Who will make headlines in 2004?

Count the number of times a technology is mentioned in the press and you will quickly surmise that Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is the most over-hyped in the industry. In fact, all of the ink on RFID turns up many separate threads that have little or nothing to do with the technology. As an illustration among a very long list of examples, much of what Metro AG's "Store of the Future" demonstrated at the recent NRF conference in New York City, had nothing to do with RFID and more to do with practical deployments of other technology.

Lower on the hype meter is Supply Chain Planning (SCP). SCP was a hot topic some five to seven years ago when it was called Advanced Planning and Scheduling. Today, the SCP legacy continues through other names, but the core concept of SCP is what an enterprise does in anticipation of meeting customer requirements. This does not mean that enterprises only look outward toward customers.

The following supply chain trends appear in Gartner's Supply Chain Management Hype Cycle, a publication that predicts the technologies and vendors that will make headlines in 2004.

Performance Driven Supply Chains
Initially the use of Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics focused on the financial areas of an enterprise. This evolved beyond a departmental focused discussion around metrics to a holistic view of the performance driven supply chain that Gartner refers to as Corporate Performance Management (CPM). Any enterprise that seeks to dominate or out perform its competitors needs to be able to align and share metrics and analytics capabilities across organizations hierarchical boundaries, departmental and also enterprise boundaries. Vendors to watch include Business Objects, Informatica, SAS, SeeCommerce and Silvon.

Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
SRM ' the lost stepchild of Customer Relationship Management ' has a long way to go to meet CRM's visibility but it will likely eclipse it before the year is out. SRM is several separate initiatives. e-Procurement, Strategic Sourcing and Spend Management are some of the more recognized sub-sections that Gartner tracks. Vendors to watch include Ariba/FreeMarkets, Emptoris, i2 Technologies and PeopleSoft.

Web Services
The future for Web Services centers on component -based application processes that do not exist today. Gartner calls this Business Process Fusion, or a single customer facing process that links CRM with order inquiry, available to promise, order capture, allocation and accounts receivables as though it was all one entity. We expect to see continued use of Web Services in integration and the use of new application architectures to leverage the foundation laid by Web services later in 2004.

RFID and the Sensory Network
We expect through 2004 that RFID will continue to attract unprecedented levels of hype. Applications can then take advantage of the new insight created. However, RFID will remain a playground for the larger enterprises through most of 2004. Vendors to watch include Savi Technology and WhereNet for Container-level RFID; Alien Technologies and Texas Instruments for Item-level RFID, and Manhattan Associates, RedPrairie and Yantra for Warehouse-enabled RFID.