How to buy supply chain products: tell me your "problem"

Frontline Solutions, August, 2004 by George D. Miller

Somewhere along the way, "products" became "solutions." In a world increasingly made up of hardware and software combinations, the line between the two got blurred. My suspicion is that software marketers are behind this.

The nomenclature change was a stroke of marketing genius. No longer were products confined to their restrictive hardware or software cubbies. Product capabilities began to be described in terms of overall system functionality--the full capability of the combined hardware/software system, tweaked, primed, and enhanced. Hardware specs included some mention of an operating system and assumed prospective purchaser knowledge of application software performance potential. Software specs included lots of information on "operating system requirements" but precious little information on the product's ability to perform on other (older or newer) platforms.

This is where it got complicated. We are in an environment of increasing automation, where everything is becoming a network or a network extension. Even simple data collection devices are beginning to be thought of as network elements (we are increasingly hearing radio frequency identification [RFID] readers described as routers in a distributed enterprise network).

Manufacturers no longer make products for sale. Rather, solutions providers make solutions available. Those solutions are described in terms of the problems they are intended to solve.

If you find the product-selection process difficult--and you're likely to, given that each supply chain is unique and custom products are not an option for most buyers--you're not alone.

Tell me your questions and frustrations about the supply chain products you'll be buying in the next 18 months. In September, we kick off a series of How-to-Buy Webinars, which will be conducted at the Frontline Solutions Conference & Expo in Chicago and available online. In the lineup for the Chicago Webinars are supply chain software, slap-and-ship RFID products, scanners/readers, and third-party logistics services. Let me know via e-mail (gmiller@advanstar.com) your buying questions for these and other products and services so we can make the series useful to you.

GEORGE D. MILLER

EDITOR IN CHIEF