FORESIGHT, Issue 47

Description

Fall 2017

Articles

1. Principles, Benefits, and Pitfalls of Vendor-Managed Inventory by John Mello
   In the 1980s, Walmart and Procter & Gamble entered into a supply-chain initiative called Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI), in which Walmart’s suppliers assumed responsibility for managing their products in the retail giant’s warehouses. Because the arrangement was so successful in significantly improving order fulfillment on merchandise, it attracted the attention of other retailers and, later, manufacturers. Here, Foresight S&OP Editor John Mello provides an overview of the basic structure of VMI, the benefits that can accrue to customer and supplier, and the pitfalls to be avoided.
2. Predicting the Uptake Curve of New Drugs by Christian Schäfer and Stephan Brebeck
   Current academician and former pharma analyst Christian Schäfer and pharma strategy manager Stephan Brebeck collaborate here to offer a new approach to the very challenging task of predicting the market success of a new drug following its launch. They argue that the traditional approaches have fundamental disadvantages and describe their Dynamic Patient-Share (DPS) method as a simpler, more transparent forecasting method that additionally shows great potential to improve forecast accuracy, not just for medications but new products in general.
3. Do Companies Really Need Software for S&OP? by Bill Tonetti
   Bill Tonetti, cofounder of Demand Works, discusses the major applications of S&OP software and argues that differences in opinion on the need for such systems stem mainly from disparate definitions of what S&OP is really about.
4. Forecasting the Impact of Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction by Owen Davies
   • • Interview with Spyros Makridakis
5. Forecasting After a Fashion by Paul Goodwin
   Fashion – it can dominate our choices of clothes, music, interior design and even our babies’ names. It can also pose big challenges to forecasters. In the long term, forecasters need to anticipate the colours and styles that will be in vogue in one or two years’ time.