Editor's Note: Putting Our Fears to Rest

Read the full digital edition of CGT's December 2017 issue

When you’re involved in awards programs like the ones we conduct here at CGT, there are always a few moments of concern, after you’ve announced the winners, when you wonder if you’ve made the right choices.

It’s extremely rare when these brief moments of self-doubt ever amount to anything. (I can think of only one time in my career and no, I’m not telling you about it publicly.) In most cases, the more you learn about the winners, the more satisfied you become with the selections you made. 
And in the case of this year’s crop of Business & Technology Awards winners, which we profile this month, our satisfaction continues to grow:

Our CMO of the Year, Peter McGuinness, is now Chobani’s Chief Marketing, Commercial & Demand 
Officer, further proof that he and his company are industry trailblazers. 


During his interview with CGT, CIO of the Year Manjit Singh described how closely Clorox’s IT department is aligning with the business units, confirmation that he’s helping drive vital change at the company. 


The founders of SMB Market Award winner Tiesta Tea unveiled a new venture that will have the loose-leaf tea maker bottling ready-to-drink beverages and launching exclusively at Target — yet more evidence of 
the company’s impressive resourcefulness. 


So I encourage everyone to read our profiles of these winners and then learn about this year’s other two honorees: Dick Clark Supply Chain awardee Johnson & Johnson and Customer Management Award champ General Mills. You’ll also find info on the finalists for all five awards. 


Speaking of self-doubt, whenever a magazine issue like this one gets sent to the printer, we editors have a few moments of angst wondering if all the information we published is accurate. 
This month’s content is particularly worrisome, given the amount of facts presented in our annual “Top 100 Consumer Goods Companies” list.

And our fears proved valid two days before we went to press with the print issue, when someone on an unrelated conference call mentioned in passing that Nestle had just named chief digital operations officer Filippo Catalano to replace the retiring Terence Stacey as its CIO. (Coincidentally, Stacey was a finalist in this year’s CIO of the Year competition. Read more about him in our online coverage.) We hope that’s the only change we almost missed. 


As usual, there are a lot of great organizations on this year’s list, companies that made plenty of headlines in 2017 as they navigated the endless changes taking place in the consumer goods marketplace. But we also have to recognize that a lot of the newsmakers we covered this year, the smaller, younger companies driving real industry innovation, aren’t represented — unless, of course, they were recently acquired by one of the Top 100.

Finally, our annual Supply Chain Report caused us no worries whatsoever. Once again this year, we were able to secure the subject matter expertise of Lora Cecere from Supply Chain Insights and Simon Ellis of IDC Manufacturing Insights to inform this annual feature, which examines the impact of digital technologies on traditional practices and the need for real-time, outside-in analytics to fuel future growth. 


On behalf of everyone here at CGT, we wish you all a happy, healthy and worry-free holiday season.


--Peter Breen, Editor-in-Chief 


To read the rest of CGT's December 2017 issue, click on the article links below:

Top 100 Consumer Goods Companies
Business & Technology Awards
Supply Chain Report 2017
Trade Promotion Management Report
Straight Talk: Data & Analytics