Consumer product companies and retailers have a direct and symbiotic relationship in achieving mutual business success. When both organizations successfully collaborate from demand forecasting, to retail merchandising, to supply chain, to fulfillment and replenishment, both organizations improve their most important performance measures, such as higher inventory turns, increased sales of higher margin products and high customer satisfaction. But on the flip side, when not synchronized, it results in inaccurate plans which either underinvest in inventory and thereby result in lost sales and frustrated consumers (who can’t get what they want), or overspend in inventory which results in slow moving stock, accelerated markdowns and big hits to margins and profits.
To make this needed collaboration successful, CPG companies are using traditional tools such as EDI and extranet portals, but more so turning to newer and more innovative tools such as enterprise social networks (such as Microsoft Yammer or Salesforce.com Chatter). These internal social networks are gaining a lot of adoption because they are easy to use, designed from consumer technologies which deliver an enjoyable user experience, designed for a mobile first delivery, can be embedded within ERP or Supply Chain Management systems and operate on a push-based subscription basis so that each user can determine what information should flow to what people in real-time.