Diagnóstico sobre el estado del proceso de enseñanza de la disciplina de Lengua y

To get to this next level of progress, it takes more than a change in attitude. There must be an alteration to roles played out by the participants. The traditional roles of buying and selling must move beyond the negotiating process and enter into real collaboration. That is done best in the beginning with a small number of key suppliers and buyers, working in an open atmo- sphere, and sharing proprietary data that helps each firm improve. What we are considering is how to get to the next level of supply chain enhancement. If collaboration is all about working together to find solutions and the means to build revenues, then what is needed? Three types of activities are required:

1. Partnersmust connect their information systems to provide visibility

to critical information that directly impacts the process steps in their connectivity. That means one or two suppliers come together with a

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manufacturer, or a manufacturer meets with a key distributor or retailer, to construct a flow chart and begin analyzing where this vis- ibility is required. This is a short-term or early-stage effort, but it is crucial to get started on the right track. Discussions will be tentative at first, but inevitably lead to getting valuable data online so people can access it across the involved firms. We will consider this type of effort when we describe a partnering diagnostic laboratory as one means of early collaboration.

We have found such efforts are best led by a nucleus firm having the scale, branding, and resources to act as the hosting firm. Such a company brings the partners together, organizes the preliminary meet- ings, and provides much of the impetus behind creating the enhanced processing. During this first stage, the parties work together on such activities as standardization so specifications and nomenclatures can be viewed without similar items being described in dissimilar manners. Procter & Gamble has done this effectively with a number of suppliers, using specific products in their detergents and oral care line as examples for standardizing and simplification. Tide had reached the point where there were so many optional packages, for example, that the consumer was being confused. The product could be bought in liquid or powder, from small to gargantuan sizes (try carrying the largest liquid container from Sam’s Club), plain or with additives, until shelf space simply would not accommodate all the possibilities.

The team worked with specific customers and the suppliers to find the right number of reduced SKUs making sense for the consumer.

The parties discuss the means by which ERP systems can be linked in spite of the disparate systems used by different partners. The flow charts are reviewed in earnest to determine exactly what data can enhance the interactions. Planning, scheduling, and delivery infor- mation is shared so each party can become more efficient at its process steps. At all times, the focus is on what information will make the network more effective in the eyes of the customers and consumers. 2. Partners in an extended supply chain must map the sequence of steps occurring in the end-to-end linkage so the logistics and coordination process become seamless and as effective as possible. This is a midterm or intermediate stage effort and will have dramatic impact on the costs and cycle times involved in delivering the products and services expected by the targeted consumers. With advanced networks moving to virtual logistics systems, this has to be a part of any collaborative effort.

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During this stage, the partners are looking at how they can share best practices and applications across their network. Attention moves to inventory management, so they can minimize the total investment, even if one party has to increase its stocks. Just-in-time efforts move to a higher level as the partners work on sequencing so the right goods are at the point of need at the right time. Tracking the movement of goods becomes a real-time event. Today, Toyota can track a part for any model car anywhere in its supply chain with an online system. 3. Partners must begin construction of a consumer-focused strategy that

will introduce the kind of differentiating factors in the minds of the targeted groups. Inherent in this strategy will be the financial com- mitments, joint investments, cost analysis and risk sharing necessary to make networking a success. Attention to network-level decision making is important in this longer-term, advanced stage effort, to make certain risk is analyzed and shared among constituents, and a means of sharing in the results is clearly articulated.

Now the partners begin looking at budgets to cover the cost of the implementations being recommended by the first two groups. Decision rules are established to cover how joint investments will be made, how resources will be allocated, and how benefits will be shared among the constituents. If a special packaging machine will allow for the insertion of coupons or advertising material for a particular prod- uct, for example, and both manufacturer and retailer will achieve more sales, it could be a wise move to share the cost of the machine. If a supplier can run a machine better than the manufacturer, why not consider having the supplier’s people run the operation? And always, how should the benefits be shared? Fifty–fifty is a common choice among constituents and is characteristic of the most advanced of supply chain networks.

Each of these steps should be carefully analyzed and executed while being coordinated by an overall steering committee. As mentioned in Chapter 2, there must also be a system of measurement developed so the partners can tell how they are making progress and when they have achieved success.

Exhibit 9.1 illustrates where most firms start when they embark on an extended enterprise effort. Anticipated performance does improve over time as supply chain initiatives are executed. Working to enhance internal excellence, most companies can show some impressive results, particularly through reengineering and ERP efforts. Virtually every firm we have stud- ied, however, begins to show a slowing of the returns on the effort. It is

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not that the firm does not have initiatives to pursue; it just tends to begin showing lower benefit for the amount of resources applied.

In Exhibit 9.2, we see the concept behind extended enterprise collabora- tion is to build a second improvement curve on top of the slowing returns from current efforts. As companies come together and share the best from both organizations, the slope of the improvement curve has to increase. Now the enterprise and its selected partners benefit from a “lift” in results, as two or more firms begin to use best practices and collaborative commerce to enhance network optimization.

The change that is mandated is for buyers and sellers to both think more strategically and determine how they can go beyond price discus- sions to consider value adding features, which normally elude the typical

Exhibit 9.1 Current supply chain state.

Exhibit 9.2 Future networked supply chain state.

Time Anticipated Performance Enterprise Firm Diminishing Returns Current State

Enterprise Firm Only • Reengineering • ERP Systems

Time Enterprise firm benefiting from Network Optimization utilizing

Collaborative Commerce Without Collaborative Commerce Future State Network • Enterprise firm after receiving “life” from Network Optimization and Collaborative Commerce

Enterprise Firm + Partners

Mistake 8: Lack of Collaboration Across the Extended Enterprise  117

purchasing activities. Now the focus goes to bringing more functions and people into consideration of how to build further improvements. Oper- ations, logistics, data processing, marketing, and other departments are represented as the opportunity to have direct contact with customers and suppliers, previously not possible, enhancing the possibility to find hid- den savings in the relationships.

Larry Lapide, VP of Research Operations and Business Applications at AMR Research, describes the transformation being considered from an e-commerce perspective. Most of the discussion and early imple- mentation of inter-enterprise electronic trading partnerships have focused on business-to-business e-commerce through the automation of transactions using EDI. “This is not the same as collaboration; a higher form of e-commerce involving joint planning and scheduling,” says Lapide. Traditional partnerships evolve in three stages, often start- ing with a transactional stage and moving toward information sharing. “Collaboration, the third stage, will usually follow, building upon trans- actional and information-sharing infrastructures” (Lapide, 2001).

Lapide believes that as the transactional relationships evolve, the need for new attitudes and roles becomes a factor in success. “While information sharing relationships go a long way toward enabling sup- ply/demand synchronization,” he explains, “they do little to help reduce the uncertainty faced by trading partners in determining future prod- uct supply/demand.” To better enhance a buyer–seller relationship, some trading partners are moving toward more collaborative relation- ships. These efforts enable partners to work together to gain a better understanding of future product demand and put more realistic plans in place to most effectively satisfy it. “In the case of working collabo- ratively on consumer requirements,” Lapide remarks, “trading partners might work jointly on new product designs and forecasting consumer demand. Inter-enterprise collaboration, while in its infancy, offers the most potential to drastically improve supply chain performance” (Lapide, 2001).

As mentioned, getting buyers and sellers to this new level of cooper- ation is not an easy task as the years of ingrained mistrust and desire to get the most advantage in every negotiation supersedes the idea of mutual resources being applied for mutual benefits. Experience has taught us that overcoming this inertia is best done with focused pilot efforts, one of which has been especially beneficial — the partnering diagnostic labora- tory (PDL).

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Partnering Diagnostic Laboratories Are a Tool