Thanks to Wikipedia, the definition of FIFO is, “an acronym for First In, First Out, which describes the principle of a queue processing technique by ordering process by first-come, first-served (FCFS) behavior: what comes in first is handled first, what comes in next waits until the first is finished, etc.”  If you’re dealing with mission critical information such as supply chain data, FIFO would or could cost your business.  Supply chain information processing requires parallel processing managed in seconds or nano-seconds.  But, that’s not what this blog is really about.  I want to get into GIGO – thanks again to Wiki, “GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out, is a phrase used to call attention to the fact that computers, unlike humans, will unquestioningly process the most nonsensical of input data and produce nonsensical of output.  In fact, the acronym has evolved into what some people now call, “Garbage In, Gospel Out”.   It is a sardonic comment on the tendency to put excessive trust in computerized data, on the propensity for individuals to blindly accept what the computer says. Because the data goes through the computer, we tend to believe it.”Is that the truth, or what?  The InsanIT of it!!  It’s not that we are naïve or anything.  Since the 1940’s, we all bought into the fact that computers are suppose to reduce errors, make us more productive, save cost, drive revenue, etc.  And for the most part they do.  But, we also have to remember that humans are still humans, and guess what?  We still do make mistakes.  We have to remember and accept that the information we input into our computer systems could still be inaccurate, or some might say, “dirty”.  Yuck!  Who wants to be known for having “dirty data” – especially when your data needs to be shared with your trading partners?  It’s like a computer virus that will then proliferate to your trading partner and your trading partners’ trading partner, and so on, and so on, and so on (I’m beginning to sound like that Breck shampoo commercial from the 70’s). 

One of our GXS Senior Product Managers,  Melanie Ligons, wrote a great blog on the value of data cleansing as it relates to product information (http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/category/product-data-quality/).  She discusses that if you can exchange product information accurately and quickly and keep that information up to date over time, you can ensure that all of your downstream supply chain transactions will also be correct.  That is a great example of how “clean data” can contribute significantly to achieving supply chain efficiencies.  After all, your supply chain is only as good as the data you feed it.  But, it doesn’t stop there.  What about data accuracy as it relates to order status for a customer?  Or, paying the full invoice or just partial?  Or, is the shipment going to the correct address?  

Data quality is critical at every step in the supply chain.  But, trying to achieve that can be a daunting and expensive task. That is why GXS has focused much of its effort on building data quality & validation capabilities within its GXS Trading Grid B2B integration services platform so customers don’t have to.  Customers simply need to send their supply chain data once to GXS and GXS takes care of the rest - cleansing, translating, and sending it off to all trading partners – nice and clean!   No more GIGO here!  

For those of us that have been in the IT industry for a really long time (you decide what’s defined as a long time because I am not going to date myself), there’s one thing that we tech people always seem to forget (maybe due to short term memory loss) and that is….“technology  never goes away…which means  everything needs to interoperate. ”     Why do we keep thinking that the next greatest tech trend will replace things we’ve already done?  Remember when the Internet emerged and XML was going to replace EDI cheaply?  Or, how about legacy platforms that were going to be replaced by client/server?  Oh, I could on and on - lightweight vs. heavy client,  ASPs, SOA, SaaS.  Technology trends are like the next wave of fashion.  What’s hot this year, may not be hot in a year or two.  But, what’s different is that, unlike your  wardrobe, where you can give away last year’s trendy clothes to Goodwill,  you can’t do that with technology, or at least not easily and most of all not cheaply.  Plus, we can’t forget the millions of dollars of investment we put into our infrastructures and the years spent on ensuring our systems hum and are available around the clock.  So, what does that mean for us poor souls that have to ensure we continue to meet customer and trading partner demand in a secure way that is reliable, extensible, and maintainable (wow, lots of ables in that sentence!)  Because it is hard to anticipate how our systems will need to be changed so they can integrate and interact with new technology fashion trends, B2B integration solutions are the answer to guarantee  “everything interoperates” and new technology fashion trends can be adopted with ease.   When I meet with clients to talk to them about why they should outsource their B2B Ecommerce program, I start by saying (and I mean it sincerely), “why in the world would you want to do this yourself?”  It takes a lot of full time resources just to make sure that companies can interact with their trading partners without revamping their current systems, data and process.  The great news is that B2B Outsourcing solutions mediate the differences between trading partner requirements so companies can focus on more strategic IT projects that improve serving customers.  Actually, a lot of the benefits customer experience when they outsource was unveiled in the recent Stanford University research study concluding companies deploying B2B outsourcing solutions experience a return that is 245 percent greater than their annual investment and a 62 percent improvement in customer satisfaction. Conclusions from the study indicate that companies that outsource B2B programs benefit not only from improved customer satisfaction, but also from improved B2B technical capabilities, greater competitive differentiation, greater inventory visibility, increased system uptime and availability.  Now, new high tech fashion trends can come and go without the worry of having to plan for migration and upgrade projects just to stay connected.

 I hear several B complex vitamins  help improve short term memory loss.  Maybe we should all  try taking some!