George Lawrie

Supply chain sustainability is a top priority. In Forrester’s analysis of the Fortune Global 200 companies, 61% of the surveyed enterprises have a named sustainability lead, and 51% have scope 1 and 2 carbon-neutral goals. But Forrester clients often ask which of the competing supply chain certifications is best for them, because there are so […]

Last week, I joined Coupa’s Inspire event in Las Vegas with my colleagues Jeffrey and George. It was Coupa’s 10th Inspire event and the first big public event since it was acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. A constant messaging that we saw throughout the event was around Coupa’s comprehensive and open platform approach. […]

Five things you can do to position your firm for successful supply chain sustainability transformation.

Road Transportation Is Fragmented And Wasteful Road freight accounts for 30% of the global logistics spend at about US$1.9 trillion per year. But road transportation is a highly fragmented industry. Most North American carriers operate fewer than 20 trucks, and companies with fewer than 50 employees generate more than 60% of European road freight market […]

Have you been following the debate about business support and recovery investment programs? Perhaps you also wondered about business case realization. Meanwhile, right across industries, we’re wasting billions in trade promotion management and channel incentives. Massive Waste In Global Trade Investments I just finished reading consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry guru Rob Hand’s book on […]

After months of negotiations in Congress, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is about to become law. This new law will address specifics such as climate change, sustainability, and cybersecurity that all have specific requirements which, in turn, will drive your policy and regulation in the future. If you do business with the US federal […]

Align Finance, Sales, And Marketing For Supply Chain Success Thanks to all of you who helped with the research for The Forrester Tech Tide™: Smart Supply Chain, Q4 2021, our latest report about the maturity and business value of supply chain applications. Our survey told us that integrated business planning (IBP) is eclipsing sales and […]

In a recent blog, my colleague Alla Valente described the increased risk of late shipments in complex, interconnected supply chains. As she pointed out, any element may fail as a result of random events such as strikes or earthquakes. Project managers following critical chain methodology build project “buffers” to absorb random shock. But in logistics, […]

Before March of 2020, “supply chain issues” was a term we’d hear after a natural disaster or labor strike — that all ended the moment we ran out of toilet paper. Unquestionably, the supply chain crisis has been a secondary theme of the pandemic, one that continues to escalate. For the 15 months since the […]

Transportation management systems used to focus on streamlining operations and reducing costs. But today, cloud-based systems use advanced technologies to focus more on customer and employee experience. Learn how.

Smart Manufacturing Offers More Choice If you follow our research on smart manufacturing and product lifecycle management, you know that manufacturers today have more ability than ever before to develop and bring to market exciting new product variants. You have also seen our work on collaborative work management, project portfolio management, and accelerating product delivery with […]

Manufacturers used to compete on economies of scale. Design engineers were the only users of product lifecycle management (PLM) systems. Their task was to design the lowest unit-cost piece parts for mass production. But now manufacturers must compete on customization and on time-to-market. It’s why industrial giants have bet their future on software. Drivers and […]

Lead time and availability determine customer experience. We all learned about that during the crisis. But now there is a global shortage of everything, from 20-foot containers to lumber and basic chemicals. You must master supply chain resilience to meet your customers’ lead time and availability expectations. Moreover, you must guarantee supply chain sustainability to […]

Industrial manufacturers need tighter integration with applications such as CRM and enterprise resource planning to price product and service bundles effectively.

I’ve just returned from NRF 2020. There were more than 40,000 attendees and 800 exhibitors from 99 countries. They showed how to deliver real-time retail, applying technology to win, serve, and retain the most demanding retail customers. This year, the emphasis was more than ever on boosting supply chain responsiveness to anticipate customers’ latent demand. […]

Don’t Just Satisfy Customers; Anticipate Their Every Desire! One of our retail clients told me: “No one rewards you for merely satisfying customer demand. These days, you need to be three steps ahead . . . You must embed superior retail planing to anticipate their whims and desires!” “Finger in the air” techniques used to […]

Trade Promotions Are Hard To Execute We all know that sometimes brands run promotions that don’t seem to make sense. I expect that you have seen “buy one, get one free” offers in stores with bare shelves. Colleagues say that movie-themed merchandise often hits the stores just when the movie season is over. We have […]

The holiday season is the year's biggest test for retail. Good use of data can help application development & delivery professionals improve results.

Application development & delivery professionals in retail must prepared for the year's busiest season. These three steps can help.