DMR

Supplier Relationship Management

Michael Hanke, Peter Langosch — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Not many areas of business have had to deal with as many new impulses as procurement has done as a result of globalization. On the one hand the production depth of the companies is being reduced, on the other hand the opportunity of global sourcing means that the number of suppliers to be considered is growing exponentially. As a result competition is heating up and in many cases better conditions can be negotiated than was previously possible. The correct use of the Internet and web-based supplier portals can provide a company with a previously unknown degree of transparency. Some companies are already setting up procurement offices in countries such as China or India to allow the thorough analysis of potential purchases on site. Others are building entire production plants to take full advantage of new procurement markets and cheaper work forces.

A close-up on strategic procurement

Dr. Thomas Krause, Marco Grundel, Stephan Herrel — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Whereas the operational purchasing process tended to be the focus at the beginning of the eBusiness consolidation process, present optimization initiatives now concentrate on the strategic processes of sourcing and supply management. Shifting responsibility for increasingly complex management tasks related to the supply network of a company to procurement opens up optimization potential.Cost pressure in this area forces continuous rationalization. The demands being made on the IT tools available to strategic procurement are growing, a unified overall strategy seems wise. In this article Detecon provides details of projects currently being carried out in a variety of industries and outlines answers to questions now being raised in supply management and strategic sourcing.

Best-in-class methods for operative purchasing

Mate Balthazar, Seyran Dayan — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Everyone knows that good purchasing leads to success. But what exactly is ‘good purchasing’? What are the elements and components of successful operative purchasing? What are the main mistakes to be avoided in order to make the best use of available potential? This article provides an overview of the most important methods to help optimize operative purchasing activities and describes typical tripwires which can lead to failure.

Next Generation Value Network Management in Telecommunications

Dr. Andreas Rohleder, Dr.-Ing. Tobias Hausen, Frederic Pötzsch — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Market dynamics and complexity have been taking the blame for weak growth and margin erosion in the telecommunications industry for quite some time now. Furthermore the increasing gap between customer expectations and company performance is mentioned frequently. As a matter of fact the ICT industry spares no costs or effort to counter these developments with new, innovative concepts. Nevertheless projects continue to fail as a leading prerequisite of successful implementation is ignored: the significance of organizational maturity. Moreover, many organizations have a weak understanding of the demand-oriented company network needed in the 21st Century and how to deploy ‘Next Generation Value Network Management’.

Anti-counterfeiting strategies

, Petra Babette Büchel — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0200

The continuously increasing number of counterfeiting cases , in particularly with their sometimes fatal consequences, calls for the development of strategies which enable effective analysis and avoidance. Alongside legal measures and best practice for the control and observation of the company’s own supply chain, innovative technologies are now also being used as a method of defense. However, these technologies are only effective for a limited time as counterfeiters are almost always able to adapt to them very quickly. In addition to this the number and variety of authentication alternatives are confusing the consumer. A promising development seems to be „Extended Tracking & Tracing“. Can the authentication and tracking and tracing of products throughout the entire supply chain from initial production and right through to the consumer really provide the necessary protection against product counterfeits?

Innovative technologies in logistics

Alexander Rinker, Patrick Braunschweig — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Logistics is a key company function which has been particularly affected by the application of new technologies in the last 10 to 15 years. Present trends in those technologies relevant to logistics are now proving how networking the entire supply chain can actually provide solutions which benefit much more than just pure logistics. Marketing can for example profit from the availability of additional information about the patterns and habits in consumer behavior. We believe that the intelligent combination of complementary technologies and the synergetic use of the resulting data and information beyond the confines of the organization represent one of the most important competitive factors for the logistics of the future.

ICT applications in the logistics chain

Frédéric Cuny, Helmut Bremicker — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Huge demands are being made on logistics and both production industries and logistics service providers face significant challenges in the field of IT applications and architectures. Low costs, speed and security must be achieved in combination with flexibility in the logistics chain. It is all too easy to believe that the application of modern software can solve all of a logistics manager’s problems. But the right methodology is what is needed if objectives are to be reached.

Organizational Change in a Dynamic Environment

Peter Langosch — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0200

It is certainly not easy being a company nowadays. If customers change their habits and fall for new trends then products and services must immediately be adjusted accordingly. Otherwise the customer is lost. One of the effects of this is that complete production and delivery structures have to be changed, but employee behavior and company culture are affected too. Keeping these factors in mind, while still following efficient strategies, demands extreme flexibility. This is what characterizes customer centric organizations. They adjust their processes faster and focus them consistently on the customer.

Change Management –

Prof. Dr. Dietmar Vahs — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0200

High Performance in Change Management

Björn Menden, Christoph Busch, Stephan Baumann — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0200

Companies usually exist for a significant period of time and are repeatedly confronted with new challenges: the organization grows or shrinks, its portfolio changes, competition increases or new technologies come into play. For the company this means that planned organizational change becomes necessary, and this must be actively and consistently implemented. High performing companies manage this change well and are able to flourish in the increasingly dynamic environment. This article asks what makes these high performers special, why can they deal with change more successfully, and which tools they use to manage this change.

Leading with flexible targets

Niels Pfläging — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0200

Managers are increasingly coming to understand that something is wrong with the standard methods of performance management and measurement used within their organizations. Employees and teams need objectives, of course – not many managers doubt that. But still: Management by objectives doesn’t seem to work properly in practice. And the situation appears to be getting worse all the time. Many questions arise: Are targets possibly being set incorrectly? Why are they always too high or too low? Or is there a basic mistake being made in the way they are set? This article illustrates that companies that don’t use fixed targets and budgets at all are more successful in the long term. It describes how an alternative performance management model works and how companies can be released from the annual performance trap set by budgets. The good news: People in our organizations can be unleashed from the burdens of bureaucracy and freed from leadership by command and control.

How to get more satisfaction – for the customer

Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0200

Companies are generally of the opinion that they have their customers’ requirements in focus. But in direct contact with the customer they often show weaknesses. By ensuring that the value creating processes are consistently in line with the customers’ core requirements, a threefold effect can be achieved: a sustainable increase in customer satisfaction, improved efficiency, and more differentiation from the competition.

Three steps to success

Dr. Norbert Hövelmanns, Patrick Braunschweig — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0200

The IT application landscapes in many companies have evolved over a long period. This generally leads to a situation where the operative processes are not optimally supported in terms of IT: there is a lack of flexibility, unnecessary complexity and little potential for the future. Further challenges are presented due to the increased concentration on internal and external customers, which has resulted from shorter product life cycles, as well as the effects of globalization. New technological developments – the new generation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and modern architectural concepts (SOA) for example – place additional demands on those responsible for IT.

Staying one step ahead

Christian Jost, Frank Faust — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0200

In the letterbox direct mailings, flyers accompanying invoices and customer magazines are piling up. The email in-tray is spilling over and nowadays even your mobile phone announces new attractive offers. However, many of these advertising messages are not correctly targeted. They don’t interest the recipient. They arrive at the wrong time or using the wrong channel. Instead of winning customers for a service, brand or a company in the sense of a successful customer relationship management the opposite is achieved: the customer is irritated. In 2003 an article was published in this magazine which explained how optimized campaign management could call a halt to the ‘watering can principle’. It is certainly true that companies now behave more selectively. Non-differentiated mass mailings are a thing of the past. But still nowhere near the full potential of targeted customer contact is being tapped.

Paving the way to customer centricity

Christian Jost, Joachim Hauk — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0200

Customer orientation, customer centricity, customer relationship management (CRM) – these buzzwords have developed into „must haves“ for many companies, particularly those in the service industry. In order to optimize customer oriented activities every company needs directions - guidelines for achieving success with the customer - the CRM strategy. The challenge here is to manage a wide variety of activities in marketing, sales and service in order to achieve a consistent customer experience. The development and implementation of a tailored CRM strategy can provide common orientation and enable the coordination of the relevant business area strategies.

Innovative business and ICT trends in logistics

Dirk Bialucha, Helmut Bremicker, — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0200

Companies must improve their logistics agility to enable them to react flexibly, quickly and efficiently to increasingly volatile demand and supply behavior in the markets. From the customer centricity point of view it is necessary to put the customers’ needs at the center of all company activities. This means that customers are offered fewer standardized products and more products that are customized to fulfill their specific requirements. This in turn means implicitly that demand will become much more complicated in terms of individualized products and that logistics chains will have to be able to react faster. Detecon’s logistics radar has developed appropriate scenarios to identify future ICT and business trends which are optimal with regard to enabling or supporting the provision of the companies with the agility they need.

Making Innovation Happen:

Dr. Eckart Pech — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0200

Telecom companies continue to be under tremendous pressure. Wireline operators are losing margins and face increasingly fierce competition from new entrants on their turf. With a continued loss of voice revenues, they are moving towards broadband infrastructures at full steam. Wireless operators appear to be more and more threatened by extinction as well. In spite of growing markets, voice ARPUs are declining and the only way to fill the gap is to introduce operationally costly data services. All in all, it has become imperative for telecom companies to reinvent themselves and adopt the nimbleness that makes their new competitors so successful. A very tangible path in this direction is a radical farewell to rigid product development processes, replacing them with much more agile, exploratory and entrepreneurial approaches to materialize innovation.

The way to excellence –

Dr.Sven Rohte, Frank Weyrich, Jochen Dinger — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0200

Organizations in the telecommunications branch must be structured to better reflect the market and its customers. Using ‘NetCo – ServCo – SalesCo’ assumptions as a starting point a number of organizational principles can be derived which lead to competitive and customer oriented structures. Here the ServCo is the central pivot of the organizational concept. Alongside concrete recommendations concerning the organizational structure this article will identify a number of critical aspects which must considered when looking at reorganization. A seven-point program gives a checklist of important steps on the way to excellence.

Successfully transforming organizations –

Beate Hofferbert-Junge, Bernd Ettelbrück — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0200

„The trick is not to try and walk through walls, but to use your eyes to find the door.“ This is particularly true in the transformation of companies, where the most direct method of implementation is not necessarily the best way forward. High unemployment and frustrating discussions concerning shareholder value lead to the question of securing sustainability through a company’s commercial behavior. Action may often appear efficient in the context of transformation, but in the end effectiveness must be the focus of activities to provide new long term perspectives for a company and to strengthen its competitive position. Here the ability of the company to change becomes a core competence. To achieve this, the organization must train for a pentathlon: program and project management, process design, information and communications technology, organizational development, and change management and human resources.

Interview with J. Döring, Siemens Com

Fri, 30 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0200

In 2004, as a result of changes in the carrier markets, Siemens merged its fixed network division ICN and its mobile communications division ICM to create Siemens Com. In order to do this, international companies, product portfolios and approximately 60,000 employees had to be integrated. Com set up a comprehensive Transformation Program. Here we talk to Joachim Döring, Head of Strategy at Siemens Com, about the importance and implementation of this program.