Technology

How to drive value from integration, forecasting and new product development

There is no doubt that 2004 proved to be a more than challenging year for consumer goods (CG) companies.

The supply chain is a critical and influential component of your overall business strategy -- typically impacting 75 percent of operating results.

Consumer goods firms are only as sharp as the products they release.

The No. 2 sports apparel and equipment maker in the world, adidas-Salomon Canada, uses the IBM eServer iSeries platform to gain a competitive edge in its market.

Usually, discussion and analysis of a particular subject is a matter of bringing in a number of viewpoints, weighing them and making a case for the most likely futures.

Many eye-opening stories emerged in 2004 but the rise of "Bloggers"-- every day people who post Web logs on the Internet for all to see--- is clearly one of the most interesting.

Even though the growth of supply chain software has cooled significantly since the hey day of the explosive growth seen in 2000, there is still a huge opportunity for vendors to adjust offerings to better suit the needs of clients, according to a 2004 AMR Research report.