Superiority Complex

The concept of delivering superior customer service has been around for hundreds of years. What appears to be a painfully simple practice on the surface, however, has grown into a fragmented and downright confusing mish-mash of business philosophies and buzzwords. Building a forecast to meet a company's own demand plan, for instance, is now considered a no-no. Instead, the opposite is now in vogue as manufacturers struggle to figure out ways to remove inventory from their supply chains in order to play into the hands of the Demand Driven Supply Network. But the only way to really drive excess inventory from the supply chain is to build an accurate forecast. But whose forecast is right? Are manufacturers and retailers really holding hands and walking off into the Collaborative Planning Forecasting & Replenishment (CPFR) sunset? If so, how do Trade Promotion efforts factor into these collaborative forecasts? Sprinkle the aforementioned challenges with federal legislation and mandates and voila! -- you've got a customer service headache that's this big and it's got information technology written all over it.

So it goes without saying that we live in a retail world right now. And that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Every month, this magazine publishes Best Practice tips and case studies that prove manufacturers are committed to their craft and eager to separate themselves from competitors by becoming world-class customer service experts. This month's cover story on Campbell Soup, perhaps more than any other published to date, drives this point home. In the case of Campbell, data synchronization is the company's crown jewel of customer service. By establishing firm, internal standards about the way it treats its customers early on, Campbell is now poised for incredible growth and will be ready to rumble when CPFR and RFID kick into high gear. Will you be ready? Let me know your thoughts: [email protected]