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Harriet Schneider

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Using A Control Tower To Attain Your Supply Chain Goals

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 30, 2022 12:23:01 PM

To keep up with lofty yet mandatory customer expectations, your supply chain can’t afford to stop investing in technology that improves processes, connects business partners and IoT data, and uses machine learning algorithms to improve business outcomes. If the people tasked with running your supply chain are relying on poorly built or outdated systems filled with data quality issues, then they need new technology solutions and strategies to overcome these shortcomings to create true value.

As you strive to balance cost while simultaneously improve your customer service, you are no doubt confronting issues that require better collaboration amongst your group as well as the numerous companies you interact with daily. The days of each department or company working on an island while hoping groups further downstream can correct any mistakes are long gone.

Nowadays, those of us in the supply chain space realize the need for ongoing collaboration with everyone who touches our supply chain. This can take the form of sharing data around forecasts, inventory positions, capacity plans, order status (both at rest and in-transit), as well as visibility into shipments.

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Topics: ERP, Manufacturing, Distribution, Rentals & Equipment, Supply Chain, Fashion & Apparel, Infor M3 ERP, Enterprise Software, Retail Supply Chain, WMS, Supply Chain Management

Hotel Technology To Support Hospitality Workers And Retain Talent

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 22, 2022 8:22:49 AM

Employees at hotel and other hospitality locations are the heart of their organisations, representing company values and mission to deliver the best possible guest experience consistently. But hospitality industry trends coming out of a very disruptive period show a worrying shortage of labour, with workers having time and financial support during lockdown to consider other options when it comes to their careers and their futures.

Making sure that hospitality work is rewarding, and that environments are supportive is more important than ever before to the future of the industry. How does advanced hotel technology help to address this vital concern? How must systems and processes in hotels and resorts best support hospitality workers day to day, help to identify how to reward their hard work, and retain their talent? Here are some examples to consider.

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Topics: ERP, Fashion & Retail, Food & Beverage, Infor M3, Fashion & Apparel, Enterprise Resource Planning, CloudSuite Food & Beverage, Cloudsuite Fashion & Apparel, Infor M3 ERP

Why Vertical Industry Expertise Is So Important?

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 21, 2022 11:25:57 AM

If you follow industry news, attend prospect events, or read our partner Infor's website, you know that vertical industry expertise is a favorite topic for Infor executives, leaders, and strategists. Industry-specific functionality is part of our critical foundation and a strong differentiating feature for our software solutions, we say frequently. But, have you thought about why? Do you know where our industry expertise comes from and how we leverage it into valuable selling points? Let’s look closer at what “industry expertise” means, why we are highly focused on it as a strategy, and how it will propel Infor forward.

The backstory

To understand where we are going, it helps to know how we got here. History provides context. In the evolution of ERP solutions, there’s a long and winding road that providers and users travelled before today’s Software as a Service (SAAS) model became the accepted best practice. In early days of ERP solutions, massive monolithic solutions with complex architecture and rigid code structure were the norm. Large enterprises invested heavily and hired consultants to customize the operational features. The heavily modified systems were costly to update.

Then came cloud computing. But, for companies to take advantage of the benefits of multi-tenant cloud deployment, they needed to have their industry-specific functionality already built into the solution—so modifications wouldn’t be needed. Modifications slow down deployment and can get in the way of upgrades.

Infor had been heavily investing into industry-specific features of the core ERP solutions. The solutions contain the functionality needed for industry specific applications—making it easier to migrate to the cloud.

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Topics: ERP, Fashion & Retail, Food & Beverage, Infor M3, Fashion & Apparel, Enterprise Resource Planning, CloudSuite Food & Beverage, Cloudsuite Fashion & Apparel, Infor M3 ERP

Threading The Needle To Success: Step 2 - ERP

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 18, 2022 7:30:00 AM

Chances are your brand already relies on an ERP solution to house foundational functions and master data. But can it withstand the rapid developmental, transactional, and digitized industry of the future? To meet the rigorous demands of supply, demand, financials, inventory management, and the needs of a collaborative network, the ERP solution employed by your company needs to have the flexibility to meet changing business models, encapsulate industry best practice processes, and integrate in real time with other key applications. Just as your people need to be connected in a collaborative network, so do your technology solutions.

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Topics: ERP, Fashion & Retail, Supply Chain, Fashion & Apparel, Product Lifecycle Management, Infor M3 ERP, Enterprise Software, Supply Chain Management

Threading The Needle To Success: Step 1 - PLM

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 17, 2022 9:39:29 PM

The fashion business has unique demands, and one of the most critical is the need for a collaborative design and development process. This process must be able to function in an environment of complex global sourcing, whether a company is in high fashion, luxury goods, apparel, footwear, home textiles, accessories, or any other style-based products. What makes this unique—and quite complicated—for fashion companies, is the sheer number of varieties that typically exist within product lines, such as styles, colors, and sizes. This complexity compounds further when additional lines and collections enter the mix.

In this  blog post, we’ll explore the first step in reinforcing a collaborative network which is to establish a strong product lifecycle management process that helps manage collections, sustainable fabric compositions, and design specifications. 

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Topics: Fashion & Retail, Fashion & Apparel, Fashion PLM, CloudSuite PLM, Fashion, Infor CloudSuite Fashion PLM, Infor PLM

Can Any Job Be Done Remotely?

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 16, 2022 9:05:12 AM

As the remote work revolution sweeps the globe, contrarians are quick to point out that certain industries and positions may not be realistic candidates for working from home. Jobs in hospitality are frequently pointed to as examples of roles that require a physical presence – after all, that bed will not make itself. But forward-thinking organizations are using this crisis as the impetus to think creatively about what is and is not needed on-site.

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Topics: ERP, Fashion & Retail, Supply Chain, Fashion PLM, Cloudsuite Fashion & Apparel, Infor M3 ERP, Enterprise Software, WMS, Supply Chain Management

Who Is A Good Fit For Remote Work Setting?

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 15, 2022 6:44:03 AM

Who is best suited to be in a remote work setting?
The grand remote work experiment we have all participated in over the last few months has resulted in a renewed interest in the concept becoming a regular component of the corporate landscape. And while enthusiasm for the approach has grown considerably, abandoning the physical office may not be attractive to everyone. In fact, some people have been quite vocal in their call for a return to the workplace, as they complain about their increased workload, lack of social interaction, constant parade of exhausting Zoom calls and inability to quickly (and clearly) communicate with colleagues. So how can we tell the difference between an admirer and an adversary of this new model of work?

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Topics: ERP, Fashion & Retail, Supply Chain, Fashion PLM, Cloudsuite Fashion & Apparel, Infor M3 ERP, Enterprise Software, WMS, Supply Chain Management

Demand For Sense & Respond Capabilities To Build Continuous Supply Chain

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 14, 2022 11:02:40 AM

Competitive supply chains must enable a new level of coordinated performance that creates a high-fidelity picture of in-process flows across your extended network. Building the continuous supply chain supports contextual deviations, conveys alerts and drives continuous planning via sense & respond capabilities.

Optimizing multi-party business processes

Supply chains are complex networks where over 80% of the data and processes sits within partner systems. To see and act on the latest picture of your supply chain, your company needs that data from each of your partners, but the problem is most companies rely solely on an enterprise-centric approach to solve a multi-enterprise problem.

The only way to overcome those limitations is to adopt a "network approach." Connecting all partners to shared processes, data and metrics managed within a single platform creates a single version of truth for all parties. This allows supply chains to eliminate the data silos and inherent latency in order to reduce the root causes of friction, variability and costs in today’s supply chains, both internally and externally.

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Topics: ERP, Manufacturing, Distribution, Rentals & Equipment, Supply Chain, Fashion & Apparel, Infor M3 ERP, Enterprise Software, Retail Supply Chain, WMS, Supply Chain Management

Streamlining Restaurant POS Menu Management

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 11, 2022 8:26:40 AM

When every transaction counts more so than ever before in restaurants and food services, forward-thinking strategies around restaurant menu management have become more important than ever before. Central to that is how much leading organizations have risen to the occasion to streamline the way they manage they their offering and push the newest versions of menus to the point of sale, unified across locations and concepts.

Restaurants and managed food services rely on current data and the technology needed to find useful narratives about how to enhance performance and maximize returns, specifically at the menu item level. How does that work? What role does restaurant POS play in that process? Let’s take a look.

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Topics: ERP, Food & Beverage, Distribution, Supply Chain, Food Technology, CloudSuite Food & Beverage, Enterprise Software

Empowering Today & Differentiating Tomorrow: Supply Chain Best Practices

Posted by Harriet Schneider on Mar 10, 2022 8:22:31 AM

No vertical market appears to be immune to the hardships and challenges resulting from the unprecedented uncertainty and volatility of today’s geopolitical strife, climate disasters, and global pandemics. Which makes it even that much more challenging for organizations to try to meet consumer preferences and requirements that are always changing.

All of this uncertainty underscores the importance for organizations to focus on optimizing all facets of their supply chain costs—including cost-to-source, cost-to-procure, cost-to-manufacture, logistics, and handing. Supply chain optimization must also factor in the direct labor that drives supply chain activities in manufacturing, distribution, and retail. Total cost has never been more critical to understand and control—regardless of an organization’s industry or sector.

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Topics: Supply Chain, Supply Chain Visibility, Supply Chain Network, Retail Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management

About ICCG

Welcome to our Blog - ICCG Insights!

Embracing thought leadership as a pathway for growth, represents the true spirit of progressive change that will make a difference in technology-driven industries. As a consulting company, ICCG customers look to us as their value-added resource. They expect us to be proactive about solving their immediate challenges and we don’t take that responsibility lightly. It is this that drives us to share our best practices, knowledge-base, years of experience, and tried and true methodologies. These have been the hallmarks of our corporate brand.

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