TABLE OF CONTENTS The benefits of Collaborative Planning in e-Supply Networks may be clear, but there are 3 key interdependent questions that need to be addressed:
Who should you collaborate with?
How should you go about collaboration?
What are the requirements for and the implications of collaboration?
Collaboration requires significant investment in time and resource for both partners in order to achieve significant benefits, so the selection of partners should be carefully considered. New technology and the introduction of e-Markets and ASPs may have reduced some of the technical risk and cost, but for collaborative planning to be effective it needs the alignment of people, processes and resources between partners. As with any other critical business decision the cost and benefits should be carefully assessed, and in this case this is for at least 2 partners. The result is that collaboration should be targeted at your long term trading partners, for key products, where the product and service are primary buying factors.
There are several possible strategies for collaboration. Historically implementation of CPFR can be seen as partnership, process or technology lead. Close trading partners have recognized the mutual benefits of collaborative planning, and have evolved the processes for this. This has had the benefit of building on the trust and working knowledge, which are key to success; however, the processes and any technical...
