Supply Chain Management Blog : Web 2.0

Is Supply Chain Data safe in the Cloud?

christianverstraete — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:28:00 GMT

At the Gartner Symposium, last week, HP's CEO Mark Hurd was quoted about the lack of security in the Cloud . This is only one of the voices heard about cloud computing security. So, should we stop thinking about linking our partners in the cloud to...(read more)

What application should we run in the cloud?

christianverstraete — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:30:00 GMT

A couple days ago, I received a call from a friend asking me a very simple question: "What criteria should I use to decide which applications I should move to the cloud?" Not having a direct answer myself, I searched the web, and to my amazement...(read more)

A Cloud ecosystem for Inter Enterprise Visibility

christianverstraete — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:03:00 GMT

As part of HP's latest press release on its partnership with GS1 Canada, HP is announcing the HP cloud computing ecosystem for manufacturing industries. This is a real exciting development. Let me explain why. In many entries of this blog, I have...(read more)

Collaboration, let's look beyond the tools

christianverstraete — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:10:00 GMT

Two weeks ago I was asked to run a workshop on collaboration at an event in China. Based on some of the ideas I shared in an earlier blog , I developed the content of the workshop. What daunted on me, listening to people in the audience, is that both...(read more)

New ways to collaborate, build a virtual community

christianverstraete — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:13:00 GMT

Earlier in the year, I was asked to organize a summit for some of our key customers. The objective was to share with them some key thought leadership and start a dialogue around a number of topics including sustainability, cloud computing and innovation...(read more)

Do we need a "Business Cloud"

christianverstraete — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:42:00 GMT

A couple months ago I was in a meeting where an interesting question was asked: "Are you using Amazon Web Services?". The answer was an eye opener, as it sounded like: "Well, we looked at the employee expense system and found a number of...(read more)

Can social networking replace business travel?

christianverstraete — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:57:00 GMT

When mentioning social networking in a business context, I often get a grin or a smile. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube never added any value to the business I am told. And this last fact may be right, but it does not make social networking irrelevant for...(read more)

Collaboration and Web 2.0

christianverstraete — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:58:00 GMT

Yesterday I had the opportunity to listen, during a webinar organized by Accept Software, to Don Tapscott speaking about Innovation and how Web 2.0 was affecting the way companies innovated. In particular, he highlighted how the arrival of the younger generation would fundamentally change the behaviour of organizations.

I was thinking about how the use of the same tools could help collaboration in global supply chains. Indeed, it is my strong believe that, to effectively collaborate globally, one needs a number of tools and mechanisms. Some of those will allow an assynchronous collaboration (data exchange, e-mail, voicemail), while others are focused around a synchronous one (chat, teleconference, videoconference, telepresence). Different tools align with different processes. For example, updating a partner on a forecast can easily be done by sharing a file or sending an e-mail. On the other hand, resolving a production problem requires a very different type of interaction. And one may want to go as far as using telepresence or actually physical presence to address the problem.

I am not aware of anybody having studied the connection between supply chain business problems and communication means. It would really be an interesting research, and maybe something we could do together if you are interested. And guess what, we should use web 2.0 tools to perform the research if we want to do so. Let me know if you are interested.