Conferences and Events

Supply Chain Peer Forum Teleconference:
Demand Management

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Please join AMR Research Analysts, Jane Barrett and Paul Lord, as we discuss Demand Management. This teleconference is for Industrial and Process Chemical companies.

Industrial driven companies have to cope with a complex demand scenario including pipeline, forecast, backlog, inter-site demand, services, and parts planning. How are leading companies developing the organizational capabilities,processes, and implementing tools in these environments?

Oracle EBS Peer Forum Teleconference:
Fusion Middleware Strategies

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Fusion Middleware is gaining prominence in E-Business Suite shops as it becomes Oracle’s preferred method of developing customizations and integrations. This teleconference will explore what members’ experiences are using these tools. What are the skill set and training implications for your staff? What specific parts of Fusion Middleware (Application Integration Architecture, Business Process Management, Collaboration, Content Management, Data Integration, Developer Tools, Identity Management, Portal, User Interaction, and Enterprise 2.0, Service-Oriented Architecture) are used? We will also discuss whether members are converting from non-Oracle middleware technologies to Oracle middleware technologies and what the experience is like.

Sustainability Peer Forum Teleconference:
Designing for Sustainability

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We will look at practices for designing around environmental (and social) considerations. We expect to dig into lifecycle analysis (LCA) in detail here and explore how companies can modify their NPDL processes to better serve sustainability goals. Software vendor interest should be concentrated but high for the few concerned (Dassault, Siemens, PTC, SAP, Oracle, Autodesk). Focusing on companies’ sustainability messaging for specific core products rather than just corporate brand, we will discuss how members can put together an integrated design process and design team that takes into account sustainability through the entire value chain.

Retail Peer Forum Teleconference:
Taking First Steps in Demand Planning

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On average, organizations adopting a demand planning activity hold 15% less inventory than their peers. What is demand planning? How do you structure a demand planning organization? What are the basic forecasting models and techniques used by the retail sector? How do you assess performance? What are best practices for change management to adopt science-based demand planning? This teleconference explores answers.

Supply Chain Peer Forum Teleconference:
Optimizing Trade Promotion Effectiveness

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Please join AMR Research Analyst, Steve Steutermann, as we discuss Optimizing Trade Promotion Effectiveness. This teleconference is for Consumer Products companies.

The average consumer products company has initiated three trade promotion management programs in the past five years. Yet, trade promotion remains poorly understood and requires definition. The consumer has changed; targeting and reaching this consumer brings new challenges. Traditional approaches are less effective and companies are under pressure to grow the top line profitably. How will the emerging digital consumer redefine trade spend tactics? How will companies utilize predictive analytics to shape demand and reach new consumers locally? What designs are required of supply chain organizations to deliver against a new consumer?

SAP Peer Forum Teleconference:
Extracting Maximum Value from your SAP Support Contract

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Given the escalating cost of your SAP support contract it is vital more than ever to maximize the quality of service that you get from SAP Active Global Support. This teleconference will explore what best practices members are using for getting the most value. How do you get your support service requests resolved as quickly as possible? What services does Enterprise Support entitle you? Are members considering moving to the recently announced new Standard Support? Will this save you much money? How do you choose? Are the lower cost 3rd party providers a real option?

Supply Chain Peer Forum Teleconference:
Strategies for Life Sciences Companies Looking to Keep Pace with Emerging Markets

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Please join AMR Research Analysts, Hussain Mooraj and Wayne McDonnell, as we discuss Strategies for Life Sciences Companies Looking to Keep Pace with Emerging Markets. This teleconference is for Life Sciences companies looking to keep pace with emerging markets for Healthcare.

As life sciences companies develop strategies to enable rapid market penetration and growth in emerging markets, they must use their supply chains as strategic weapons. Here we look at strategies, including inventory and late-stage packaging hubs, that companies should consider. We will also discuss how companies can design their supply chain responses to effectively support the exponential pace of growth in these regions.

Oracle EBS Peer Forum Teleconference:
Advanced Planning Systems for Oracle E-Business Suite Shops

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Please join AMR Research Analyst, David Aquino, as we discuss Advanced Planning Systems for Oracle E-Business Suite Shops. This is a cross-forum teleconference with Oracle and Supply Chain peer forum members.

Within the overall sales and operations planning (S&OP) process, supply planning is an important sub-process for matching demand with the capability to deliver profitably. In this teleconference, Oracle EBS Peer Forum members, together with Supply Chain Peer Forum participants, will discuss what technologies are used for effective supply planning. We will discuss how supply planning technologies accommodate production of inventory plans and capacity plans. What techniques have members used for successfully calculating inventory levels across nodes as well as for determining capacity and material requirements? Lastly, we will discuss scalability, usability, and functional strengths and weaknesses of advanced supply planning technologies.

Sustainability Peer Forum Teleconference:
Copenhagen Accord, U.S. Climate Policy, and American Manufacturing

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The U.S. Senate may or may not pass legislation to slow climate change. It may or may not sign up to a global treaty that commits nations to do so. A possible Senate rejection could pose a threat to the 192-nation effort to forge an agreement. Senate ratification of a global treaty would require 67 votes (big target!) compared with 60 for legislation. Meanwhile, most Republicans and many Democrats from manufacturing states are opposed to any type of carbon legislation. What should U.S. companies in iron, steel, aluminum, cement, glass, pulp and paper, and chemicals do to protect themselves?

Supply Chain Peer Forum Teleconference:
Demand-Driven Agility

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Please join AMR Research Analysts, Mike Burkett and Bill Swanton, for this cross-industry teleconference, as we discuss Demand-Driven Agility.

Building agility requires demand visibility, customer understanding, and customer, product, and order segmentation strategies supported by cost-to-serve capability. Making the right conscious tradeoffs and designing a supply chain to capitalize on market opportunities is essential in today’s environment.

SAP Peer Forum Teleconference:
Project Portfolio Prioritization and Governance

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With limited resources and a constantly growing list of projects, selecting the right business projects to execute is a big challenge for many SAP customers. In this call, we will explore what steps companies use to select and prioritize projects to execute. What governance processes are in place to manage the project portfolio? How do you ensure projects are executed inline with business objectives? How do you balance multiple projects into one comprehensive portfolio? What organizational structure ensures effective project governance? Lastly, we’ll explore what formal methodologies (such as stage gate) and tools are used.

Retail Peer Forum Teleconference:
Mobility: Couponing and Other Customer Outreach

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Today, consumers are pulling coupons from aggregator sites like Cellfire and Coupons.com, and iPhone applications like Grocery IQ, Valpak, and MobiQpons. Pilots indicate that consumers will opt in for meaningful offers. How pervasive is mobile couponing in 2010? What are the consequences—intended and unintended—of mobile coupon offers?

Sustainability Peer Forum Teleconference:
Sustainable Sourcing

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Kraft Foods sources from environmentally friendly cocoa farms in Ecuador, which helps to reverse deforestation in that country’s Amazon forest. Kraft pays a premium price for the Rainforest Alliance-certified cocoa, the farmers make some money, and everyone wins. This session will look at best practices in sourcing sustainably, in particular across global supply chains. We will look at the energy/emissions/water profiles in sourced materials/components; the use of recycled/reused materials and components; and the ecosystem impacts of mined, farmed, fished, or extracted inputs. On the social side, we will look at sourcing from suppliers with adequate EH&S and minimum wage standards.

Supply Chain Peer Forum Teleconference:
Inventory Optimization: The Last Piece in the SCM Puzzle

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Please join AMR Research analyst, Noha Tohamy, for this cross-industry teleconference, as we discuss Inventory Optimization.

Why are companies adopting inventory optimization? What are the organizational and skill-set prerequisites for successful inventory optimization? How does inventory optimization fit into bigger SCM strategy? What are the challenges in wider adoption of inventory optimization?

Oracle EBS Peer Forum Teleconference:
Protecting Critical Intellectual Property in a Global Marketplace

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With increased outsourcing and business collaboration comes increased risk of your intellectual property (IP) falling into the wrong hands. In this teleconference, we will explore techniques Peer Forum members take for protecting their valuable IP in foreign countries and across business partners. How do companies establish clear ownership for IP protection within their organization? What policies and practices are most successful? What changes in company culture must happen for IP protection efforts to be successful? In addition to facilitating discussion among Oracle EBS Peer Forum members, AMR Research will present findings from recent quantitative research on this topic.

Sustainability Peer Forum Teleconference:
The GHG Protocol and the new Scope III Initiative

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The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol is the most widely used accounting tool for businesses to understand, quantify, and manage greenhouse gas emissions. The Protocol provides the accounting framework for nearly every GHG program in the world—from the ISO to the Carbon Disclosure Project to the California Climate Registry. It is used by hundreds of individual companies to prepare their GHG inventories. The new Scope III Initiative is trying to come up with a method to inventory the emissions across products’ full lifecycles and corporate supply chains, taking into account impacts both upstream and downstream of the company’s operations. How would a Scope III Protocol focused on supply chain emissions impact members? How would you build a business case for accounting for scope III emissions?

Retail Peer Forum Teleconference:
Improving Store Operations Through Task Management and Labor Scheduling

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The use of task management has traditionally varied from sector to sector, with grocery/FMCG basing much of its effort on adopting labor standards across many store-based functions, and non-grocers unsure of how to use standards in the store. How are Retail Peer Forum members across all sectors tying task management to customer-focused selling, and to store operation improvements like associate self-service scheduling?

Supply Chain Peer Forum Teleconference:
Successful Supply Management

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Please join AMR Research Analysts, Jane Barrett and Paul Lord, for this cross-industry teleconference, as we discuss Successful Supply Management.

While traditional supply chain processes focus on efficient transactions, value chain networks are built on effective relationships. The difference is not trivial, challenging deep-seated traditional supply chain paradigms. In fact, it has shaped winners and losers in the market today. How are companies shaping their supply relationships? What capabilities do they build in their own teams and how do they manage across important criteria like cost management, quality, and delivery?

SAP Peer Forum Teleconference:
Improving the SAP User Interface to Increase Adoption

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IT executives are striving to improve the overall adoption of SAP software within the enterprise, especially among the business users who are not constantly using the system. In this teleconference, AMR Research will highlight key UI design principles that companies have used to improve adoption of SAP, and then facilitate a discussion among Peer Forum members around what design techniques are most successful. Lastly, we will discuss the tools and technologies members use to support deploying SAP effectively to professional users as well as the role and future of SAP Enterprise Portal.

Oracle EBS Peer Forum Teleconference:
Technologies for Demand Planning in an Oracle E-Business Suite Environment

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The S&OP process is critical to overall profitability of the business. In this teleconference, Oracle EBS Peer Forum members, together with select Supply Chain Peer Forum members, will focus on the first piece of the S&OP puzzle, demand planning. We will discuss what technologies are best used for demand planning in an E-Business Suite environment,both for determining the statistical forecast, as well as accommodating multiple stakeholder input into the statistical demand forecast. Are the tools suitable from a statistical forecasting standpoint? Do demand planning technologies accommodate appropriate review and adjustment after the statistical forecast is generated? We will also discuss usability of demand planning technologies and how well they accommodate use by sales, marketing, and business unit managers for forecasting input.

SAP Peer Forum Teleconference:
Best Practices in Business Process Measurement and Metrics

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This teleconference explores the following questions: How do you measure the performance of business processes and the financial implications? How do you tie it to the corporate goals or balanced scorecard? How do you decompose top-level goals as you work your way down the organization chart? How well is SAP supporting your end users with its BI products and content? How do you measure how different departments are utilizing the systems? What tools and techniques are members using to get hard data? What ERP system features and capabilities from the ERP, BPM, BI, and system monitoring vendors can be pressed into service?

Retail Peer Forum Teleconference:
Incorporating Lifecycle Pricing to the Overall Merchandising Strategy

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Retailers want—and need—more than the traditional linear, silo-based approach to merchandising. How does lifecycle pricing fit in to a holistic merchandising strategy? Who sets base price promotions and markdowns in your organization? What systems and processes are you using to set these prices?

Sustainability Peer Forum Teleconference:
Financial Sustainability Metrics: Measuring Up

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Sustainability has come a long way in a short time. Now that it’s the norm in the marketplace and company landscape, are we closer to having access to a tool kit? After all, monetization is a critical step in the standardization of sustainability. We will look at current best practices, examine the extent to which they are or are not being employed by the corporate world, and offer some ideas as to the trends we are seeing in their evolution moving forward.

Supply Chain Peer Forum Teleconference:
Supply Chain KPIs

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Please join AMR Research Analysts, Debra Hofman and Jessica O'Brien, for this cross-industry teleconference, as we discuss Supply Chain KPI's.

Have members modified their scorecards or emphasized different KPIs in today’s economic climate? Has cash flow increased in importance? How are members using customer scorecards to gain an external view of performance? Which technologies are being used to identify root cause for derivation of KPI performance analytics? Are the causeeffect relationships between KPIs and the processes on which they execute documented and managed?