Software for All

Aside from its SCM software from JD Edwards, GMC uses businessintelligence (BI) software from PowerOLAP to churn out drilled downsales data. In addition, its ERP system provides an adequatere-por-ting tool for measurement of performance metrics such asproduct delivery, quality and price.

What it doesn't use is forecasting technology. Bacallan explains: "Weuse your usual average-growth-over-last-year andover-last-three-months projection methods. My personal view is thateven if you have the tools, you can't expect them to generate thenumbers for you. At some point, once the numbers are generated, humanintervention is still required. If 80 percent of the time is spentqualifying machine-generated numbers, we might as well not have thetool. What is more important is to train marketing and salespeople toadopt the mindset of better forecasting."

Bacallan has plans for an even greater degree of information sharingwith key customers such as the mayonnaise manufacturer. "At thispoint, our systems are not really collaborative in terms of being ableto talk to each other. I want to explore poking into their BPICSsystem and have them poking into my JD Edwards system."

Chain Challenges