Every part has a story

Early in my career I was a material planner in the field service logistics organization of a large manufacturer and distributor of computers. I was responsible for planning for field returns, demand, supply (purchases and repairs) and inventory balances at the international logistics operations (ILO) facility, which was the central distribution center (DC) in the spare parts supply network. In those days the planning was mostly manual, with the assistance of spreadsheets. We knew the history of demand, but not much else. We didn't know the rate of consumption of the parts by service engineers and we didn't know the inventory levels in the supply locations below the central DC level. As you can imagine, managing the balance between service levels and inventory investment was quite the challenge given the lack of completeness, accuracy and timeliness of information.

In the years since the capabilities of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) applications have improved dramatically. Today's material planners can see the history of consumption, demand and returns. They can see inventory balances across the supply network and have tools to enable planning distribution and re-distribution as needed. They employ sophisticated forecasting algorithms and incorporate additional information, such as the size of the installed base of equipment being supported, into the development of plans. The planner can even identify non-recurring demands, such as pipeline fill or trade show requirements, so they can be excluded from the demand history.

Even with all this information, material planning is still very much more of an art than a science. As one of my colleagues used to say – "Every part has a story". What has been missing is access to that story. Why is the failure rate of a part increasing - have the usage conditions changed or is it being put to a new and different use? Why are we seeing so many returns for a part – are the stocking level strategies being changed out in the field or is another part being used in its place? The list of questions is endless.

Until very recently the planner had no means to conduct a dialogue with other interested and informed people, such as the branch logisticians or field service engineers, to learn that part's story. The increasing use of social business collaboration (SBC) platforms in the enterprise, and the integration of those SBC tools with existing ERP and SCM applications will enable the planner to fundamentally change how they perform their work. They will start their day reviewing the comments in their activity stream before they open their planning workbooks. Instead of reacting to events after-the-fact, they will be able to anticipate and plan for them in advance. By connecting the planner with their customers in the field the behaviors that stem from uncertainty and exacerbate problems, such as increasing local safety stock level in response to a (temporary) disruption in supply from an external supplier, can be avoided.

The role of the material planner will begin to resemble that of the conductor of an orchestra. They will lead and manage the discussions via the SBC platform and coordinate the adjustment of plans in the ERP / SCM accordingly. They will be able to improve customer service levels while simultaneously reducing inventory investment.

The ability to access previously inaccessible information is fundamentally changing the nature of work. A key resource constraint is being removed. I believe that there is a compelling business case for incorporating social business collaboration tools into enterprise business processes.

What do you think? Is this happening in your enterprise? Your thoughts are very much appreciated.

The beginning of the end of Serendipity

Almost everyone has experienced serendipity at some point in their lives. As a culture we have attached a romantic connotation to it, as evidenced by the romantic comedy of the same name. So it is with no great satisfaction that I suggest that we have now reached the beginning of the end of serendipity.

According to Wikipedia Serendipity means:

a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise"; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it.

Consider for a moment the following scenario. I am working late in my office with a colleague, planning for an upcoming project. We are discussing possible candidates for one of the critical technical roles. At just that moment the perfect candidate, a colleague that neither of us knows directly, walks by on their way out of the building. Miraculously, my iPad notifies me just-in-time for me to jump out of my chair and chase them down.

How did this happen?

No, it was not one of the happy accidents of The Three Princes of Serendip.

The convergence of four emerging technologies, including; social, local, mobile, big data (analytics), enabled by the cloud, is rapidly changing the information landscape. As I suggested in my earlier posting, Too Much Buzz?, it may soon be the case that all that is known can be easily accessed on demand by anyone, anywhere, at any time – for free.

In fact, it was a context engine that allowed me to capitalize on the fortuitous arrival of the perfect candidate. It knows about me and my needs - my location, the project that I am working on and the roles that I need to fill. It also knows possible ways to meet my needs, including my network of colleagues and their network of connections, the skills and expertise of this extended network, and their real-time location.

All of this information is currently available or will be in the near future. Social platforms, such as Google+ or LinkedIn provide information about skills, networks and projects. Local and mobile tools, such as foursquare or Google Latitude on a smartphone, can provide real-time location information. A software agent could use big data capabilities to leverage this information and establish the context needed to alert me to act at just the right time.

Yesterday's announcement by Google of Search, plus Your World is a big step in this direction.

Before you bemoan the end of serendipity, consider the number of times when events failed to conspire to create a "happy accident" and you were left wanting.

Let me know what you think. I can't wait for a few pleasant surprises.

The context engine

I recently read a terrific book about translation, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?, that has inspired me to think about social business collaboration (SBC) in a new way. Amongst the wide range of topics covered by the author, David Bellos, is the relationship of words, context and meaning. He states something that we often take for granted "… For translation, and for us all, meaning is context." David goes on to say:

"The expression "One double macchiato to go" – an expression I utter most days, around 8 a.m. – means what it means when uttered in a coffee shop by a customer to a barista. The situation (the coffee shop) and the participants (customer and barista) are indispensable, inseparable parts of the meaning of the utterance. Imagine saying the same thing at 2 a.m., in bed, to your partner. … The words would be the same, but the meaning of their being said would be entirely different."

I believe that it is possible to relate David's assertion on the relationship of context and meaning to the world of information technology and social business collaboration with my own assertion that context is the bridge between data and information.

In my blog posting, Too Much Buzz?, I referred to a piece on Social Media that appeared in The Economist on December 31, 2011. They concluded the article with the following:

"As communication grows ever easier, the important thing is detecting whispers of useful information in a howling hurricane of noise. For speakers, the new world will be expensive. Companies will have to invest in ever more channels to capture the same number of ears. For listeners, it will be baffling. Everyone will need better filters—editors, analysts, middle managers and so on—to help them extract meaning from the blizzard of buzz."

There has been talk of late of the convergence of three separate but related emerging technologies – Social, Local and Mobile (SoLoMo). It is my contention that a fourth component, Big Data, will join with the other three to form "SoLoMoDat". By combining contextual information, such as who, what, where, when, why and how, SoLoMoDat will provide the basis for a context engine that will enable us to easily "…extract meaning from the blizzard of buzz".

We are already seeing commercial examples of this type of capability. Consider the value generated by intelligent recommendations made by services such as Pandora, Netflix, Amazon, Google Translate and Eureqa. If the context engine knows all about me – my skills, my interests, my projects, and my network of colleagues (and their skills etc.) then how far away is the capability to consider context when generating a social business activity stream that is meaningful to me?

For example, if I have the task of planning a project to solve a particular customer's business problem, then wouldn't a context engine be able to recommend the people to reach out to that have solved this problem before? My stream would become much more relevant and collaboration would become more agile and effective.

This may sound like fantasy, but I think that given the accelerating rate of technological advancement we will be working with these types of tools in a few short years if not months.

The real question is not the technology, it is the human element. Are you ready to do things differently?

 

 

It's Deja vu all over again

[with apologies to Yogi Berra]

When I read the discussions about the challenges of deriving business benefits from Social Business initiatives I am reminded of some of the root causes of failures with ERP initiatives in the past:

• Lack of Executive Management Engagement / Accountability for Project Success
• Unclear Vision and Objectives (Inadequate Business Case)
• Inadequate or Wrong Resources Assigned to the Program
• Weak Program Governance and Project Management
• Failure to Understand or Commit to Data Quality
• Inadequate Process Development / Redesign
• Inadequate Organizational Change and Risk Management Programs
• Competing or Conflicting Business Priorities
• Inadequate Education / Training Programs
• Technology-driven focus with minimal business involvement

As my colleague Mike Gallagher has reminded clients in Executive Education sessions, "People, not Software Solutions, are the Key to Success".

I realize that implementing ERP is not the same as implementing Social Business. The former is formal, structured and hierarchical and the latter is informal, relatively unstructured and networked. I believe that the lessons learned apply nonetheless.

Are you ready to do things differently?

Too Much Buzz?

In a recent article about Social Media, Too Much Buzz, The Economist newspaper takes a somewhat skeptical and definitely cautionary tone.  The sub-title for the piece, Social media provides huge opportunities, but will bring huge problems, sums it up nicely.  

They go on to say:

Cyber-enthusiasts gush about the way social media help entrepreneurs. They have a point: disruptive technologies reconfigure old businesses and create new ones. Facebook could let companies aim their ads more accurately. Firms are starting to use internal social-networking tools, such as Yammer and Chatter, to encourage collaboration, discover talent and cut down on pointless e-mails. Youngsters are happy to embrace it, but older managers may be less keen. The use of social media within companies could be quite disruptive to traditional management techniques, particularly in strongly hierarchical firms.

While I agree with much that they have to say, I think that they may have missed the bigger point.

To fully appreciate the long-term implications of emerging social business technologies I believe that it is necessary to step outside of our current understanding of how work is performed. Consider instead a world in which all that is known can be easily accessed on demand by anyone, anywhere, at any time – for free.  If you lived in such a world then how would you go about your work?

Since in this world there is no information friction, the emphasis would be less on efforts to create, sustain and exploit a monopoly on specific information (intellectual property) and more on enhancing the capability of the enterprise to employ range of information in new and different ways to solve business problems. This is a world where work is organized less to focus on invention, which is about the creation of new information and more to focus on fostering innovation, which is about the use of information.  The former is often accomplished through a small group of elite resources, while the latter is accomplished through enabling and engaging the entire enterprise. Success in this world will be much more dependent upon the ability to connect, communicate and collaborate. Success will come from thousands of people working together to leverage the full extent of their collective experience to understand problems and create solutions.

In an absolute sense this idealized world will not come to pass; the movement of information will never be completely frictionless.  But if you consider the accelerating rate of adoption of the SoLoMoDat technologies (Social, Local, Mobile and Big Data) something like it is rapidly approaching. In my opinion these technologies, which have emerged somewhat independently, will be combined to enable new and very different ways of doing business.

As The Economist claims, these new technologies will in fact provide huge opportunities.  But it is only the firms that combine the use of the new technologies with new ways of doing business, innovating and collaborating, that will succeed in this new world.