Supply Chain

Captain/Trader Kirk is on the bridge making multiple trades in multiple asset classes with his Klingon counterparty. Spock is in the middle office, reviewing trades, and determining that they’re entirely logical, Captain. Meanwhile, with both normal and extended settlement, initial and variation margins flow in and out of the bank as if the cash was […]

Readers of a certain age will remember when Maverick, played by Tom Cruise, in Top Gun told Goose that it was time to“Buzz the Tower,” which meant the fighter pilots had to execute a low fly-by passing very close to the control tower at high speeds. The officer spilled his coffee over himself because of […]

In the Bronx, NY in April of 1998, it was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.  The Yankees had won a World Series two seasons prior and had started their 1998 season with their young shortstop, Derek Jeter, on his way to his first All-Star game. The Yankees would win […]

In our first blog in this series, Blockchain: The Secret Sauce to Supply Chain Visibility, we covered why visibility is so crucial in the supply chain for all parties and gave examples of firms using distributed ledgers to help improve customer service, reduce inventory costs, provide proactive status updates, and help mitigate risk. Per our […]

In the last blog in this series, Blockchain: The Secret Sauce to Supply Chain Visibility, we covered why visibility is so important in the supply chain for all parties and gave several examples of firms using distributed ledgers to help improve customer service, reduce inventory costs, provide proactive status updates, and even help mitigate risk.  […]

In “Behind the Golden Arches” by John Love, the author shares an anecdote of how in the early days of McDonald’s, the company was having cashflow problems despite its being a significant source of revenue for many farmers. In a meeting with a particularly large farmer who had made significant money from selling tomatoes, lettuce, […]

It really is a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world. It seems like everyone in 2021 took out a loan on a new car, even though we all knew supplies were low and demand was high. As the Financial Times pointed out: “Americans went shopping for cars in a big way during the pandemic. […]

Implementing enterprise-level software has its challenges. Traditionally, a few of the most demanding and challenging milestones of an implementation project have been the conversions and integrations. Oracle has been quite generous about open “import” interfaces in E-Business Suite (EBS). The new generation of Oracle’s enterprise software solution, Oracle Fusion, especially Oracle Cloud Supply Chain Management […]

Oracle Cloud Cost Accounting and Receipt Accounting (Costing) provide great improvements over the older Oracle tech stack, also known as the E-Business Suite (EBS) solution. Organization structure and period close Cost Organizations and Profit Center Business Units are new concepts in the cloud that gives the opportunity to track “inter business unit” profits and classify […]

Bob Vanek is the chief strategist for Perficient’s supply chain practice. He has more than 20 years of experience managing project delivery across various industries and consulting environments. Denver & Dentists Madeline McDermott: Where were you born? Bob Vanek: Fort Dix, New Jersey. MM: Where did you go after? BV: When I was about six […]

Perficient and Reuters Events recently hosted a virtual roundtable about how inventory transparency boosts consumer confidence. Industry experts Karie Daudt and Justin Racine, Directors of Commerce Strategy at Perficient, facilitated the discussion which featured eleven panelists from different enterprise brands including Lowe’s, Staples, Uber, and Fastenal. Each panelist discussed how their organization is using inventory […]

It’s not news that 2021 wasn’t an easy year for the automotive industry. While online car sales jumped from less than two percent to around 30 percent, chip shortages and other supply chain issues left many car dealerships with extremely low inventories and longer-than-usual wait periods. But the woes have not slowed down innovation; here […]