My mother used to tell me, “If you cannot say anything positive, don’t say anything at all.”  And, while I should  probably heed her advice on this beautiful morning in Baltimore, I am not going to.
This week, I attended the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) supply chain event.  When it comes to content, it was one of the worst events that I have attended in the past two years.  It was very disappointing.  So, why am I not going to heed my mother’s advice?  The answer is simple.  I care too much about the industry.
In the week  prior, I had attended the National Retail Federation (#NRF12) event in New York.  Following the event,  I had written a blog about the growing gap between consumer products and retailers in the adoption and understanding of new technologies. I left the GMA conference muttering, “It is not a gap.  It is a great divide.”
I contrasted what I heard at the conference to what I am hearing from my CPG customers.  The words of one of my customers’ kept ringing in my ears. Her point over and over again to me is that it is about the customer.   Her new goal is the ability to “define the Art of the Possible to better serve the customer.”   What does she mean by that?  It is the redefinition of the supply chain to connect customer’s customer to supplier’s supplier to improve sensing and drive a more intelligent response.  It is the use of new forms of analytics and the convergence of  new technologies (mobile, social and geolocation) to change supply chain management. During the conference, I did not hear the word “customer” once.  I scratched my head, and wondered what happened to the definition of the supply chain from the customer’s customer to the supplier’s supplier.
I had just come from Barcelona Spain where I spoke at a Georgia Tech class on Demand-driven Supply Chains.  As part of the program, I got to judge regional Coca-Cola pilots where distributors competed on who could drive the best progress through demand sensing and shaping initiatives. They were great!
I am also excited about the work that I am seeing in the industry on Digital Point of Purchase.  This is the use of digital technologies to change the shopping experience and the supply chain end-to-end.  I am closely following the work of my friend Jerry Wolfe, CEO and Vice President of Supply Chain Strategy at McCormick, on his work on Digital Point of Purchase (Follow his tweets at #DP2P.  They are excellent.)   So, can you imagine my dismay to see four executives on the main stage  speaking about “collaboration” as a series of small projects to eliminate dead head miles?  This is yesterday’s news.  I wanted to scream!
As the day went on, the program was even worse.  There just was not much there.  Very disappointing.  In the words of Warren Buffet, “When the tide goes out, you can see who is swimming naked. ”  Folks, in my opinion the tide is going out.  Supply chain is more than logistics.  The world of technologies is at a revolution not an evolution.  We need to step it up and embrace convergence.  We need to redesign supply chains for big data to be ready for food safety compliance and customer sentiment.  Because if we do not, I fear we will see a lot of people swimming naked. It could be YOU! <And, as I scanned the audience at the event, this would not be a pretty sight.:)>

Seven Topics that I would have liked to have seen on the Agenda:

I know from many years of developing programs, that there are always critics. I don’t want to be a critic of the program without offering suggestions.  So, to be helpful to program planners, I wanted to share some thoughts on some potential themes for next year.  Here are some themes that I would like to have considered:
Mobility.  How are companies adopting mobility, and how is this changing the relationship with the customer, the cycles in the supply chain and the ability to improve communication with employees?  How are companies planning to use RFID and embrace the resurgence of RFID as a better sensor for the supply chain?  How is the adoption of mobility changing the pace of the supply chain?  How is geolocation visibility changing transportation?
Demand Orchestration.  Commodity prices are escalating.  Demand volatility is increasing.  Companies are looking for strategies to bridge volatility across the supply chain market to market.  At the conference, it would have been great to have had a discussion on how companies are managing promotions and new product launch with market-driven value networks.
Store Circulars.  The traditional grocery store cycle has been driven by the weekly printed circular.  Is this going away? What is the adoption of electronic circulars, and how does this change the rhythms and cycles of the supply chain?
Digital Path to Purchase.   I feel that we will only ever really collaborate (establish a long term win/win value proposition) if we focus together (retailer and the manufacturer) on the shopper.  I would have loved a discussion on how digital technologies (social, mobile, geolocation and eCommerce) are changing our relationship with the shopper.  A discussion of lessons learned, pitfalls and successes would have been a great discussion topic.  For example, is 5X lift on electronic coupons the market average?  And, if so, how are companies dealing with the replenishment issues of greater volatility?
User-based Content.  How are companies syndicating consumer generated rating and review data and using it to transform their supply chain?  How are they using it to better sense what customers want and how they are serving the customers?
Demand Sensing.  I would have loved to have seen a great discussion on the changes store clustering strategies along with insights on current state of syndicated data, the evolution of usable point of sale data, the convergence with social sentiment and User-generated Content (UGC), and how this is changing merchandising, store assortment and replenishment strategies.
Future of eCommerce.  What can we learn from Amazon and Alice.com’s current work into grocery retailing?  What does this mean for channel strategies and the assortment at the store?
Food Safety.  Where are we on the many initiatives on food recall and what will the food safety mandates mean to enterprise architectures?
Horizontal Processes.  How are companies defining horizontal processes to align end-to-end.  How are the processes of revenue management, supplier development, assortment, Sales and Operations Planning and social responsibility changing supply chain organizations?
Sustainability Scorecards.  We have talked about sustainability, and we have corporate social responsibility initiatives, but when the rubber hits the road, how is compliance affecting buying?  How is the sustainability scorecard affecting what is bought today and what will be bought in the future?  What steps and progress have we made to have a “greener” consumer value chain?

Summary:

However, as I drink my cup of coffee, I reflect on some undeniable truths.  GMA is primarily a lobbying agent for the consumer manufacturers.  The only people that can affect the program and the focus of GMA are paying members.  Supply chain is only one of the user-based committees.  The fee structure for folks like me to join is prohibitive.  So, the only way that I can affect the program and the course of the industry is to appeal to my friends who are members.  So, here I go.  This is my APPEAL.  Please STEP IT UP!  The tide is going out.  I believe what I saw this week is not good enough….  Let me know how I can help.
What did you think of the GMA conference and what do you think should be the focus of next year’s event?
This week, I will be in Phoenix at the Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) IE event.  I will be moderating the program on Friday and discussing my current research.  Will I see you there?  Look for my tweets at @lcecere.