order to deliver products that consistently meet customer requirements.

Commodity prices continue to fluctuate along a skyward trend. The resulting increase in input prices is pressuring businesses either to absorb costs and take a hit on margins or push the burden onto customers – not the way to keep them happy. Is there anything that companies can practically do? Is there a way that companies across industries can collaborate to generate savings? This huddle will allow participants to debate any best known methods to manage price volatility.

First, it was a carbon and cost reduction exercise. Then, creating tangible value and a positive image for customers became the remit. Moving forward, much discussion revolves around material scarcity and effectively managing resources to deliver products that continue to meet customer requirements. This huddle will facilitate discussion on what today’s sustainable supply chain actually looks like, determining its remit, design and execution.

Presenters
Russell Garich, Director, Global Distribution and Logistics, AbbVie
Steve Caulkins, Supply Chain Business Consulting Practice, America’s Region, CSC

On January 1, 2013, AbbVie was founded as a new global biopharmaceutical company with a rich heritage. AbbVie represents a new biopharmaceutical company – Combining the expertise and stability of a long standing pharmaceutical company with the focus and innovative spirit of biotech. AbbVie was created by a spin-off from the global healthcare leader, Abbott Laboratories which was comprised of pharmaceutical, nutritional, diagnostic and device business segments with presence in more than 150 countries. Leading up to the AbbVie launch and throughout the coming year, AbbVie’s Supply Chain Leadership has planned and is executing initiatives to transform, enhance, and improve supply chain management. This session presents key aspects of AbbVie’s journey and concepts and approaches that apply to many organizations looking to transform supply chain management in an environment of growth or change and how they are working with CSC to address the change and capitalize on opportunities.

Stephanie Miles, Senior Vice President, Commercial Services, Amber Road

Over the past few years, supply chain visibility has become a popular phrase bandied about by software vendors, consultants and industry analysts. Related concepts that often accompany supply chain visibility are ‘trading partner networks,’ ‘control towers,’ and ‘supply chain resiliency.’ The truth is, supply chain visibility can mean many different things to different people. For some companies it is real-time visibility of items, orders and shipments as they traverse the globe, with the goal of quickly identifying issues and redirecting inventories to maximize customer service and revenue. For other companies it is a historical view of shipping lanes, trading partners and inventory levels, used to identify and remedy consistent bottlenecks and poorly performing partners in the global supply chain. This session will walk through use cases of several Fortune 500 companies that are using global supply chain visibility for a variety of purposes.

Jeff Elliott, Vice President, Sales, ModusLink

Traditional business process outsourcing has a poor track record of value creation. Efforts through programs such as vested outsourcing improve the clarity of objectives and alignment but outsourcing as a strategy in its own right is fundamentally flawed. It has the potential to re-enforce a silo approach to supply chain, to move existing problems, to hinder visibility, add complexity and create barriers between you and your customers.

Supply chain transformation starts with customer and business objective alignment. With this in mind you can provide an honest assessment of current supply chain design and performance versus a desired state. From there a data driven and cross functional approach can point to fact based transformative strategies that can be quantified and tested prior to making any changes. After years of driving functional improvements and excellence the opportunities most frequently lie in the interaction between functional supply chain disciplines. Collaboration will be required between those analyse and those that execute to push the parameters of what is possible in the real world through strategies including network optimization, postponement and packaging redesign.

It is only in this context of enabling or accelerating supply chain transformation that outsourcing provides real value.

Presenter
Jon PershkeVice President, Global Supply Chain Strategy & Transformation, Lenovo

As companies seek to manage ever increasing complexity and demand volatility, planning and operations become critical to improving financial performance and effectiveness. During this interactive session, Jon Pershke will share Lenovo’s approach to global supply planning as a means of ensuring supply capacity, reducing cycle time and improving forecasting accuracy. He will then facilitate a group discussion, inviting attendees to share perspectives on the establishing the necessary metrics and analytics that underpin effective supply planning.

Presenter
Prof. Yossi Sheffi, Director, Centre for Transportation & Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Why is Memphis home to hundreds of motor carrier terminals and distribution centres? And why does the tiny island of Singapore handle one-fifth of the world’s maritime containers and half the world’s annual crude oil supply?

During this live keynote webinar, Prof. Yossi Sheffi discusses how the answers to these questions lie in “logistics clusters” – that is, geographically concentrated hubs of logistics-related business activities. He will explain why the likes of Memphis, Singapore, Rotterdam and many other locations have been successful in developing these clusters and why firms should focus their distribution activities within such localities and why local government should encourage their formation and development. Highlights of this session will include:

• How logistics clusters add value by generating additional industrial activity
• The role of government support; investment, regulation and trade policy
• Why logistics clusters are an engine of economic growth and Job creation – jobs that span all types and are not “offshorable”

Presenter
Dennis Omanoff, Executive Advisory Board Member, SCM World

The basics of S&OP make sense. Yet, business units still struggle to put such fundamentals into action and create value. Where is the gap and what can businesses do to minimise this vacuum? This break out session focuses on the “how” of S&OP, discussing the key ways in which companies can get their implementations on track and transform the plan into a successful execution. It will highlight how to formalise S&OP and establish closer collaborative ties internally to facilitate better decision making and effectively serve the customer.