http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm by Melanie Ligons Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:26:59 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A recent article in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) describes challenges being faced by some mail-order catalog providers.  While the focus of the article primarily revolves around the housing downturn and the rising costs associated with paper and postage, I read between the lines to draw my own takeaways. The ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2008/06/26/the-malaise-of-mail-order/ I have been working in our Bangalore office this week.  It has been an exciting week so far – my first trip to India, and what more could I ask for than to be spending time in their own “silicon valley”?  I must say that the employees here have been ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2008/06/25/in-consideration-of-global-consumers/ Well-known research firm AMR released their Supply Chain Top 25 last month.  While many household names appear on the list, particularly in the personal technology and consumer goods sectors, the absence of companies in the department store and fashion categories is powerfully felt by loyal followers like me. Kudos to Nike ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2008/06/23/supply-chain-leaders-in-apparel-please-stand-up/ For companies who have synchronized their data with a couple of trading partners and consider themselves “done with data sync” – it’s time to think again!  Most of us realize that any global topic that receives ongoing media attention will impact us, at least in some small way, and green ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2008/05/16/going-green-means-revisiting-your-data-synchronization-implementation/ At 29,028 feet and situated between Tibet and Nepal, Mount Everest today became a metaphor for data synchronization – in my mind, anyway. Consumer Goods Technology magazine recently published part 2 of the results of research they performed in conjunction with GS1 US regarding adoption of global e-commerce standards.  While somewhat ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2008/04/17/adoption%e2%80%a6the-mount-everest-of-data-synchronization/ For as much as the word collaborate elicits sighs and thoughts of “not that cliché word again!”, outside of the B2B integration space, most people don’t even know what it means.  Most of my family and friends tell people that I work in Accounting.  I guess the explanation that I ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2008/02/08/ready-set-collaboratei-beg-your-pardon/ 2008 will be the year when companies finally understand that the real challenge holding their companies back in the automated supply chain is lack of data quality.  Information integrity issues associated with products and transactions reduce the ability of an organization to make appropriate short and long term decisions.  Corporations ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2007/12/17/b2b-data-management-it%e2%80%99s-the-data-stupid/ I was recently in a fast-food drive through – a rare indulgence I would have avoided altogether were it not for ravenous hunger and a late hour.  I won’t say which restaurant it was, protecting the McInnocent and all – but the driver of the car in front of me ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2007/12/10/can-i-super-size-that-item/ One of our other bloggers, Bryan Larkin, recently began using the phrase “B2B Data Management.”  I can’t say for sure if he coined it, but he’s the first person I ever heard say it.  And I absolutely LOVE it!  Because the truth is, data synchronization alone will not bring about ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2007/09/25/b2b-data-management-is-to-datasync-dataquality-transactionintegrity-partnerintegration-as-potato-is-to-potahto/ Efforts to further the practices of data quality and data synchronization have received worldwide attention.  Groups of people gather on weekly conference calls and attend physical meetings to talk about global standards for exchanging accurate product information.  I’m sure by now you have a mental image of thousands of people ... http://blogs.gxs.com/ligonsm/2007/09/17/promoting-data-quality-standards-courtesy-of-hip-hop-and-youtube/