WINNING IN A DEMAND-DRIVEN WORLD

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n today's marketplace, it's becoming increasingly clear that the customer is firmly in control. To succeed, you must be demand-driven in everything you do. But how can you achieve this?

AMR Research has written extensively about what it means to have a demanddriven supply network (DDSN), speaking to the organizational, process, and technology aspects of the challenge. Leading demand-driven companies excel in these areas—and in responding to the unexpected.

Randy Littleson serves as vice president at Kinaxis and has more than 17 years of management experience, having held executive-level positions at Interface Software, Spyglass, and Palindrome Corporation (a Seagate company). To discuss this topic further, join him online at blog.kinaxis.com.

In a similar vein, Gartner Group has recently written about the need for "chaos-tolerant processes," noting that a market leader "needs adaptive processes and empowered personnel to respond tactically and rapidly." Moreover, Gartner says, organizations should "focus technology spending on competitive differentiation achieved by mastering chaotic supply chain needs."

While most companies emphasize operational processes and technology spending to make their businesses run like clockwork, the reality is that they increasingly don't run like clockwork. Tomorrow's leaders, however, are making investments now to ensure they can excel in either situation.

Response Management solutions focus directly on the challenge of dealing with the business when it doesn't run like clockwork. Ultimately, this comes down to giving key decision-makers the information and tools they need to quickly and confidently collaborate on and respond to variations in supply, demand, capacity, and product.

Increasingly, companies are seeking easy ways to procure and achieve timely return on their investment in such solutions. The software as a service (SaaS) approach is gaining traction as a way to meet this goal. According to a March 2006 IDC Corporation study, Top 10 Predictions for 2006: Software as a Service, acceptance of SaaS delivery models gathered momentum and customer mind share in 2005, and the trend is expected to continue in 2006. In fact, IDC estimates that worldwide spending on SaaS will reach $10.7 billion by 2009.

In a buyer's market, sellers must continually adapt to customer demands. That means brand owners and manufacturers need to empower their people to respond to the unexpected, since this ability ensures competitive differentiation. Response Management solutions delivered through the SaaS model provide a compelling way to jump-start the move to becoming more responsive—allowing organizations to rapidly achieve measurable top- and bottom-line results.