No, I did not misspell the word Grok in the title of this blog. 
The term Grok was coined by author Robert A. Heinlein in his best-selling 1961 book Stranger in a Strange Land.  In his book, he defines the term “to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines Grok as “to understand intuitively or by empathy; to establish rapport with” and “to empathise or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment.” Other forms of the word include “groks” (present third person singular), “grokked” (past participle) and “grokking” (present participle).
In the last six months, I have been a professional Grokker.  I have spoken at five vendor sponsored conferences, the Institute of Business Forecasting(IBF), Vendor Compliance Federation (VCF), F4SS (Foundation for Strategic Sourcing), the Grocery Manufacturers Association IT Committee (GMA), participated in Retail Connections roundtables and MIT events on the extended supply chain, attended National Retail Federation (NRF),  and Consumer Goods Technology (CGT) IT, Growth and Innovation and Sales and Marketing events. Within the last six months, I have also interviewed 58 supply chain executives in consumer products and 43 in life sciences.  I am studying the evolution of processes to improve value in the inter-enterprise supply chain.  While the integrated end-to-end supply chain is a goal of most companies, it is currently a mess.  There are five primary reasons:

• Turn the supply chain outside-in.  Processes have been defined as inside-out not outside-in.  The focus has been on RESPONSE as opposed to Sensing.  As a result, companies cannot connect.  The end-to-end value network cannot be all push from inside the company to outside the company..  The supply chain needs clear definitions of push/pull boundaries.  This concept is still not well understood.
• Traditional applications do not give us the right adaptors. Traditional definitions of enterprise applications (ERP, BI, CRP, APS, SRM) do not give us natural connectors for the extended value chain.  While over 85% of consumer products companies have mature applications in these traditional enterprise applications areas, sadly the primary method of communication is email.
• A need for horizontal processes.  A focus on vertical process excellence.  The integrated end-to-end value network is dependent on mature horizontal processes that span functions.  Key processes include not only order to cash and procure to pay, but also revenue management, supplier development, Sales and Operations planning (S&OP), product launch, demand sensing and shaping, and supply visibility.
• Relationships matter. Today’s applications focus on transactional efficiency not relationships.  To achieve the successful end-to-end value network, relationships matter.  
• Visibility is not mature enough.  The term visibility–while widely accepted has a myriad of meanings, all of which are not sufficient.  Supply chain technology users still want to up the ante on visibility, but shrink at the price tag.

Is the Supply Chain ready for Social?

The short answer is that it is still early.  Yet, it is promising to solve some of the shortfalls listed above.  When I originally took the position with Altimeter Group, I was more optimistic.  I was excited to research the evolution of social commerce platforms, the design of listening posts, the redefinition of customer service through social, and the linkage of social technologies to accelerate new product launch.  In the last year, I have seen some movement.  GXS acquired Rollstream and SAP launched Streamworks,but each of these market launches have been slow and without much fanfare.  As I have shared the opportunity through the many hours of speaking, few supply chain professionals it is clear that the concepts are new.  Yesterday was an exception.  I had lunch with a VP of Global Supply Chain of a major retailer that had used social technologies to sense demand in the holiday season and was starting to use social technologies to listen.  He had not checked out–or knew about–his videos on EXPOTV, and had never heard of aggregated review content from providers like Bazaarvoice or PowerReviews.  He had also never heard of vendors like Gigya or Janrain and the work that is happening on single ID and use/redefinition of “the like button” to get real time feedback on Facebook (see figure 1). These worlds, unfortunately, are worlds apart.  The good news is that he understood the value and was hungry for more.  He is an early adopter.  He is ahead of the mainstream. 
Figure 1:  Use of Gigya Trechnologies to Improve the use of the “Like Button” on Facebook Commerce Sites as used by GieantNerd.com

Come find out for Yourself

You have an opportunity to find out for yourself.  Join me as I join with the members of F4SS to discuss the use of social in improving contract manufacturing relationships.  Recently, I was speaking at a conference of procurement leaders that manage contract manufacturers.  I found it interesting that of the people in the audience 61% have a social corporate responsibility program with first and second tier suppliers, 32% have a sustainability program, 11% have an open development program and 0% have deployed the use of social networking in a B2B context. Despite the investments in ERP, portals and BI, 57% chose email as the predominate method to communicate with their suppliers. Great discussion of why IT is investing in license software offerings versus the cloud to connect B2B and the lack of EDI capabilities in Asia and the difficulty of the Edifact standard in Europe. Of the 100 person audience, 18 had a Twitter account and 35 had a Facebook account, and 80 had a Linkedin account.  When I spoke about the potential use of social in the extended supply chain, it became clear, I was a stranger in a foreign land.  Come join me on my journey.  The F4SS group has asked me back to talk about the opportunities of social in the extended supply chain on a joint webinar on May 23rd at 1:00 PM EST.  It is a free webinar and open to the public The registration link is https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/961050947..  I hope to see you there!
What do you think are the major opportunities for the use of social technologies for the extended supply chain?  Look for more on this next week as we get ready for the webinar.
Until then, I will Grok ON!